Stating that white heterosexual men are at the intersection of privilege is quite different from "mandatorily demonizing white men in everything they publish." That is quite the chip on your shoulder, I think.
I am a cisgender, straight, white male in tech (not in academia) and I don't think it's a big deal to acknowledge that I benefit from quite a few privileges as such. I don't get harassed sexually, noone bats an eye when I mention my partner, society doesn't expect me to bear children, I have a very decent income, I get a default level respect for my technical abilities just by virtue of showing up.
I have many friends in leftist, queer, activist circles and don't feel demonized in the slightest. What I do, and I don't feel diminished at all by doing so, on the contrary, is learn and listen to how people not having all these characteristics have a wildly different life experience. If someone rails against white patriarchy or whatever, realize that that is very much a thing in many people's experience, and you might be blind to it by virtue of being a white man.
The great thing about intersectionality is that even if you're a white man, that is not all you are. You can use an intersectional framework to address areas where you are indeed a minority, be it because of your financial background, physical or mental disabilities, physical or mental illnesses, etc... Being a white man, yet an immigrant in the US, is a different experience than being a citizen.
I always find it puzzling that critics think that intersectional studies are about vilifying "all white men", when the premise is actually the opposite. A white man with mental illness from a working class background would not be part of the "very narrowly defined group that enjoys intersectional privilege". Nor does enjoying the intersectional privilege assume that you are a harasser, a bad person, just that other people probably encountered harassment more often than you.
> I always find it puzzling that critics think that intersectional studies are about vilifying "all white men", when the premise is actually the opposite. A white man with mental illness from a working class background would not be part of the "very narrowly defined group that enjoys intersectional privilege". Nor does enjoying the intersectional privilege assume that you are a harasser, a bad person, just that other people probably encountered harassment more often than you.
I think where people get lost is rhetoric. You're getting lost because:
> I am a cisgender, straight, white male in tech (not in academia) and I don't think it's a big deal to acknowledge that I benefit from quite a few privileges as such. I don't get harassed sexually, noone bats an eye when I mention my partner, society doesn't expect me to bear children, I have a very decent income, I get a default level respect for my technical abilities just by virtue of showing up.
You believe this is uniform enough that it can be said definitively. They're getting lost because they see the subject continually brought up but then walked back with statements like:
> Note that bullying appears to be related to power differentials more than to gender, meaning that the reason why perpetrators are overwhelmingly male is because men disproportionally occupy powerful academic positions. Obviously, women in powerful positions can be bullies, too [[29, 30]].
All that tells me is that we don't really know how to talk about any of this correctly yet.
It is uniform enough in the sense that I don't experience the discrimination people experience due to being non-white, or poor, or gay. Maybe I experience discrimination as a white man, so far I haven't been aware of it, and if I were able to decode it as such, that would be a valid intersectional study. I posit for example that were I to live in say, Japan, I would experience discrimination due to my race. That the article seems to address mostly western if not american academia is valid, imo. That it "demonizes" white men? Way less so.
My point overall is that not everyone is on the plane of existence you're on. For a cis-gender heterosexual white man that has reaped all of the privileges of being so it's probably pretty easy to see your perceived privilege talked about so patently. If you're someone who hasn't uniformly enjoyed those privileges this language is probably triggering. I don't think that intersectionality is about demonizing white men, but I do think it struggles with phrasing that is eventually used by some people to communicate that message.
I perceive some of my privilege, which is that I am not subject to non-white racism, etc... I have a few crosses to bear otherwise (autistic, bipolar, chronic illness, immigrant), and I can relate to being in the minority quite well too. This is actually why I find intersectionality a productive lens. I can be both privileged and discriminated against at the exact same time. I can be both respected for my technical skills by virtue of my looks, and in the same field be discriminated because I communicate differently. Being white doesn't shield me from all discrimination, but it shields me from some.
Intersectionality is a productive lens to view societies problems through. My experience is largely the same as yours, though slightly different circumstances. The problem in a lot of online, and in real life, discussions is that the intersectional ideas people have been exposed to are through amateur activists who don't have a view on intersectionality beyond themselves. This isn't really new in social paradigms, to my knowledge, people often recognize the struggle of others definitionally but fail to recognize it in the person standing in front of them. The experience of which is probably not pleasant.
You asked why people get triggered over this, this is my hypothesis. Don't take that for me not liking intersectionality.
appreciated, and indeed, people often have a hard time empathizing. One reason why I both enjoy twitter in order to connect with some communities, and the discourse never really feels fulfilling.
> Stating that white heterosexual men are at the intersection of privilege is quite different from "mandatorily demonizing white men in everything they publish." That is quite the chip on your shoulder, I think.
It's very much a racist statement in my book. Of course, that's the core of the intersectional ideology, a racist ideology. The first and most important divider when it comes to classes is wealth. Identity politics as practiced by intersectionalists served the elite well.
If one pushes that obnoxious and absurd intersectional logic to its paroxysm, then one can deem people from jewish origin "at the intersection of privilege". Sounds antisemitic? Indeed, because that whole ideology is indeed racist at its core, under pretense of "social justice".
I am a cisgender, straight, white male in tech (not in academia) and I don't think it's a big deal to acknowledge that I benefit from quite a few privileges as such. I don't get harassed sexually, noone bats an eye when I mention my partner, society doesn't expect me to bear children, I have a very decent income, I get a default level respect for my technical abilities just by virtue of showing up.
I have many friends in leftist, queer, activist circles and don't feel demonized in the slightest. What I do, and I don't feel diminished at all by doing so, on the contrary, is learn and listen to how people not having all these characteristics have a wildly different life experience. If someone rails against white patriarchy or whatever, realize that that is very much a thing in many people's experience, and you might be blind to it by virtue of being a white man.
The great thing about intersectionality is that even if you're a white man, that is not all you are. You can use an intersectional framework to address areas where you are indeed a minority, be it because of your financial background, physical or mental disabilities, physical or mental illnesses, etc... Being a white man, yet an immigrant in the US, is a different experience than being a citizen.
I always find it puzzling that critics think that intersectional studies are about vilifying "all white men", when the premise is actually the opposite. A white man with mental illness from a working class background would not be part of the "very narrowly defined group that enjoys intersectional privilege". Nor does enjoying the intersectional privilege assume that you are a harasser, a bad person, just that other people probably encountered harassment more often than you.