As opposed to these types of comments that attempt to preempt and invalidate the viewpoints of straight, white, upper middle class males because every single one of them obviously can't think objectively.
As one of those people myself, I certainly didn't mean to suggest that all straight white males are oppressors, but rather quite the opposite: that all or most oppressors of civil rights in this country appear to be straight white males.
Understood. Like you, I'm sure, I think I'm in the non-oppressor group. I often want to share my opinion in many of the posts about examples of tech industry sexism, but I never click the reply button. Even after taking a few minutes and thinking as logically and objectively as I can about the situation, I know that disagreeing that there was sexism involved will trigger an equally irrational mob response of downvoting my comment and accusing me of being sexist or being too privileged to even be able to recognize sexism.
The point is that you're talking about an aggregate. It is impossible not to benefit (in aggregate!) from the patriarchy as a male. All straight white males are oppressors, but some of them attempt to recognize those advantages and not trample on others any more than they have to.
But that doesn't mean they don't benefit, even passively.
So you're invalidating other people's opinions because of their skin color and gender?
You're never going to be taken seriously when you dismiss the opinions of others based on the not-necessarily-true claim that they hold that opinion because of their skin color, gender, and upbringing.
I agree that it could have been phrased better (dorkitude's post seems to suggest a causal relationship) but I don't think that's what he was really saying.
As people have observed elsewhere in this thread, there's a natural human tendency for the privileged to underestimate their own privilege, and to overestimate the power of other groups. There are several comments in this thread that try to put the blame on women for not defending themselves more effectively, or even for contributing to the problem of sexism (see dizzystar's opening volley). This is flawed in the same way that it would be flawed to shout-down critiques of institutional racism by saying that minorities are as much to blame as white people. Of course there are sexist women and racist minorities. But they and their actions are not on an equal footing with those of the dominant holders of power in this country.
The fact is, in situations of social power imbalance, blaming the victim is an easy, shitty way to avoid addressing hard problems. The very defensiveness being displayed in this thread is further evidence that the members of this community need to calm down, look in the mirror, and consider their own privilege.
(And no, I'm not saying everyone in the HNN community is a straight, rich, white guy, but I think it's pretty clear we have a stilted demography).
