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Triloon

(506 posts)
15. thanks for letting me explore this with you.
Sun May 12, 2019, 09:09 PM
May 2019

Actual examples. hmm. It may be easiest to see in populations that are exclusively male. In these groupings no one is given special credit or privilege for being male. For instance - in prisons, in the military, on sports teams, even in the Boy Scouts, or in (previously) male employments like construction, trucking, mining. In these groups a male is not allowed to be a whole person but is objectified not because of gender, but because of race, age, social status, physical strengths/weaknesses, education, wealth, sexual orientation, political stance, national origin, health, and other bigotries. In some of these groupings the objectification extends down as far as rape and sexual servitude.
I am an 'old white guy', and to me that very term is an example of a de-humanizing, disenfranchising stereotype that serves to separate me from any validity that my actual life may have. Are my experiences and observations invalid because I am old? white? a guy? None of those things can be true, and yet here we are.
Back when I was a Young white guy I was subject to many unearned privileges, and some of those are still with me, but I was also subject to unearned discrimination and denial of the right to be a 'whole person'. A small example- I was a skilled tradesperson in the construction industry. I and my fellow workers were deemed "the guys in the field". White collar office workers were Employees. The rest of us were Guys in the Field. I always wondered what sort of a field it was that they envisioned me in. How's that for objectification? Certainly not as dramatic or brutal as a prison rape, or any rape, and yet I think it makes the authors sentiment that "Men get to be whole people all the time." a crock, and an example of the dishonest objectification that the very article is about.
Just another old white guys opinion, nothing to really be concerned about. Thanks for your time.

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