I'm surprised how many DU'ers think aknowledging white male privilege is somehow bigoted

[thucythucy]

343. Except of course

the vast majority of "GI"s that benefited from the "GI Bill"--which included federal subsidies for state and community college educations--were male. Women did benefit during World War II by working in defense industries in unprecedented numbers, and for unprecedented wages for women--but those jobs almost immedately reverted to their "male only" status as soon as the war ended, leaving women with the traditional employment options of secretary, teacher, nurse, and "home maker."

To the extent that "GI"s married women, or had daughters, those women and girls were able to benefit from the home mortgage underwriting, but only as legal appendages of the male. Even a woman veteran who could use the mortgage program very often could not then earn enough income to pay off a mortgage on her own, while men often could. And well into the 1970s women trying to enter college to study traditionally "male" areas such as engineering, medicine (except as nurses--remember, the rule used to be men became doctors, women became nurses), chemistry, law, etc., faced incredible and generally blatent discrimination.

If you're saying that over time this male benefit has been filtered out, at least to some extent, as a result of the work of feminists and the gains of the feminist movement, I'd agree. Disparities in rates of males vs. females in higher education HAVE evened out--though last I heard there is still a disparity in incomes derived from the same jobs.

Of course, there are still aspects of discrimination that women face, even at colleges and universities, that men don't. Men obviously are raped and sexually abused, but all the information I've seen says that women in college, for example, are at far higher risk of being raped on campus or in the course of their college careers than men. For men to think of rape as a "women's issue" is therefore another part of male privilege, since men aren't nearly as likely, for instance, to "choose" not to take a night course because of the fear of being raped while crossing campus at night to return to their dorm. Not having to make college or even career choices in regard to the danger of rape and sexual assault then is another form of male privilege, though in that case the benefit of this privilege generally speaking acrues across racial and ethnic lines.

It's important to remember that privilege and lack of privilege have effects that are often felt for generations. The destruction of African American families, for instance, by white slave owners had an impact that extended far beyond emancipation in 1863-65. The impact of racial bias in the expansion of home ownership in the 1940s and '50s means that, on average, white families still have access to greater financial resources than non-white families. So even if you believe we've made progress in addressing this sort of social bias (and I believe we have) there's still a lot that needs to be addressed.