Hmm, I don't see any difference between being Male or Female running a forum. I better shut-up!
MrGTB there is a useful social theory that helps with this. Marked and UnMarked Groups.
Sorry if this is longwinded but it's not easy to explain. Once you "get it" it is simple to understand though.
In terms of equality, resources, stigma and other perceptions of power, society is made up of status pairs
- rich/ poor - white/ black - male/ female - adult/ child - citizen/ immigrant - etc
Some of these are not rigidly clearcut. For example rich/ poor is quite relative depending on the two people or two groups being studied. So in one discussion Ms. Smith is rich in relation to Mr. Brown. But in another she is poor in relation to Ms. Gold. But the meanings are quite clear in each discussion.
Some pairs are much more rigid than others. Male/ female has only a small number or borderline cases but adult/ child has a lot of instances where status is borderline, like teenagers. Again it will depend on the specific discussion and its needs how the groups are defined in order to be clear.
The more powerful group will be that way through various avenues - history, law, custom, personal effort, good or bad luck. That is less important here than the neutral definition of where a person or group stands right now. (In some research the aetiology - the causes - is important and interesting but not here.)
Lastly there is of course the issue of exceptions which are almost always there around group statements. Important, sometimes fascinating, can be due to tokenism, or patronage or sheer grit or luck. But exceptions do not break a rule unless there are thousands, millions of them. So one person's experience while important always, has little to do with this. This is looking at larger group trends and structures.
Now the point of all this careful definition work is that the PERCEPTION of each person on the different side of a status is different. That is, we do not see what happens in the same way because our status, its advantages and disadvantages shapes how we see things.
So for example if you have never been poor you will see small amounts of money like a single dollar/ pound/ euro/ yen very differently to how a poor person does. To you it's an almost irritating clutter in your wallet. It could be lightly donated to a collecting tin just to get rid of the clutter. To a poor person it's the difference between coping for the week and not coping.
Each person on their own side of the status spectrum will be less aware of the problems the other has. A poor person will be pretty unaware of the weight of responsibility for investments, and safeguarding inheritance for heirs of the family estate. A rich person is going to be extremely unaware of what is involved in struggling to get welfare with intrusive questioning by officials and the stress of the small but crucial payments being stopped. Both sides can be kept awake at night by their anxieties but very differently.
The next step and final one is that for some kinds of inequality there just aren't matching situations like the investments/ welfare one I constructed.
A white person has no family history of slavery to underlie their sense of freedom and power in the world.
Rich people have no idea what being cold in winter is like, being unable to do anything about it, facing weeks or months of it, and the risk of illness involved.
Anyone who has been though a life/ death crisis of health knows that others who have not have little idea how it changes you fundamentally, how the anxiety is always there underneath every action.
There is an ease, a lack of limits, a kind of free gift of energy, calmness, and comfort which goes with being on the privileged side of the pair. Conversely the unprivileged partner has a sharp awareness of the relevant limit, or discomfort, or barrier - because they have had to deal with it.
It doesn't FEEL like a "
kind of free gift of energy, calmness, and comfort" to the privileged person. It doesn't feel like anything. There is nothing to be aware of. They don't HAVE this condition, state or "mark." The other person has it.
This is why when the less privileged person describes the world they live in in terms of that lesser privilege, it can easily seem like neurotic fuss, exaggeration, from the point of view of the privileged partner pair. Conversely the privileged person can appear ignorant, even rude and cruel to the other ('
Let them eat cake.')
Neither is true. The less privileged person is no more neurotic or exaggerated than the privileged person is stupid and cruel. They just start from different places.
Some privileged people become sensitised to the other side through close acquaintance - nursing a loved one through life crisis illness; a love affair with someone of a very different ethnic group; a sudden eye opening experience of what lack of money means to a very poor person. Such people are crucial to equality movements as they often bring in power and resources that pioneer political improvements. They also make fascinating sensitive lovers, friends, business colleagues.
I better stop. Inequality is an issue dear to my heart.
<Bows out slightly pink around the ears.>