...hunting the fnords...

fayanora:

I don’t mean to sound like a broken record, but I made another comment that bears repeating:

It’s okay to have privilege. Everyone has it, to some degree. What isn’t okay is being so unaware of it that you don’t pause to put yourself in someone else’s shoes before opening your mouth or fingers to respond to someone talking about their experiences. When you start saying things like “Oh that never happens,” or “that’s feminist propaganda,” that’s not *you* talking, that’s you letting the institution talk through you. That’s the decades worth of sexist and privileged memes talking, not you.

You should always keep in mind the advice: “Don’t believe everything you think.” Especially when responding to posts about people’s experiences of sexism and/or privilege. Because most of the stuff in people’s heads is the memetic equivalent of viruses. And the only immune system we have against memetic viruses is a conscious mind focusing on love, compassion, empathy, and reason. And that requires constant vigilance.