Men are a minority in the massage profession, and in massage school. In my first class of 16, there was one male student (another one joined halfway through the class), and a male TA. Last quarter, there was one male student in each of my classes of 7 and 16 students. The teacher for the class of 16 was male as well.
This quarter, there are 4 and 3 male students in my classes of 16 and 14 (with one male TA in the 3/14 class), respectively.
Think "minority in a specific situation" equals "oppressed"? Think it can counter-balance privilege? Think again.
The school itself was founded and is owned by a straight white male. The number of (white -- all instructors I've encountered so far are white) male instructors, and the positions of power they hold within the school, are disproportionate to the percent of male massage therapists there are in the general population. In our class of 14, when we self-selected (rather than going in a circle) to introduce ourselves, all three of the male students were among the first 4 to speak (I went third). When the instructor asked for volunteers to be on the table for a demonstration, one of the three male students was half a second faster in raising his hand than I, not hesitating in his assertion, if not aggression, that he deserved it.
There was nothing particularly sinister about either of these examples, nothing intentional. But their speaking first speaks to their presumption of importance, of, yes, supremacy. There was no deference, no fear of reprisals or of shaming. They spoke first because it never occurred to them not to. He raised his hand without a glance around because his internalization of his own importance is complete. It is oppression through ignore-ance, ignorance and arrogance. Thoughtless. Nothing. A lack of thought, of sympathy, rather than a presence of antipathy.
This is privilege at work.
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7 comments:
I went to a massage school, um, what-do-you-call-it? When you go to see if you want to go to school there? Anyway, the instructor doing the presentation was male. My old roommate's male cousin was one of her instructors. So, not surprised about this post at all!
I found a very similar situation in the library profession. Many leadership positions are held by males although they make up a smaller percentage of the population.
Positions of real authority, and power are nearly always disproportionately occupied by men, across industries. In my observations, women occupy a high number of lower/middle tier positions, thus making it appear that women are well represented in an industry. (Certainly not suggesting that lower/middle tier positions aren't important, they just tend not to be the positions of power.)
As you pointed out Arwyn, there's an element of perceived entitlement that men carry, but I think more important is the social conditioning that women often need to overcome to be confidently assertive in seemingly minor interactions, such as introducing oneself in a group. The language of oppression haunts women. Dare to speak up, contradict, or assert and there are dozens of demeaning words that women need to be prepared to hear and ignore. It's no accident that those words exist.
Hmm...this comment is turning into a hijack. Fundamentally; yes, I agree!
Lisa -- My school calls them "Massage Preview Nights", which doesn't really say what it means, but gets the point across anyway...
Jen -- Yup, it's hardly unique to massage.
TMae -- While I agree that women can and should say "eff off!" to social conditioning, and step up to take what's ours, I'm also always cautious with such points because all-too-often it can turn in to victim blaming. There's a sometimes-fine line between empowerment (there are things you can do to reduce the risk of rape) and blame (well, you did/didn't do X so you brought it on yourself). And as you point out, those of us who do stand up and speak out are almost always attacked in turn. It doesn't help that the "ideal" massage therapist is supposed to be the perfect serene mother-goddess type, and not an assertive bitch. Too many female massage students get "serene" and "doormat" mixed up sometimes (any would be too many!).
Arwyn - I realized after I submitted the comment that I really was opening up another discussion with the "speak up" comment. Your post mentioned male entitlement as the catalyst for the 1st introduction, and my muddled comment was meant to say, "Yep, because for a woman to have taken the lead, she would have needed to marshal a whole lot of courage to take that risk." And I hate that.
And I have to come up with a better way to support empowerment, that won't look like blame. (Of course, observers will often distort the intention of a statement to conform to their agenda - again, it can be a fracking no-win situation. Good thing I have a tough skin...)
I can't get my language to steer clear of blamey-sounding, can I?
No, you're doing fine! I think this is just a difficult subject. I actually think my thoughts on this are enough for a whole post, but it will have to wait; I have a child crawling under my sweater, and homework to do...
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