Like black churches and communities, professional women's societies, women's shelters, scholarships for women, women's clubs at schools, and so on? In elementary schools, where >90% of teachers are female? Among psychology majors, with 60-70% women? Do you really suggest that it is always "white male time" everywhere?
Go ask a white kid growing up in a mostly black, poor neighborhood whether he feels like it's "his time."
Initiatives like this should be based on socioeconomics, not race.
You're putting words in my mouth. But if you want to talk about that, then yes, there is more support for homeless women than there is for men.
But that is beside the point here. My point was to list a handful of the many counterexamples to "it is white male time all the time", which is a silly claim, at least as stated.
Strike that example off the list, then. It doesn't change the original comment's point.
I'm not sure how I can simultaneously be "putting words in your mouth" and pointing out things that you actually do believe.
Your examples were bad. I'm going to go ahead and assert that the "black church" example shoots past "bad" and reaches "offensive"; predominantly black churches do not exclude people of other ethnicities.
Where was the implication that they aren't welcoming? The point was that a black church is not "all white male all the time". It feels like you're looking for something to be offended about.
> My point was to list a handful of the many counterexamples to "it is white male time all the time", which is a silly claim, at least as stated.
I like to think we're all adults here. As a nerdy straight white male even I understand that it's shorthand.
Imagine we both have a bucket. Every time life gives you a "freebie", you drop a stone in the bucket. Every time you get passed over or catch crap just for being yourself you take a stone out.
I have had plenty of experiences in my life where I was targeted for being nerdy; bullied, harassed, etc. My parents were not rich and earlier in my life actually quite poor. The difference is my bucket is still mostly full. The average black man can't say that. The average white woman's bucket is fuller than the average black man's, but not as full as mine.
And yes you are pedantically technically correct: there do exist some white people who's buckets are relatively empty by this analogy. They are proportionally a much smaller percentage of all white people than the corresponding cohort of black people in the US.
That is what gripes me a bit about the responses my own tech/nerd community tends to vomit out whenever issues like this come up. Congrats, you pulled a few counter-examples out of your ass. Who cares? We're talking the overall big picture here.
But if you want to talk about that, then yes, there is more support for homeless women than there is for men.
I had a college class on Homelessness and Public Policy years ago and I am a woman on the street with my two adult sons. There is absolutely more support and better programs for homeless women than for homeless men. However, that is partly because there are a lot fewer women on the street than men, by a very wide margin. Which means that programs for homeless women serve a substantially smaller population, thus it is easier to provide something higher quality.
Part of why so few women are on the street: Family often makes sure a woman with small kids is not literally out on the street. She may not be welcome, but her kids are, and this gives her a place to stay, even if she is treated like crap -- for the sake of the kids. Furthermore, women on the street are at fairly high risk of being raped, something men on the street are not at risk of. So a lot of women will do whatever they have to do to avoid being on the street -- even if that means shacking up with some guy as a polite form of prostitution (an offer I turned down but have seen at least one other homeless woman accept).
My opinion as someone who has both studied it formally and lived it firsthand, and thus interacted with plenty of actual homeless people and observed them, is that men on the street tend to be in less desperate straits than women on the street. Fewer women end up on the street, for complex reasons which do not really translate to privilege per se. There are ways in which me being on the street is an exercise of agency that many women are denied.
Your complaint is kind of like saying "Cancer patients get the best surgeries!" It isn't exactly something to be envious of.
I do wish homeless services generally were better, mostly from a perspective of treating homeless individuals with actual respect, regardless of their gender. But complaining that homeless women have some kind of privilege is basically an ignorant statement.
As for your actual original comment about women's shelters: They exist as sanctuary for women who have been abused. A common way women end up on the street is they flee an abusive relationship where they are financially dependent upon the man. Thus, they flee for their lives with little more than the clothes on their backs. Although there are men who are victims of domestic violence, this is a much more common problem for women, both from the perspective of being assaulted and from the perspective of being financially dependent and, thus, finding it logistically difficult to leave. We don't have "men's shelters" in part because there is relatively little demand for sanctuary for abused and penniless men compared to the demand you see in the female population.
I made no mention of social disadvantages. I merely pointed out that Eminem fits the description of hypothetical "white kid" the parent commenter referenced.
Like black churches and communities, professional women's societies, women's shelters, scholarships for women, women's clubs at schools, and so on? In elementary schools, where >90% of teachers are female? Among psychology majors, with 60-70% women? Do you really suggest that it is always "white male time" everywhere?
Go ask a white kid growing up in a mostly black, poor neighborhood whether he feels like it's "his time."
Initiatives like this should be based on socioeconomics, not race.