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As one of those people myself, I certainly didn't mean to suggest that all straight white males are oppressors, but rather quite the opposite: that all or most oppressors of civil rights in this country appear to be straight white males.

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Understood. Like you, I'm sure, I think I'm in the non-oppressor group. I often want to share my opinion in many of the posts about examples of tech industry sexism, but I never click the reply button. Even after taking a few minutes and thinking as logically and objectively as I can about the situation, I know that disagreeing that there was sexism involved will trigger an equally irrational mob response of downvoting my comment and accusing me of being sexist or being too privileged to even be able to recognize sexism.

The point is that you're talking about an aggregate. It is impossible not to benefit (in aggregate!) from the patriarchy as a male. All straight white males are oppressors, but some of them attempt to recognize those advantages and not trample on others any more than they have to.

But that doesn't mean they don't benefit, even passively.

(P.S. I'm a straight white cis male.)

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