So, first, I feel the need to try and categorize what this post is about, and thereby attempt to explain what it is not about.
Persuasive -> To induce someone to undertake a course of action or embrace a point of view by means of argument, reasoning, or entreaty
(in)effectiveness -> able to produce the desired effect (or not)
privilege -> A term used in discussions of inequality to point to people who are NOT in the minority group.
guiltbattery -> trying to persuade people to do something you want by making them feel gulity.
That’s the first cut of what I’m talking about.
The second cut would be to say that I understand the intentions and connotations of the term “privilege” as it relates to discrimination. If Alice has $5 and Bob has $105, we could describe that situation one of several ways. We could say Alice is at a $100 disadvantage to Bob. Or we could say that Bob has a $100 advantage over Alice. In discussions of discrimination, historically, the focus of the language has been on the disadvantages of the minority group. The American Civil War was couched in language of fighting slavery, rather than focusing on how whites had various advantages over blacks.
More recently, discusstions of discrimination have introduced the term “privilege” to take the differences between two groups (white and black, for example) and shift the focus to the advantaged group. For example, studies repeatedly show that American police commit racial profiling, stopping people of color far out of proportion to whites. We could say that people of color are at a disadvantage of racial profiling. Or we could say that whites enjoy the advantage of not having to worry about being pulled over by the cops simply because of their skin color.
All of this language is meant to point to the DIFFERENCE between the way two groups are treated. And I think the goal for most people talking about this is to remove that difference so that the two groups are treated EQUALLY.
I think one of the goals of using the term “privilege” is to get white people to see things from a minority’s point of view. A white person isn’t going to experience racial profiling. So a white person might say something ignorant like “I haven’t experienced racial profiling, so you’ll have to prove to me it exists”. And then one response to that ignorance has been to tell the white person the reason they haven’t experienced it is because they are white, that they have an advantage over blacks that means they don’t have to worry about being racially profiled, etc.
The goal of “privilege” seems to focus on fighting ignorance. Many people live life as “out of sight, out of mind”, and privilege is a way of trying to get someone’s attention on a problem that they will never directly experience. White people have never suffered racial profiling in America. So, white people might not think its a problem needing fixing. So, often times, the first step is getting white people to realize that there is a problem that minorites have been dealing with all their lives.
The problem I keep seeing though is two-fold. First, people using the term “privilege” seem to be steadfast in their refusal to acknowlege the negative connotation packed into the term. The etymology of “privilege” is from Latin prvilgium, a law affecting one person (prvus, single, alone, lg-, law).
If Alice has $5 and Bob has $105, there is a $100 DIFFERENCE between the two. We could say that Alice is at a $100 disadvantage under Bob. Or we could say Bob has a $100 advantage over Alice. But the end goal of the conversation around discrimination is to achieve equality. Or at least that’s why I’m in it. And when we discuss the end result of equality, if Bob has $105 because of privilege, then that means when everyone has equality, that Bob will end up with something like $90.
The etymology of privilege is about laws that put individuals above the rest of the people. That those people are at an advantage above the “equality” waterline. And that if you remove that “privilege”, then the people who had privilege will metaphorically sink to stand equally alongside the rest of the population.
People using the term “privilege” will often swear up and down that this is not their intention and that this is not the meaning of the word as THEY use it. But a word doesn’t mean only what the speaker wants it to mean. A word means what its entire history brings along with it. And privilege is in part about laws the lift one group above the rest.
The problem is that if you were to achieve equality with regards to something like racial profiling, then the way white people in America don’t have to worry about being stopped by the police because of their skin color? That would be how everyone would live. It wouldn’t mean that white people would have to start worrying a little bit about being racially profiled. It would mean that whites wouldn’t change, and people of color could stop worrying about it.
Using the water metaphor, if Alice is up to her neck in water, and Bob is nice and dry in a boat, the issue is a question of whether the end result is that Alice gets to be nice and dry in her own boat, or whether Bob has to get out of his boat and everyone has to float with life preservers on.
If Alice has $5 and Bob has $105, would the goal be that Alice and Bob both have $105? Or is the goal that Alice and Bob both have $90, because Bob really was enjoying a $15 advantage above and beyond what was “equal for all”?
Put simply, where is the “waterline” of equality?
My experience has been that it is impossible to ask this question to anyone who is using the term “privilege”.
Is the waterline of equality that everyone worry a little bit about systemic racial profiling by the police?
God, I hope not.
But if “privilege” has in its etymology laws designed to put individuals above the rest, then that’s exactly what privilege means.
Just because you say that’s not how you’re using the word doesn’t mean that the etymological baggage packed into the word suddenly goes away.
If one class has privilege over everyone else, then the waterline of equality is below that class.
If Alice has $5 and Bob has $105 because Bob has privilege, then the waterline of equality is somewhere less than $105.
And I don’t subscribe to that notion of equality. I’m more of a “rising tide lifts all boats” kind of person. I don’t think that equality is a zero sum game. I think that it is possible to bring everyone up to $105, to bring everyone up so that they’re nice and dry in their own boat.
Some time ago, I was having a discussing with someone who kept using the term “privilege” in what I perceived to be a negative way. I told him that I got the impression that he was using privilege to make people feel guilty. More specifically, I said he was using privilege as a “guiltbat”, hitting people over their heads with it. He replied that sometimes people need to feel guilty.
Why would Bob need to feel guilty for having $105 unless the waterline of equality is below $105?
From what I could surmise from this person’s guiltbattery was that he wanted to spur people in the privileged class to action to help support the cause of equality.
He wanted to persuade people to get off their asses and do something about discrimination in the world.
OK. I’m cool with that goal.
The problem I was having was that I questioned the effectiveness of privilege guiltbattery as a tool of persuasion. And I especially had an issue with privilege guiltbattery if it camed packed with the assumption that Bob needed to give up some money for there to be equality. That Bob needed to worry about systemic racial profiling by the police.
I don’t think that’s really what racial equality with regards to systemic police behaviour should have as a goal.
Seriously.
Some people using “privilege” are using it in a way that implies Bob can keep his $105 and they just want to bring Alice up to $105. But even if the speaker is using it that way, the listener may hear it in terms of the words full etymology and history. Charlie talks about “privilege” without guiltbattery, but Bob might hear Charlie’s words and take them to mean his $105 is above and beyond what equality would support.
Privilege connotes that the person with privilege is above the waterline of equality.
It may be that the speaker is trying to use it with the denotation of pointing out the difference, but the listener doesn’t have to hear it that way, because that’s not the only meaning of privilege.
And this problem gets exacerbated because there really are some individuals out there who want to use “privilege” as a guiltbat.
Which means that if your goal for discussing the differences between two classes of people by using the term “privilege” is to achieve equality by persuading the un-discriminated-against-class of people to fight for equality, then I question the effectiveness of that technique of persuasion.
The guy who told me that sometimes people need to feel guilty, he didn’t persuade me to help his cause.
It seems that the problem of the terminology of “privilege” is that, at least thus far, it has been used to describe the difference between two classes without talking about the final goal. So, the final goal is then left to the different speakers. And some speakers may approach it with a “rising tide lifts all boats” approach, but some people are approaching it with a “you need to feel guilty about your status” approach.
If Alice has $5 and Bob has $105, there is a $100 difference between the two. We could say that Alice is at a $100 disadvantage under Bob. We could say Bob has a $100 advantage over Alice. But none of those statements actually say what the speaker’s vision of equality looks like. And while some may view equality as everyone having $105 or more, others may be viewing Bob as needing to be taken down a notch.
Talking about “privilege” with regards to discrimination without talking about where the waterline of equality is means that each speaker and each listener may have different ideas about where the other person envisions the waterline to be at. And while it is possible to use “privilege” to denote nothing more than “difference”, it is also possible to hear the term “privilege” and interpret it to mean that those at an advantage will have to come down a notch for real equality to be achieved.
Talking about privilege without awareness of where the waterline of equality is proposed by the language is foolish.
Greg | 22-Oct-10 at 10:38 am | Permalink
Hm, i just reread the opening of “the invisible knapsack” by Peggy McIntosh, and now i understand EXACTLY why everytime i see a conversation about privilege atleast one person forwards privilege with the implicit notion that whites or men or whoever will have to be taken down a notch for everyone to float on an equal waterline: Peggy invented to term privilege with regard to discrimination and her views about where the waterline of equality are right there in her paper, the invisible knapsack.
Paragraph 1 says ‘(men) can’t or won’t support the idea of lessening men’s power’. Same paragrap also discusses ‘mens unwillingness to grant that they are overpowered’. In paragraph four, she describes gender equality as asking ‘men to give up some of their power’.
My god, no wonder privilege is so often used as a guilt bat, the person who came up with the term embedded their vision of wher the waterline of equality is right there in the founding paper.
McIntosh embeds the notion that the only way to achieve equality is if everyone in the dominant group gives up something. Alice has $5, Bob has $105, and McIntosh starts with the assertion that equality will only be achieved if everyone has $70. Not only that, nut Peggy builds into the opening paragraph that the reason there isn’t equality is that men as a whole want to keep whatever benefits they get from having women be oppressed.
No wonder every time privilege comes up, it goes all mushroomy. Getting gender equality is basically doing what it takes to get men to give up their undeserved power. The entire conversation around privilege was started on a basis of guilt and demand an adversarial relationship.
Jeebus.
Musereader | 23-Oct-10 at 6:42 am | Permalink
You are right, you will have to give up some ground – because some of your privleges come at the expense of others. All else being equal you will be belived more than a woman or black guy, you will be belived to be more competant and you will be listend to more at the expense of the black guy. But when we get equality it won’t be both of us in a boat it will be both of us on dry land. It won’t be both of us with $70 it will be both of us with $0 and everything we need.
It is one rule for you and one for us, you can post this without everybody thinking this is the opinion of all men but I will post this and this is what you will think all women think.
Greg | 24-Oct-10 at 11:09 am | Permalink
Let’s assume for a moment that you are correct, that white men will have to give up some power, some privileges, some perks, for there to be racial or gender equality. That the waterline of equality is below where Bob is now.
How does that have any functional relevance whatsoever unless you ALSO assume that white men oppose equality measures because they want to maintain those perks?
You assumptions let you start every discrimination discussion with two unproven premises. First that one group is above the waterline of equality. And second that the group above the waterline will always oppose equality and are to be viewed as a hostile oponent to equality. And you get to make those assmptions about me without proving either one.
I looked at the list of Privileges in the Invisible Knapsack. Most of them are things that everyone should enjoy if equality wee achieved. Getting pulled over by the cops for skin color should DISSAPPEAR once equality is achived. If it were a true PRIVILEGE enoyed by whites, then when he world achies equality, whites would get to suffer systemic racial profiling by police. that would be the only way you could say its a privilege.
Most of the common, known, proven, issues of discrimination are not something that anyone should experience in a world of equality. Which means that white men are not operating above the watrline of equality.
If you wish to assert that white men ARE above the.waterline of equality, you can’t just assert it wihout systemic proof to support it. McIntosh just asserts that to be the case, but her list of ‘privileges’ don’t support the assertion.
Name some systemic benefit that white males benefit from by a world of discrimination, and white men will lose that benefit when the world achieves equality.
Saying that white men enjoy the Privilege of not having to racially profiled by cops is only a privilege if your view ofa world of equality would mean that racial profiling by cops exists but white men are targeted equaly as people of color.
Otherwise its not a privilege above the waterline of equality.
Give me some proven systemic examples of benefits that white males enjoy that would go away when equality occurs in the world.
Racial profiling by the cops is proven to exist. But it is NOT a privilege that whites should lose in a world of equality. It is something that EVERYONE ELSE should gain. Everyone should be lifted UP to where whites are with regard to police behavior. So whites are not ABOVE tthe waterline of equality.
drachefly | 24-Oct-10 at 2:01 pm | Permalink
Greg, she did give such an example. She didn’t provide a link to evidence, but what she was talking about would satisfy your requirements.
Musereader – “I will post this and this is what you will think all women think.”
Do you seriously believe this? I certainly hope you do not.
Greg | 24-Oct-10 at 8:42 pm | Permalink
drachefly: she did give such an example. She didn’t provide a link to evidence, but what she was talking about would satisfy your requirements.
First of all, musereader doesn’t give an example of privilege. musereader makes an accusation about me personally. And musereader doesn’t even know me.
musereader: I will post this and this is what you will think all women think.
Not just a bullshit accusation with zero evidence, but wrong at that. I know women who don’t think like that, so why would I think they all do?
Musereader has done nothing here but try and shift the focus away from what I said and towards personal accusations that I’m sexist. musereader says I WILL THINK ALL WOMEN THINK THIS. But that can only be true if I’m a sexist. At which point musereader wants to shift the discussion away from what I said and turn it into a “Prove to me you’re not a racist/sexist”.
An unfalsifiable accusation about as good as accusing someone of being a witch. And you know what, I’m done playing that particular game.
If musereader has actual, real world evidence, supported by some sort of independent study, that shows white male privilege that would go away once equality is achieved, please provide a link.
Saying I will be believed more than a black person or woman is meaningless. more believed by whom? About what? Under what circumstance?
What does this privilege look like today in objective numbers?
And how would this same issue look once equality is achieved in the world?
Something specific. Something concrete. It cannot be that there are just so many that musereader simply cnanot pick one.
How about police profiling. THere have been numerous statistical studies that show police departments stop blacks more than whites.
If that is a white privilege, then that would mean once equality is achieved, whites would have to worry about being stopped for being white.
IF it is NOT a privilege, then that means that no one would have to worry about being stopped for their skin color.
Therefore it is NOT a privilege.
Greg | 24-Oct-10 at 8:58 pm | Permalink
In Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, McIntosh lists 26 items which she says are “privileges”. If they are privileges, they would go away once equality is achived. They cannot be a PRIVILEGE is everyone should be able to have these statements be true for them once the world becomes a world of equality.
1. I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.
in a world of equality, everyone could probably do this.
2. If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area, which I can
afford and in which I would want to live.
[In a world of equality, people wouldn't be rejected housing based on gender or race.]
3. I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me.
[In a world of equality, neighbors won't be racist or sexist or whatever]
4. I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.
[in an equal world, everyone will enjoy this]
5. I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely
represented.
[in an equal world, everyone would enjoy this]
6. When I am told about our national heritage or about “civilization,” I am shown that people of my
color made it what it is.
[in an equal world, everyone would enjoy this]
7. I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.
[in an equal world, everyone would enjoy this]
8. If I want to, I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher for this piece on white privilege.
[in an equal world, people of all genders and races would be published]
9. I can go into a music shop and count on finding the music of my race represented, into a supermarket
and find the staple foods which fit with my cultural traditions, into a hairdresser’s shop and find someone
who can cut my hair.
[In a world of equality, everyone would enjoy this]
10. Whether I use checks, credit cards or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the
appearance of my financial reliability.
[in a world of equality, everyone would enjoy this]
11. I can arrange to protect my children most of the time from people who might not like them.
[in a world of equality, everyone would enjoy this]
12. I can swear, or dress in second hand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute
these choices to the bad morals, the poverty, or the illiteracy of my race.
[in a world of equality, everyone would enjoy this]
13. I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial.
[in a world of equality, everyone would enjoy this]
14. I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.
[in a world of equality, everyone would enjoy this]
15. I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.
[in a world of equality, everyone would enjoy this]
16. I can remain oblivious of the language and customs of persons of color who constitute the world’s
majority without feeling in my culture any penalty for such oblivion.
[in a world of equality, everyone would enjoy this]
17. I can criticize our government and talk about how much I fear its policies and behavior without being
seen as a cultural outsider.
[in a world of equality, everyone would enjoy this]
18. I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to “the person in charge,” I will be facing a person of my race.
[PRIVILEGE: in a world of equality, no one would enjoy this]
19. If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven’t been singled
out because of my race.
[in a world of equality, everyone would enjoy this]
20. I can easily buy posters, post-cards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys, and children’s
magazines featuring people of my race.
[in a world of equality, everyone would enjoy this]
21. I can go home from most meetings of organizations I belong to feeling somewhat tied in, rather than
isolated, out-of-place, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance, or feared.
[in a world of equality, everyone would enjoy this]
22. I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having coworkers on the job suspect that
I got it because of race.
[in a world of equality, everyone would enjoy this]
23. I can choose public accommodation without fearing that people of my race cannot get in or will be
mistreated in the place I have chosen.
[in a world of equality, everyone would enjoy this]
24. I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help my race will not work against me.
[in a world of equality, everyone would enjoy this]
25. If my day, week or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it
has racial overtones.
[in a world of equality, everyone would enjoy this]
26. I can choose blemish cover or bandages in “flesh” color and have them more or less match my skin.
[in a world of equality, everyone would enjoy this]
All but 1 point, #18, is a privilege. All but #18 even remotely comes close to describing something that McIntosh calls “unearned power” or “overprivilege”.
In a world of equality, when you ask to see the person in charge, they might be any race or any gender. and NO ONE will be able to count on them being their race or their gender.
One item out of 26 items.
The other 25 items on the list are not “UNEARNED POWER” or OVER PRIVILEGE” but rather things that EVERYONE SHOULD ENJOY in a world of equality.
25 out of 26 things are things that white males wouldn’t give up in a world of equality, but that everyone else would get as well.
What I”m looking for, and what no one seems able to provide, is an actual case of OVER PRIVILEGE, or UNEARNED POWER that white males would have to give up if the world were suddenly to become equal tomorrow.
Just because there is a DIFFERENCE doesn’t mean it is a PRIVILEGE.
Greg | 24-Oct-10 at 10:55 pm | Permalink
I tried writing up something about the whole issue in a slightly more direct form here:
http://www.warhw.com/privilege-is-unearned-power-that-dissappears-in-a-world-of-equality/
Musereader | 25-Oct-10 at 4:39 am | Permalink
Ok, an example, Women are systematically seen as the same. One specific expression of this is that apparently Margaret Thatcher failled as a prime minister – therefore we should never have a female prime minister again. I have seen these articles in the newspapers time and time again, (I don’t know how or why or by what criteria she failed, but apparently she did) whenever a woman fails it “Proves” women shouldn’t do that, but a mans faliure is never taken to mean men shouldn’t. On the other had when a woman succeds she is generally seen as an exception, the only woman that could. How about watching the reaction Sabine got when she got round the nurenburg ring faster than the men on Top Gear.
Or how about the Case of Tiptree – the woman who convinced the entire SF community she was a man for almost 10 years, I have time and time again seen articles that she was the only one who achived it, nay, that she was the only one who could – nobody can repeat this feat. (Yes this one is a bit out of date becuaes this attitude only carried on until someone pointed out that C.L Moore achieved it in the 30′s, but it’s still an excellent example about how one womens success is belived to be a fluke until more than one has done it.
One privlege that has been expressly applied to me is that despite having grade A in double science GCSE I was told not to do sciences at A-level and not to think about doing a science degree (I did it anyway), I later found out that my male friends (one of whom had a D at GCSE) were encoraged to go into science (even when they expressed doubt, two of them failed). If equality was achieved then males who achived a low grade in science would not be encouraged and supported to do science just because men think men have an inbred ability for it.
I will repeat a point I made before that you didn’t seem to get – equality dosn’t mean that the water line is equaled for all, it means that the water line disappears, the whole paradigm shifts because there is no advantage or disadvantage to be had.
and this i take exception to “Just because there is a DIFFERENCE doesn’t mean it is a PRIVILEGE” because this difference has never worked in your favour before? A privilege means that a difference works in your favour. How about we look at attitudes of police which are demonstrated around your country all the time – a black man and a white man of equal social standing and education are accused of the same crime, the white guy is going to be believed more often when he protests his innocence. Same if you apply for a job, the white guy is seen as more desirable despite being equal in abilities. Also people frequently wonder if women and black men get jobs because they are female or black. People don’t wonder if a white guy got the job because he was white anywhere near as often. Women and Minority race people are often seen as “token” in teams, companies, TV shows, movies etc, there are never “token” white men, there never needs to be.
Also just because there is one time that your privilege didn’t work in your favour doesn’t mean that it didn’t work for you plenty of other times.
drachefly | 25-Oct-10 at 6:57 am | Permalink
Housekeeping: You might want to put the new article below rather than above the ‘about’ article. And a shorter title would be better, if you can devise one.
Back on topic:
Here’s a concrete example. On average, men get paid more for the same work than women do. (See: Lily Ledbetter) There’s only so much to go around, so if women get paid more, then men are going to be paid less. That extra pay IS a privilege by the original definition, and it’s real.
Greg | 25-Oct-10 at 9:07 am | Permalink
Drachefly. You assume it is a zero sum game, that men are paid more only by paying women less. That the extra, undeserved pay that men get comes directly from the company gets by getting underpaid .labor from.women.
But that completely falls apart in any situation where the company is all male. Where does this undeserved money come from then? Go back a century, and you could find a lot of companies with no or very few female employees. If pay for men is inflated off the backs of underpaid women, then a wholly male company is NOT overpaid? Employees at an all male company can not have privilege because there are no female employees to take advantage of.
The problem is that you are looking at this like its always a zero sum game.
I am not disputing that pay differences exist.
I dispute this idea that men get paid more than they deserve. That men are paid above the waterline of equality. And that the only mathematecilly sound solution requires that they must be paid less than they are now.
That would require that men are paid the appropriate amount when there are no women at the company at all. That they beco.e overpaid when women are added to the workforce. And that they have to get paid less to get back to equality.
There are many unproven assumptions built into the idea of privilege.
Greg | 25-Oct-10 at 9:33 am | Permalink
Musereader, some sexist tells you not to go into science. He’s a sexist. But for it to be a PRIVILEGE it would have to benefit me somehow. That sexist guy giving you sexist advice would have to somehow give.me some sort if undeserved privilege. What is it? McIntosh says that men must surrender their undeserved power they get by holding women at a disadvantage. And that one tactic of gender equality is to identify these undeserved powers to men and tell them they have to give it up.
What undesered power did i personaly get because some sexist pig told you to get out of science? McIntosh says that i will resist giving this power up because it gives.me an advantage that i don’t deserve.
So what advantage did i receive by that sexist pig giving you sexist advice? What is it that i would want to hold onto to the point that i would resist gender equality in my field?
As for the waterline, you aren’t getting the metaphor. If i have undeserved privilege off the backs of disadvantaged women. Then my power is above the waterline of equality. I am unfairly more bouyant than i deserve, and when equality comes, i will sink to float alongside women.
The entire point of my dispute is that i wont sink. Rather people at a disadvantage will rise to float at my level.
Its not that i will start getting racially profiled by cops. Its that people of color will STOP getting profiled.
I am not getting an undeserved privilege. People of color are being denied something everyone deserves.
I am floating at the waterline of equality with regard to racial profiling by cops. I don’t have to worry about it. And when equality is achieved, everyone wil be.lifted up to that point and no one will have to wonder if they were stopped because of their skin color.
Musereader | 25-Oct-10 at 11:06 am | Permalink
You missed the bit where i said that some of the males in the class got lower grades than me, the advantage to you is that you can express a desire to go into science and nobody thinks anything of it – NOBODY will ever tell you to not do science, nobody will ever consider that you will be incapable even if you have demonstrated that you are not good at it. The very fact that that careers advisor thought to tell me to not do science, and the fact that lots of people were suprised that i was female doing Physics means its a bump in the road, the course is taught in male specific way because they only expected males, there is support for males doing Physics, less for women. the boys took time to warm to the fact there was a female there where there was no questioning any of the other boys. its hard to explain the antipathy you get when you are in the ‘wrong place’, it’s the air in the room that no male had to deal with.
How about we talk about the level of ridicule directed at any woman trying to enter politics, like Sarah Palin or Blairs Babes despite the fact they are looking to do no more or less than any man they are called either ‘token’ or ‘grasping’ – to women it’s exactly like we are specifically being kept out of politics to let the white man have control.
Greg | 25-Oct-10 at 12:55 pm | Permalink
I’m talking about privilege. Power above and beyond what I would have if equality were to take hold of the world. Power that I would have to give up if equality took hold. Power that would incentivize me to oppose gender rights.
And you’re saying that the privilege that men have in this situation is that men encourage other men to go into science even when the student isn’t qualified. This is the undeserved privilege that we would oppose gender rights to maintain? This is the over-privilege that, were it not there, we might support gender rights, but because it is there, we drag our feet about it?
That’s basically how McIntosh describes privilege. That men get excess power, that men train themselves to pretend this power doesn’t exist, but that men know it exists and men will oppose gender equality specifically to keep that power. McIntosh says that those working for gender equality must identify these hidden undeserved powers, poitn them otu to men, and ask tehm to surrender that power.
That’s privilege.
To quote, paragraph 1 says ‘(men) can’t or won’t support the idea of lessening men’s power’. Same paragrap also discusses ‘mens unwillingness to grant that they are overpowered’. In paragraph four, she describes gender equality as asking ‘men to give up some of their power’.
And the privilege in this specific case is that men want other men to encourage them to go into science even if they’re not qualified? And we want to maintain this privilege so much that we’d be willing to oppose gender equality solutions that would make it go away?
Do you realize how petty all men would have to be for this to be true?
What I’m looking for is a powerful privilege that white men enjoy as a result of racial or gender or whatever discrimination. Something so powerful that we lose our moral compass to the point that we would try to convince ourselves that this or that discrimination isn’t so bad, lets just keep it around, all as a backdoor way to maintain our privilege.
For a historical example of this in the real world, I will point to slavery in the south just before teh civil war. Slavey allowed white men in the south to become rich off the labors of black slaves. Every time slavery came up as an issue, white men, but especially white men who benefitted financially from slavery, would downplay the true costs of slavery and justify slavery as helping blacks in some way. All of this smoke and mirrors, really, was just a way for rich plantation owners to maintain the PRIVILEGE, the undeserved power, that they got as a result of the continuation of slavery.
The reason the South fought the civil war was because they were unwilling to give up the benefits of slavery. And once the South lost the war, white plantation owners lost a lot of power and money as a result of losing slaves as free labor.
THAT fits the definition of privilege, as forwarded by McIntosh. What I’m looking for is something equivalent in today’s world. Some benefit so powerful that white men just can’t give it up and will do whatever it takes to maintain the privilege, include keeping an entire class of people at an unfair advantage through discrimination.
If you think white men, as a class, will maintain a system of discrimination so that they will be encouraged to go into science even when they don’t ahve the skills, then I think you and I have grossly different views of men as a class of human beings.
McIntosh listed two dozen things as examples of privilege. None of them occur to me as an actualy privilege except one. And the one that met the definition of privilege was something so minor that I can’t believe anyone would honestly forward the assertion that men maintain systemic discrimination just to keep that privilege in power.
Again, quoting McIntosh: paragraph 1 says ‘(men) can’t or won’t support the idea of lessening men’s power’. Same paragrap also discusses ‘mens unwillingness to grant that they are overpowered’. In paragraph four, she describes gender equality as asking ‘men to give up some of their power’.
If this is a true representation of discrimination today, then there ought to be some privilege so powerful that men will do what it takes to keep that power, including robbing that power from an entire class of people.
Otherwise, McIntosh asserts the existence of something in today’s world that no one can actually provide one real world example of. And in any other argument, that would mean McIntosh is talking about something that doesn’t really exist.
Which is what I’m saying. I don’t think discrimination exists because there is privilege as described by McIntosh that is so powerful that white men as a class act to maintain that power no matter what the cost to anyone else, including discriminating against an entire class of people.
I think discrimination exists today because some individuals are bigots. And sometimes those bigots can even cluster together enough to cause systemic discrimination in some fields, such as police profiling. But I don’t believe all cops are racists. And I don’t believe all white men have some power-driven incentive (even subconsciously) to maintain a systemically discriminating police force. If someone supports racist cops, it’s because they are a racist. Not because they get some benefit so large as to override their moral compass.
Privilege as defined by McIntosh would indict all men or all whites or some class of poeple as having so much of an incentive to discriminate that they can’t help but discriminate.
That’s McIntosh’s definition of privilege.
I’m looking for a real world example of it.
The fact that discrimination exists doesn’t mean that it must indict all whites or all men. So, teh fact that you had to deal with sexist pigs doesn’t mean that there was some privilege, some overpowering benefit, that incentivises all men to keep that sexism in place.
That’s what McIntosh defines as privilege. That’s what I’m trying to find an example of.
Musereader | 25-Oct-10 at 3:13 pm | Permalink
How about we talk about the level of ridicule directed at any woman trying to enter politics, like Sarah Palin or Blairs Babes despite the fact they are looking to do no more or less than any man they are called either ‘token’ or ‘grasping’ – to women it’s exactly like we are specifically being kept out of politics to let the white man have control.
Couldon’t be bothered to retype anything just copie and pasted what you totally ignored
Musereader | 25-Oct-10 at 3:34 pm | Permalink
Oh, yeah, being discouraged out of science was a concrete example – which is what you wanted, because it was something that happened to me – but the example wasn’t big enough? how about you multiply it to every woman in every male dominated field, it’s an exemplar/tip of the iceberg thing (what you asked for) but it’s not about men like you consiously keeping women out of science or more generally the workplace, it’s about a social attitude (that is getting better slowly) that is conditioning men to have higher expectations of success in any field, not just science.
Men have a subconsious resistance to women succeding because men feel emasculated when women are in control, thus try to prevent women in general from attaining positions of power (Re: the glass ceiling) through making it difficult to survive in an all male area (this is what we witnessed our fathers and forefathers do to our mothers and foremothers) it’s a social set up that is not being consiously maintained by anyone but rather is being passed from father to son via social conditioning.
But the social attitude is being eroded and easier for women to attain power. Getting there, but it’s still not easy for a smaller group of women to be accepted into a larger group of men, just like it isn’t easy for an established network of people to accept new members.
Greg | 25-Oct-10 at 6:18 pm | Permalink
muse: Couldon’t be bothered to retype anything just copie and pasted what you totally ignored
fine, explain what benefit I get from Sarah Palin getting ridiculed for being a woman? What perk does it feed me such that I don’t want it to stop? What undeserved power does it give me such that I can’t resist it?
I ignored the Palin reference because there is absolute NO BENEFIT for me for women politicians to be ridiculed. No privileged benefit for me. None. It’s a red herring.
Muse: being discouraged out of science was a concrete example – which is what you wanted, because it was something that happened to me
I don’t think I ever said it had to be something that happened to you. I was looking for any real world example of systemic discrimination which gives all men an undeserved advantage over women, or all whites an undeserved advantage over people of color.
What you’ve listed thus far is discriminatory, but I’ve yet to see how I and every other man in the world benefit from its existence.
It’s that last part that you repeatedly miss.
Muse: but the example wasn’t big enough?
Speaking of ignoring what was written, the issue isn’t simply that it was BIG or that it was DISCRIMINATION. What I’m asking for is for an example of CONCRETE BENEFITS that I and every other white male get from (insert discriminatory behaviour against women or peple of color).
I’ve don’t disagree that your examples are discrimination, or that they are unjust. I’ve not said anything along the lines of “that didn’t happen to you” or “you’re just imagining that” or whatever dismissive attempt might get thrown your way.
If you want to keep it specifically on your example of being discouraged from going into science, then fine, here is my very specific question to you about that:
How, *exactly* did I benefit from you being discriminated against?
McIntosh says privilege is such an over-powering advantage that people won’t just give it up voluntarily withuot a whole lot of external intervention.
What exactly did I personally gain from you being discouraged from going into science?
Muse: Men have a subconsious resistance to women succeding
That’s just sexist. If I start a sentence with “women are” and follow it with anything other than “just as equal as men”, it would rightfully be labeled sexist garbage.
I’m not sure why you think making sexist hasty generalizations about men isn’t a logical fallacy and isn’t sexist.
That’s about as accurate as saying “women aren’t good at science”.
I asked for SPECIFIC benefits that I get from discrimination against women, and you make up SUBJECTIVE ASSERTIONS about my psychology. Apparently, I “feel emasculated” when women are my equals. Which is convenient for you, because that is a totally unfalsifiable statement.
How exactly would I prove to anyone that I don’t FEEL some particular way?
If the only reward you can say I get is some completely subjective nonsense you made up with zero evidence about my FEELINGS, then I will take that to mean you don’t have any real, solid, specific, objective example of an undeserved benefit I get from women being discriminated against.
Which brings me back to my original objection. McIntosh DEFINES privilege as this set of perks and benefits that men get from letting women be discriminated against, and these perks are so powerful that men simply cannot resist them. And then when she listed two dozen “examples” of what she claimed to be privilege, none of them had any measurable objective perk that men would receive.
And you, musereader, end up making a circular argument. The benefit men get from allowing discrimination against women is that they don’t have to feel emasculated by women becuase deep down, they’re just sexist.
There you have it. The “privilege” that is so powerful that men can’t resist? It’s that they are all sexist in the first place, and they like discrimination.
This was why I asked for any objective, specific example. Because McIntosh defines something and then fails to provide a single example that meets her own definition. Her paper has been around for a couple decades, and apparently no one has a single hard example of her definition of this overpowering privilege.
And all you’ve got is that all “men feel emasculated when women are in control”? Really? Where are the studies that show this?
“it’s a social set up that is not being consiously maintained by anyone but rather is being passed from father to son via social conditioning.”
I asked for specifics because stuff like that sentence right there is the logical fallacy equivalent of voodoo. It’s unprovable. Its unfalsifiable. It’s completely subjective. Its so general and vague that it can’t be proven or disproven.
*Specifically* I want to know what over powering reward do I get from you being discouraged from going into science. I don’t need your unproven psychobabble about how I feel emasculated by women in power and I don’t need these vague mythologies about some unprovable interpretation of how history looks.
I just want a concrete example of the overpowering benefit that I get from some kind of discrimination occurring against class of people I don’t belong to.
Not subjective readings. Objective, measurable rewards. This Invisible Knapsack paper has been around for decades, and no one has a list of over powering privileges that McIntosh talks about?
Drachefly offered the difference in pay between men and women. I think if pay were equalized, that women’s pay would go up, not men’s pay would go down. So I don’t see it as men are over-privileged, or overpaid, because of discrimination. I see women as underpaid and need to get raises from their companies.
But at least that’s something specific. Something concrete. Whether I agree with it or not, it’s objective. And it meets the requirements of McIntosh’s definition of privilege. Even if I don’t discriminate against women, one could assert that I enjoy more pay than I deserve because women are discriminated against in the work place. I think women’s pay would go up, not men’s pay go down, so I don’t see it as a privilege, but it at least presents something that would qualify as an overpowering benefit that I might get as a result of discrimination. But it’s something concrete, so at least we have facts to look into and figure it out.
I don’t see any concrete overpowering benefit from someone discouraging you from goign into science. Unless you argue drachefly’s point about men being overpaid again.
Any other concrete examples of overpowering benefits I would get because discrimination exists in the world?
drachefly | 25-Oct-10 at 9:01 pm | Permalink
First, Greg, please — cut down on the redundancy. Your posts are tl;dr worthy not just on account of length but on account of repetition. Like in that third to last paragraph there, the sixth and seventh sentence were completely redundant with the previous paragraph. And that’s just one of two examples I can see on the screen at this very moment. Constant reiteration is a powerful tool… if used sparingly.
Burying the lead is not good strategy, and doubly so burying it in a sea of minutae. Your main point in this last post was paragraph 6.
Second, pay scale is pretty much as close to a zero-sum game as it gets… companies might end up making more to make up the difference, but if they don’t, they’re more than likely to take it out of the mens’ paychecks.
Third, and speaking of that paragraph 6… “What you’ve listed thus far is discriminatory, but I’ve yet to see how I and every other man in the world benefit from its existence.”
White guy privilege doesn’t need to apply to every single white guy in every situation at all times in order to qualify as white guy privilege.
If you replace ‘I and every other man in the world’ with ‘a noticeable fraction of men’, then we agree.
Third, Musereader: “Men have a subconsious resistance to women succeding because men feel emasculated when women are in control”
Whoa there. Remember that bit where you told Greg “you can post this without everybody thinking this is the opinion of all men”? That bit where you advocated not drawing overly broad conclusions based on woefully incomplete evidence?
Yeah, that part. I’m just saying ’cause my mother being primary and for a time sole earner wasn’t a problem, my wife making twice what I do isn’t a problem, I invited a woman onto my dissertation committee (a position of power over me), aforementioned woman was my second choice for thesis advisor, the job I just applied to would, I think, make a woman my boss… I’m just not feeling it. And from my experiences, there are plenty of guys out there with the same attitude. Yes, as you say, the culture is changing. All the more reason not to lay down blanket assertions of the very sort you are working against.
drachefly | 25-Oct-10 at 9:19 pm | Permalink
Followup:
A concrete and general privilege arising from Musereader’s personal example would be:
“As someone in a hard science field, I face reduced competition because some women more capable than I were dissuaded from entering it.”
Greg | 26-Oct-10 at 7:02 am | Permalink
Drachefly, i need to cut down on the wordiness. But part of the reason ffor the repetiveness is i keep asking for examples of privilege that concretely benefits men as a class, and getting something else.
As for whether privilege has to apply to all men to be privilege,
White gut privilege, as presented by McIntosh, is some undeserved benefit available to all members of a class. Whether a member cashes in on that benefit is a separate matter. McIntosh says “men can’t or wont support the idea of lessening lens power”. She doesn’t qualify that by saying it only applies to certain men. She applies it to all men. She mentions “lens unwillingness to grant they are overpowered”. Not some men. All men. And she says gender equality will be achieved by identifying privilege and “asking men to give up some of their power”.
McIntosh presents priilege as somehing the dominant class enjoys as a.whole, but that members of the.dominant class will try to pretend they don’t receive.
McIntoshs examples of privilege are not individual, they are class based. #9: i can go into a store and find music of.my race, food of my culture, and hairdressers who can cut my hair.
And as far as whether or not economics is a zero sum game or not, I don’t think that’s quite so clearly proven as you say.
There are often discussions in writers forums about “another book in my genre”. And while one could point to ideas such as” market saturation”, the advice from pro authors is often” don’t worry a out it, you aren’t competing with other authors.” The idea is that harry potter books get more kids to read so there are more buyers.
I am of the opinion that everyone will be far better off in a world of gender and racial equality than they are now in a world of discrimination. White men and minorities both will be better off.
Looking at the world as nothing more than a collection of zero sum games, looking at everyone as nothing more than competition for you job, you food, you living, is a view based entirely on scarcity. And i dontsubscribe to that worldview.
I can’t neccessarily prove it. But neither can the scarcity-view-of-the-world people prove that their view is true either. But i am aware of my worldview and that its an assumption. Most people just think their worldview is just the way it is.
Greg | 26-Oct-10 at 9:36 am | Permalink
Musereader: it’s a social set up that is not being consiously maintained by anyone but rather is being passed from father to son via socia conditioning
That to me says privilege is a class benefit, not just for some white males, but available to all.
Greg | 26-Oct-10 at 3:54 pm | Permalink
Drachefly, speaking of verbosity, i chopped out a bunch of text from the eqality waterline. Hopefully it stays on point and makes its point quickly.
drachefly | 26-Oct-10 at 8:41 pm | Permalink
I think you’re cutting it too fine in respect to the ‘every man’ distinction. Some privileges are widely applicable, but relatively few are absolutely universal. In the original knapsack list, people without children, people who aren’t going to be public speakers, people who won’t move, and people with no income and no car… would knock off elements of the list by your standard. Too tight. Some privileges are going to be situational.
Greg | 27-Oct-10 at 7:19 am | Permalink
Privilege is systemic discrimination. An individual act of.discrimination that is not part of some kind of systemic discrimination is NOT privilege.
Racial profiling by police is systemic. Whites as a class do not have toworry about it. People of color do. If it wasn’t systemic, you as a white person couldn’t even attempt to claim it as a privilege.
It has to be systemic. That doesn’t mean every cop has to be racist.or that every black person has to personally experience a.racist cop for it to be systemic.
drachefly | 27-Oct-10 at 4:20 pm | Permalink
A) Define ‘systemic’. Does it include any time a large number of nominally independent but likeminded individuals commit correlated acts?
B) You’re arguing with someone about what their neologism can mean. It’s not a time to get super-nitpicky about limiting the usage of words. Some limits are reasonable, yes. Trying to tell a woman that an advantage which a significant number of men enjoy isn’t a male privilege, just because it wasn’t [i]systemic[/i] in nature… It seems like a technicality. Not going to convince someone to change their usage.
Greg | 27-Oct-10 at 5:08 pm | Permalink
A. Systemic does not require that prejudiced individuals plan together. Only that there is enough of a statistical difference between classes that one can assert discrimination occurred somewhere. One may not be able to prove that when officer smith piled over mr jones that it was prejudice, but if statistics show a disproportionate number of stops of minorities compared to the local population then systemic discrimination is occurring.
B1. My point is to separate privilege of whites from detriments to minorities. The equality waterline is meant to distinguish which it is. Privilege my be a neologism but i have been in multiple conversations where people use privilege to mean nonprivileged discrimination. Discrimination whose only” benefit” is the discrimination itself isn’t a privilege. Discrimination where whites or men as a class are at the equality wateline is discrimination but not privilege.
McIntosh is defining something that is actively evil that will make men as a class resist gender equality, akin to the ring of power that makes people twist their moral compass into knots. McIntosh describes something that would mean men cannot be trusted to push for gender equality because they don’t want to give up the perks. And yet i have been in multiple conversations about privilege where people attempt to redefine privilege as something neutral. See scalzis thread, post#10. The essence of privilege is not having to worry about crap the unprivileged do.
No. That’s not at all what McIntosh defined. That’s apathy. I get its a neologism, but a person can’t reference the paper that coins the term, defines it a certain way, and then that person goes and completely redefines the term.
B2. I am not sure how you can have a significant number of people committing discrimination and not have it be systemic.
drachefly | 04-Nov-10 at 6:53 am | Permalink
Okay, fine. We were specifically talking in this case about something that does primarily impact women negatively, but also has a positive impact on certain men – the discouragement women frequently face getting into hard science fields. It reduces the competition for sparse resources. Getting rid of competitors definitely makes things easier.
You dismissed this by talking about something else altogether?
Greg | 08-Nov-10 at 7:46 pm | Permalink
I am not entirely sure the job disparity can be entirely blamed on sexism driven to drive women from science. It is only a sexist privilege to theextent that it is sexist behavior by the privileged class. If the causes for job disparity are not driven by sexist men trying to keep women out, then it is as far as ican tell, non causa pro causa to cite gender disparity and blame it entirely on sexist men trying to maintain their privilege, consciously or unconsciously.
It is a privilege by mcintosh’s definition only to the extent of the differences.caused by male sexism trying to keep the privilege.
Psychology studies have shown that people will actually harm their own progress just by assigning themselves to a bad stereotype. One study that stood out had various groups of asian women doing math tests. Before the tests, the psychologists would either tell the group that they are asian and asians do better in math than nonasians, OR, that they are women and women do worse than men.
The groups who were told the asians are good at math stereotype did better than the groups who were told the women are worse than men stereotype.
The discrepancy in the workforce is likely not just the outcome of sexist men discouraging women to maintain mens privilege.
Put another way, i think it is a gross simplification of reality of someone attempts to assert that to achieve gender equality in scientific fields, one only needs to stop sexist men in science who are trying to keep women out of their field to reduce competition.
Some of it could just as easily be ascribed to people actually beliving that men are better at science than men, without any personal incentive/privilege keeping it in place.
The math study involving asian women indicates that people exhibit implicit bias even to their own detriment. There is no incentive for those women to do poorly on those tests, but they did. Likewise, there is probably some men who have zme gender bias that has nothing to do with personal reward or privilege.
Saying prejudice exists because of the rewards it gives the dominant class is eliminating a LOT of other demonstrated prejudice and bias. Some bias just exists, without reward to the person holding the bias. Some bias exists to the detriment of those holding the bias, becoming a self fulfilling prophecy.
Looking at job disparity in the workplace and saying the cause is men in science trying to keep their own job is a gross oversimplification of reality.
Saying the task of womens right is to identify male privilege and ask men to give up their privilege is a demonization and simplification of reality.
If you want to assert that gender discrepancies in the scientific field are solely due to men in science trying to minimize their competition, you’re going to have to give some evidence that justifies such a simplification.
Musereader | 03-Dec-10 at 6:37 pm | Permalink
Hey, I found this discussion again! I was having a conversation with my visiting teacher the other day and thoughts occured to me – Now I will tell you of a institution that is systematically controling women for thier own benefit: Religion
Now I must explain some background to this – I am nominally Mormon (Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints – LDS, yes they have them in england too!) so this discussion is very much coloured by this fact but some of the principal points are transferrable to other branches of christianity. In LDS only men can hold the priesthood (as with most other brancehs of christianity and Judaism and Islam) my role as a woman is to support my men (father, brother, Husband) and to live by the laws he has set, in return he will give me blessings and help me spiritually. I literally have no say in my eternal salvation, I have no option to have a say in it even. All rites are done by men, the church does not fuction without men (but will in theory function without women) I must do what he says or i will not be saved. if I am a bad wife i don’t get saved. And I only know how to be a good wife by what he tells me the rules are. Churches are set up for 100% male control. Now you tell me that doesn’t benefit a large swathe of the male population. Apparently I should be happy I don’t have the power because I don’t get the responsibility, and “you don’t want the responsibility” but in the end what it comes down to for me is that i can do everything perfectly and I don’t get salvation if my men don’t put in that word for me.
How does women being disuaddes from politics benefit you? How about if there are no women in politics the inequalities of women are not bought up and you don’t have nasty things like the pay gap between men and women pointed out to you. The laws are balanced in your favour, and your word is belived over a womans. There are studies out there that show that police men will belive men over women systematically.
Discouraging women from science how does that benefit you? let’s see – things that affect men are studied more than things that affect women, (becuse the problems that face women on a day to day basis are ferquently never seen by men especially historically) more money into male diseases and men are used as baselines – there are a lot of treatments have higher success rates in men than in women, and even treatments that work better for white men than black men, with no alternative treatments studied becuaes the success rate is good enough.
Posted by Greg “I am of the opinion that everyone will be far better off in a world of gender and racial equality than they are now in a world of discrimination. White men and minorities both will be better off.” I am also of this opinion but it seems that you just don’t accept that what you think is normal does leave smoe of us out in the cold
Privilege is: About how society accommodates you. It’s about advantages you have that you think are normal. It’s about you being normal, and others being the deviation from normal. It’s about fate dealing from the bottom of the deck on your behalf. Quote from http://brown-betty.livejournal.com/305643.html
It’s normal for you to have your medicines based on men’s average height and weight and hormone composition. Medicine that has been calulated to produce a certain effect on men that dosnt have to be adjusted for you because it was you it was made for.
It’s normal for you to be able to operate machinery at the height made for you and the force you can provide, it’s also normal for you to be taught how to use these things by your fathers, while it doesn’t always occur to men to teach their daughters these things (because presumably there are always going to be men who will do these things for women) and it doesn’t always occur to girls to ask to do these things because they are taught thant men do them. I have been caught out by this lots of times.
I was looking at a cabinet that I wanted to dismantle into shelves to fit a certain space. I asked my father and he said ‘wait for me to do it’, and after two weeks it wasn’t being done. It didn’t occur to either of us that I could do something to it, even if just a start of taking it apart. No I’m socially conditioned to think that I won’t have the strength to handle the drill or unscrew that or take the dowels out. But you know what, I decided to take those doors off because that was easy, then the dowels came out with the strength i had and then full credit to my brother for telling me it’s not that hard to cut that down to size, then cut those chunks out – I was suprised – I did it 95% by myself in less than half a day I only needed pointers as to what tools I needed to use and my father did do a bit of cutting for me because I was going very slow. The point of this story is that there was a deeply ingrained unconsious assumption that I needed to leave it to the men which is an entire barrier to equality in itself. One brother refueses to learn to operate the washing machine despite the controls not being complicated. We have equal ability to do several tasks – things which women and men have repetedly demonstrated in the past, but it is the social expectaion that washing is for women and changing the plug is for men. The other way around is funny and stupid.
Some of the above also demonstrates that it does work the other way too, men don’t have the complete freedom to perform “female” tasks becuase of the societal expectation about what a man should have a woman do for them, you have a barrier to “demeaning” yourself with “womens work” thats indoctrinated into you as much as me. There are Female Privledges and victim privileges, privileges are double standards most of the time.
Also there is an error in thinking that privilige has to provide an external benefit, no resistance to you doing something is privilege in and of itself. and resistance can be entirely internal, you can discriminate yourself out of achieving something which is what your study with the maths test and the asian women demonstrates. If i am told by every body that I cannot do this thing I will fail at this thing unless there is an internal override to the external message. If everybody had equal confidence of achievement then they would have equal chance, but with outsiders wrecking this confidence it’s hard to keep it and hard to succeed. I think i am now repeating myself as it is 2 am I shoudl go to bed.
Musereader | 03-Dec-10 at 9:08 pm | Permalink
Aha! It is now 4 am and I have had a little epiphany which may illustrate the difference in perspectives here.
Privilege is like – you walk into a clothes shop and every single item fits you, all of them, each one exactly for you. I walk into the same shop and none of them fit me, I have boobs you have none, I am shorter, mayby I’m even fatter. none of the clothes fit without at least modification. Equalisation happens and only 50% of the clothes fit you when you go into the shop next time, half of them fit me, so there’s no way you are getting into these bub! But wait a minute – none of the clothes you fit into before are gone, you have lost nothing! Nothing at all, we are now at the same waterline, you were right, no wait – hang on a sec, you’ve only got 50% of the shop, you’ve lost something there mate, you’ve come down and met me in the middle – you’ve lost the right for everything to fit you.
This reminds me of a game I used to play, Superfrog on the Amiga, a 2D platform where you had to collect coins, pass obstacles, kill snails etc, the frog is moving, except the frog never left the centre of the screen, the background was wizzing around him. So what’s moving? The frog or the background? Me or you? Both?
People do feel like they are losing privilege when they grant it to others. Some clubs (golf, Mens, gyms etc) wouldn’t let black men join, it wasn’t untill Tiger won the golf that you had to let black men in golf clubs. White men would lose nothing by letting blacks join, they were still members of the club, able to do everything exactly what they did before, but they vorociously defended the right to deny membership to black men, they felt that they were losing privilege and fought to keep it. This is what we mean by having to ‘give up’ privileges, if there was nothing to lose why did they fight?
Similarly with gay marriages, we give up nothing in granting the right, there is nothing that we cannot do that we did before, but many people feel that by granting the right to gays, strights are losing something – the right for it to be about straight people. Who is right, the straight people who insist that they are giving up something and the gay people who insist thay strights should give up the right to keep marrige for themselves. Or the people who don’t see any rights given up, just extended.
The world is built for men by men, technology is usually largely designed for men and you would generally have no difficulty in picking up and using any of it, however many thing are simply built too big for me, cars, phones, Game pads. Did you know that it was phyically impossible for me to reach the middle button on the x-box pad without releasing my grip? – this is somthing that would never have happened to you. I refused to play it and stuck to my gamecube because it fit me. Some months later microsoft bring out the baby pad, perfect size for women, and there are a whole bunch of men online grumbling about how stupid the idea was, it didn’t fit them! so whats the point? They are complaining that it wasn’t made for them! they have lost the right to be the centre of microsoft’s attention, yet they’ve lost nothing at all.
In granting equality you have ‘lost’ the privilege of having everything made to measure for you and having everything be relevant to you. But you still have everything you had before.