Quick Read for Men Who Don't Like to Read

"Privilege" is a discussion you'll hear often in social justice spaces, both offline and online.

Some people understand the concept easily. Others – and I was like this – find the concept confusing and need a piffling more help.

If you're willing to learn about privilege, but you don't know where to start, you've come to the right place!

Earlier we get started, I want to clarify that this article is not entirely comprehensive. That is to say, it'south not going to explain everything there is to know nearly privilege. But it'll give yous a skilful foundation on the basics.

Call back of privilege not as a single lesson, but as a field of written report. To truly empathize privilege, we must keep reading, learning, and thinking critically.

Defining Privilege

The origins of the term "privilege" can be traced back to the 1930s, when WEB DuBois wrote about the "psychological wage" that allowed whites to experience superior to black people. In 1988, Peggy McIntosh fleshed out the thought of privilege in a paper called "White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to Encounter Correspondences through Work in Women's Studies."

We can ascertain privilege as a set of unearned benefits given to people who fit into a specific social group.

Society grants privilege to people because of certain aspects of their identity. Aspects of a person'south identity tin can include race, class, gender, sexual orientation, language, geographical location, ability, and faith, to name a few.

But big concepts similar privilege are so much more than their basic definitions! For many, this definition on its ain raises more questions than it answers. So here are a few things nigh privilege that everyone should know.

ane. Privilege is the other side of oppression.

It's often easier to detect oppression than privilege.

It's definitely easier to notice the oppression y'all personally experience than the privileges you feel since beingness mistreated is likely to leave a bigger impression on you lot than existence treated fairly.

Then consider the ways in which yous are oppressed: How are you lot disadvantaged because of the way order treats aspects of your identity? Are yous a woman? Are you disabled? Does your sexuality fall under the queer umbrella? Are you lot poor? Do y'all have a mental illness or a learning disability? Are y'all a person of color? Are y'all gender not-conforming?

All of these things could make life hard because society disenfranchises people who fit into those social groups. We phone call this oppression.

But what near the people society doesn't disenfranchise? What almost the people society empowers at our expense? We call that privilege.

Privilege is only the reverse of oppression.

2. We need to understand privilege in the context of power systems.

Order is affected by a number of different power systems: patriarchy, white supremacy, heterosexism, cissexism, and classism — to name a few. These systems interact together in one giant arrangement called the kyriarchy.

Privileged groups accept power over oppressed groups.

Privileged people are more probable to exist in positions of power – for case, they're more likely to boss politics, exist economically well-off, take influence over the media, and hold executive positions in companies.

Privileged people can utilize their positions to benefit people like themselves – in other words, other privileged people.

In a patriarchal society, women do not have institutional power (at to the lowest degree, not based on their gender). In a white supremacist lodge, people of color don't take race-based institutional power. And and then on.

Information technology's important to bear this in mind considering privilege doesn't go both ways. Female privilege does not exist because women don't have institutional ability. Similarly, black privilege, trans privilege, and poor privilege don't exist considering those groups do not have institutional power.

It'south also of import to remember because people often look at privilege individually rather than systemically. While private experiences are important, we have to effort to understand privilege in terms of systems and social patterns. We're looking at the rule, not the exception to the dominion.

3. Privileges and oppressions affect each other, but they don't negate each other.

I feel my queerness in relation to my womanhood. I feel these aspects of my identity in relation to my feel as a mentally ill person, equally someone who's white, as someone who is South African, as someone who is able-bodied, as someone who is cisgender.

All aspects of our identities – whether those aspects are oppressed or privileged past society – interact with i another. We experience the aspects of our identities collectively and simultaneously, not individually.

The interaction between different aspects of our identities is often referred to as an intersection. The term intersectionality was coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw, who used it to describe the experiences of blackness women – who experience both sexism and racism.

While all women experience sexism, the sexism that blackness women experience is unique in that it is informed by racism.

To illustrate with some other example, mental illness is often stigmatized. Every bit a mentally-sick woman, I have been told that my postal service-traumatic stress disorder is "just PMS" and a consequence of me "beingness an over-sensitive woman." This is an intersection betwixt ableism and misogyny.

The aspects of our identities that are privileged tin also affect the aspects that are oppressed. Yes, privilege and oppression intersect — but they don't negate 1 another.

Often, people believe that they tin't feel privilege considering they also experience oppression. A common case is the idea that poor white people don't experience white privilegebecause they are poor. Merely this is not the case.

Existence poor does non negate the fact that yous, as a white person, are less likely to become the victim of police brutality in most countries around the world, for example.

Existence poor is an oppression, yes, simply this doesn't cancel out the fact that you can yet benefit from white privilege.

As Phoenix Calida wrote:

"Privilege but ways that under the exact same set of circumstances yous're in, life would exist harder without your privilege.

Being poor is hard. Being poor and disabled is harder.

Being a woman is difficult. Being a trans woman is harder.

Being a white woman is hard, beingness a woman of color is harder.

Being a black man is hard, being a gay black man is harder."

Let's look at the example of people who are both poor and white. Existence white means that you accept access to resources which could help you survive. You're more than likely to have a support network of relatively well-off people. You can apply these networks to expect for a job.

If you go to a chore interview, you lot are more than likely to be interviewed past a white person, as white people are more probable to exist in executive positions. People in positions of power are usually the same race as yous, then if they are racially prejudiced, information technology'south likely that they would be prejudiced in your favor.

A poor black person, on the other paw, volition non have access to those resources, is unlikely to be of the same race as people in ability, and is more likely to be harmed past racial prejudice.

So once once more: Being white and poor is hard, but existence black and poor is harder.

iv. Privilege describes what everyone should experience.

When we use the word "privilege" in the context of social justice, it means something slightly different to the mode it's used by nigh people in their everyday surroundings.

Often nosotros think of privilege equally "special advantages." We frequently hear the phrase, "X is a privilege, not a correct," conveying the thought that X is something special that shouldn't be expected.

Because of the mode nosotros use "privilege" in our solar day-to-24-hour interval lives, people often get upset when others point out some of their privileges.

A male acquaintance of mine initially struggled to understand the concept of privilege. He once said to me, "Men don't oftentimes experience gender-based street harassment, but that'south not a privilege. It'south something everyone should expect."

Correct. Everyone should expect to exist treated that way. Everyone has a right to be treated that way. The problem is that certain people aren't treated that way.

To illustrate: Nobody should be treated as if they are untrustworthy based on their race. Merely often, people of color – particularly black people – are mistrusted because of prejudice towards their race.

White people, however, don't feel this systemic, race-based prejudice. We call this "white privilege" because people who are white are free from racial oppression.

Nosotros don't apply the term "privilege" considering we don't retrieve everyone deserves this treatment.

We phone call privilege "privilege" because we acknowledge that non everyone experiences information technology.

5. Privilege doesn't mean you didn't piece of work hard.

People ofttimes get defensive when someone points out that they have privilege. And I totally understand why – before I fully understood privilege, I acted the same way.

Many people recall that having privilege means you have had an easy life. Every bit such, they feel personally attacked when people point out their privilege. To them, it feels as if someone is maxim that they haven't worked hard or endured any difficulties.

Simply this is not what privilege means.

Y'all can exist privileged and still accept a hard life. Privilege doesn't hateful that your life is easy, only rather that it'due southeasier than others.

I saw this bright analogy comparing white privilege and bike commuting in a car-friendly urban center, and information technology inspired me to augment the analogy to privilege in general.

Then permit's say both you and your friend determine to go cycling. Yous decide to bike for the same distance, merely yous take different routes. You take a route that is a scrap bumpy. Generally, yous go downwards roads that are at a slight turn down. It's very hot, but the wind is at commonly at your back. Yous eventually get to your destination, but you're sunburnt, your legs are aching, you're out of breath, and you accept a cramp.

When y'all eventually run into up with your friend, she says that the ride was awful for her. Information technology was besides bumpy. The road she took was at an incline the entire time. She was fifty-fifty more sunburnt than you considering she had no sunscreen. At 1 signal, a strong gust of current of air blew her over and she hurt her foot. She ran out of water halfway through. When she hears about your route, she remarks that your feel seemed easier than hers.

Does that hateful that you didn't cycle to the best of your ability? Does it hateful that you didn't face obstacles? Does information technology mean that you didn't work hard? No. What it means is that you lot didn't face the obstacles she faced.

Privilege doesn't mean your life is piece of cake or that you didn't work hard. It simply means that you don't have to face the obstacles others have to endure. It means that life is more difficult for those who don't have the systemic privilege you accept.

So What Now?

Often, people think that feminists and social justice activists betoken out people's privilege to make them experience guilty. This isn't the case at all!

Nosotros don't want you to feel guilty. We desire you to bring together us in challenging the systems that privilege some people and oppress others.

Guilt is an unhelpful feeling: It makes us feel aback, which prevents usa from speaking out and bringing nigh modify. As Jamie Utt notes, "If privilege guilt prevents me frominterim against oppression, so information technology is simply another tool of oppression."

Y'all don't need to feel guilty for having privilege because having privilege is not your error: It's non something you chose. Merely what you can choose is to push back against your privilege and to employ it in a way that challenges oppressive systems instead of perpetuating them.

So what tin you lot – as a person who experiences privilege – do?

Understanding privilege is a get-go, so yous've already made the kickoff movement! Yay!

There's a great deal of information out in that location on the Internet, then I'd firstly recommend that you read more almost the concepts of oppression and privilege in social club to expand your understanding. The links in this commodity are a expert place to start.

But just understanding privilege is non plenty. We need to take action.

Mind to people who experience oppression. Learn about how y'all can work in solidarity with oppressed groups. Join feminist and activist communities in order to support those yous accept privilege over. Focus on educational activity other privileged people about their privilege.

Above all else, bear in mind that your privilege exists.

Sian Ferguson is a Contributing Writer at Everyday Feminism. She is a S African feminist currently studying toward a Bachelors of Social Science degree majoring in English Language and Literature and Gender Studies at the University of Cape Town. She has been featured as a guest writer on websites such as Women24 and Foxy Box, while also writing for her personal weblog. In her spare time, she tweets excessively @sianfergs, reads about current affairs, and spends time with her gorgeous group of friends. Read her articles here.

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Source: https://everydayfeminism.com/2014/09/what-is-privilege/

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