Is it time to end privilege?

[Roose Seal]

"Man is invited to speak at a Women in Technology panel - denies existence of privilege" News at 11.

[Stannisaurus2]

"Man is invited to speak at a Women in Technology panel - denies existence of privilege" News at 11.

I know, right? You invite a man to speak at a panel and he actually thinks he is allowed to have a different opinion. That arrogant, privileged bastard!

[TerraPrime]

Thing is, the talk about privileges misses the big point, which is that only a small proportion of people - including white males - actually is privileged and truly benefits from it.

True in a few cases of privilege, but not in the general sense.

For instance, if your skin color is not black or tan, you will always get the privilege of not having to fear being targeted for abuse when you're at certain parts of the country. If you're a man, you have the privilege that people will not doubt your stated expertise in technology on account of your expressed gender. If you're cisgender, you have the privilege that you can use the bathrooms with signs that are concordant with your identity without the fear of abuse. If you are a man, on average, you have the privilege of enjoying higher starting salary when compared to equally qualified women. If you're a Protestant, you have the privilege of not having people pressure you to convert when you reveal your faith.

That said, sometimes, people who are minority have privileges, too. For instance, if you're a woman, your ability to care for children and raise them is not automatically questioned.

See, privileges is not a zero-sum game. One can be privileged in one area but disadvantaged in other areas. I am privileged as an able body cisgender male, but I lose out on being ethnic minority and non-heterosexual. On balance, I came out pretty well in the game of life. Others, even with more privileges than I do, fare less well. The discussion about "privileges" is not a competition to see who comes out ahead, but to point out the little, and sometimes not so little, things in life that we sometimes take for granted but which make lives difficult for others who are not like us. A poor rural white heterosexual cisgender woman may have indeed a very difficult life, but that doesn't mean she never gets to enjoy the white privileges or the heterosexual privileges. It simply means that perhaps her class disadvantage is too much to overcome.

The framework of privilege is not meant to instill in people an attitude of "poor me, that's why life sucks," but to shed light on some of the mechanisms of social interactions. Being aware that sometimes we benefit from, and sometimes we suffer on account of, certain privileges makes one more empathatic to the struggles of others around us. As I became aware of the privilege of being cisgender, I am now more careful in my behavior when it concerns expressed gender identities. Some of these privileges can be equalized with just a few thoughtful actions on an individual level, though many require larger scale actions and education efforts.

Here's an illustration of white privilege: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4a-v2n62C9k

Here's a comic's explanation of white privilege: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CmzT4OV-w0

Here's a SF author's explanation on privileges: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-the-lowest-difficulty-setting-there-is/

Here's a blog with a succinct definition of privilege: http://www.agjohnson.us/glad/what-is-a-system-of-privilege/

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

TP,

If I understand the way you describe privilege my "privilege" would evaporate in a society wherein I would be a "disimpowered minority"? For example if I moved to rural China and lived there without much money on a small plot of land, legitimately purchased, and attempted to live as a slightly over subsitence level farmer. Would I then have a much better idea about what people who are in non-priviledged positions experience?

[TerraPrime]

TP,

If I understand the way you describe privilege my "privilege" would evaporate in a society wherein I would be a "disimpowered minority"? For example if I moved to rural China and lived there without much money on a small plot of land, legitimately purchased, and attempted to live as a slightly over subsitence level farmer. Would I then have a much better idea about what people who are in non-priviledged positions experience?

Yes.

You don't even have to go that far. Just go live in a medium sized city in China for 3 months and be surrounded by a culture where you no longer see yourself accurately reflected, and sometimes even severely distorted, where simple everyday events like getting a library card is a hassle on account of who you are and not what you've done.

I also think that one can detect the presence of many of these privileges without going that far to immerse yourself in a different culture. I can see my male privilege at work right in front of my eyes in many cases, e.g. someone stopping at our group project poster and directing most of the questions to me instead of my female collaborator standing next to me.

[Castel]

The point I get is that, on a personal level. Don't let being underprivileged be a reason you give up on success.

As in, the people who aren't white heterosexual men that do reach a high level of success don't give up because they had less oppurtunity.

This doesn't mean you can't acknowledge there is unfair privilege and do things to help.

Yes.

This is part of my problem with the OP and things said on this general topic. Unless you're aiming a subtle blow at the people who talk about privilege (by implying that they all just give up) you're saying absolutely nothing. If you are, then you might as well take a stronger stance and make your controversy interesting.

"Man is invited to speak at a Women in Technology panel - denies existence of privilege" News at 11.

Except he didn't deny it.

[Stannisaurus2]

True in a few cases of privilege, but not in the general sense.

If you are a man, on average, you have the privilege of enjoying higher starting salary when compared to equally qualified women. If you're a Protestant, you have the privilege of not having people pressure you to convert when you reveal your faith.

That said, sometimes, people who are minority have privileges, too. For instance, if you're a woman, your ability to care for children and raise them is not automatically questioned.

[...]

http://www.agjohnson...m-of-privilege/

I have yet to see any group which complains about privilege (feminists, LGTB or anyone else) actually using this framework to analyze situations (i.e. referring to the advantages of "minorities" as "privileges"). The fact that you refer to women as minorities even though male "privileges" are not even close to being overwhelming compared to the female ones shows that.

Claiming that the members of the group which has more members in positions of power will also necessary have overall/on average advantages and power against other groups to the point that they can be called "minorities" even though they are 50%+ of the population is demonstrably false and it only serves to allow injustices against members of the "privileged" group.

[Clueless Northman]

The discussion about "privileges" is not a competition to see who comes out ahead, but to point out the little, and sometimes not so little, things in life that we sometimes take for granted but which make lives difficult for others who are not like us.

And it's mostly a fucking waste of time, because the system inherently aims to put a few people on the top and the lot of us far below - usually with vast masses dirt-poor or nearly-enslaved.

You can't get rid of the real wide-scale oppression as long as you don't get rid of the capitalist system, of the toxic reasoning that you have to work to be worth living - and work should be your main goal in life -, and that kind of crap. Not dealing with this but hoping to change some social settings instead is akin to moving chairs on the Titanic's deck - you're just going to have a few people who'll be nice with each other while we all die off when shit happens.

It's not that there aren't causes worthy to fight for, but will we really improve them if we just deal with them without dealing with the bigger picture, if we're just still heading straight to the abyss? At the very least, we should work on these fronts together, at the same time, and if no progress is made on the main one, pushing to progress on the other ones won't get us anywhere.

Besides, the whole definition of privilege is quite wrong. Being treated like a normal person by-default isn't privilege, it's the norm, by definition. Being treated better than the standard in your society is what privilege is - specially when you have nothing to show for. And of course being treated worse than the norm is horrendous, and just shouldn't be done - that's indeed basic fairness.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

TP,

Yes.You don't even have to go that far. Just go live in a medium sized city in China for 3 months and be surrounded by a culture where you no longer see yourself accurately reflected, and sometimes even severely distorted, where simple everyday events like getting a library card is a hassle on account of who you are and not what you've done.I also think that one can detect the presence of many of these privileges without going that far to immerse yourself in a different culture. I can see my male privilege at work right in front of my eyes in many cases, e.g. someone stopping at our group project poster and directing most of the questions to me instead of my female collaborator standing next to me.

In my work I find it really frustrating that people will go apeshit with my assistant but will be super polite with me. She's not a lawyer but there is no reason to be impolite with her. Is that what you mean?

[TerraPrime]

I have yet to see any group which complains about privilege (feminists, LGTB or anyone else) actually using this framework to analyze situations (i.e. referring to the advantages of "minorities" as "privileges").

Then you just haven't read very far in the subject. On this board alone I am hard pressed to find amongst the more vocal and self-identified feminist who'd deny that the U.S. custody court system favors mothers.

The fact that you refer to women as minorities even though male "privileges" are not even close to being overwhelming compared to the female ones shows that.

Right. Men is the oppressed minority. Ok.

Claiming that the members of the group which has more members in positions of power will also necessary have overall/on average advantages and power against other groups to the point that they can be called "minorities" even though they are 50%+ of the population is demonstrably false and it only serves to suppress injustices against the "privileged" group.

Women do not have more members in positions of power. Women are under-represented at the political (24% of the current House of Representatives, 17% of Senate, 27% of the cabinet, are women. Only the SCOTUS has gender parity right now, with 5 male Justices and 4 female) and economic (amongst Fortune 500, 5% have female CEOs) levels in the United States. We might start to see more parity at the managerial positions.

Power and privileges do not come strictly from sheer numbers.

[Castel]

Then you just haven't read very far in the subject. On this board alone I am hard pressed to find amongst the more vocal and self-identified feminist who'd deny that the U.S. custody court system favors mothers.

Really? I thought that, the last time the discussion came up, the position on the board was that men get custody more when they ask for it?

[TerraPrime]

Re: Clueless Northman

You can't get rid of the real wide-scale oppression as long as you don't get rid of the capitalist system, of the toxic reasoning that you have to work to be worth living - and work should be your main goal in life -, and that kind of crap. Not dealing with this but hoping to change some social settings instead is akin to moving chairs on the Titanic's deck - you're just going to have a few people who'll be nice with each other while we all die off when shit happens.

So because someone has terminal cancer we don't need to worry about treating the tetanus?

Capitalism is ingrained and cannot be removed from the U.S. To think otherwise will be asking for heartbreak. But even within the inescapable capitalist system, we can strive for more equality and more access to all. So no, while I agree that we will always have disparity in power as a result of capitalism, I do not accept that addressing structural issues within a particular manifestation of capitalism to bring about more equality is not worthwhile.

Besides, the whole definition of privilege is quite wrong. Being treated like a normal person by-default isn't privilege, it's the norm, by definition. Being treated better than the standard in your society is what privilege is - specially when you have nothing to show for. And of course being treated worse than the norm is horrendous, and just shouldn't be done - that's indeed basic fairness.

That's just semantics on where you set "normal."

Re: Ser Scot

In my work I find it really frustrating that people will go apeshit with my assistant but will be super polite with me. She's not a lawyer but there is no reason to be impolite with her. Is that what you mean?

Not knowing the context of your example I cannot say. But in my case, I believe what was at work was the assumption that an Asian male probably knows more about science than the white female. It's an assumption of authority on account of gender, and maybe also race. There are plenty of female boarders here who work in the tech and otherwise traditionally male professions who have experienced such things first hand.

[MerenthaClone]

Really? I thought that, the last time the discussion came up, the position on the board was that men get custody more when they ask for it?

That is my understanding, yes.

I have yet to see any group which complains about privilege (feminists, LGTB or anyone else) actually using this framework to analyze situations (i.e. referring to the advantages of "minorities" as "privileges"). The fact that you refer to women as minorities even though male "privileges" are not even close to being overwhelming compared to the female ones shows that.

Claiming that the members of the group which has more members in positions of power will also necessary have overall/on average advantages and power against other groups to the point that they can be called "minorities" even though they are 50%+ of the population is demonstrably false and it only serves to allow injustices against members of the "privileged" group.

Which is why, again, I don't find 'privilege' to be a particularly useful concept to apply to specific situations. In broad strokes, its useful to understand that what I experience on a daily basis isn't what others experience and that I can be blithely unaware that some things I do/don't experience aren't universal. But in specific situations, it often falls into this pointless web of "well, I'm privileged in the sense that patients sometimes see a man in scrubs and assume he's a doctor (i get called 'doc' a lot even after I introduce myself as a nurse) but on the other hand, my motives or practice as a nurse are occasionally questioned because I am a man." Am I privileged to be a male nurse? Clearly, yes. At the same time, clearly, no. Which makes it a pointless exercise, in my opinion, to discuss very, very specific instances to determine who "has" privilege. Suffice it to say that my nursing experience is going to be different from my female (or black, or trans, or ESL) colleagues, and we should both remember that. But I find it very hard to deny that, as a general rule, I will be stopped less by police simply because I am white, for instance. And that's important to remember.

[Stannisaurus2]

Then you just haven't read very far in the subject. On this board alone I am hard pressed to find amongst the more vocal and self-identified feminist who'd deny that the U.S. custody court system favors mothers.

Actually, feminist members of this forum have denied that but that's besides the point I was making. What I am saying is this:

If you have X issue which privileges men for a Y value (let's pretend that privileges can be accurately measured)

and you also have Z issue which privileges women for a Y value

... then all the feminists I have seen will consider Z issue as objectively more important even though its effect (Y) is the same with X, for no other reason than it affects the so-called "minority" group.

This is different from your framework because in order to have this line of thinking, you have to define "privilege" at a group level (men are privileged as a whole, women are not) and consider what you call "privileges" as some sort of unimportant "situational advantages" different from privilege.

Right. Men is the oppressed minority. Ok.

Neither women or men are oppressed minorities in the Western societies of 2014. Unless someone cares to provide evidence of overwhelming advantages of either group to a point that they can be reasonably called oppressors.

Women do not have more members in positions of power.

Power and privileges do not come strictly from sheer numbers.

Yeah I know, that wasn't my point. My point is that even if more men are in a position of power by a large margin, this still doesn't necessarily translate in men having on average that much more power in society which would justify calling women oppressed minorities. A male in position of power can still provide more advantages and privileges for the members of the other group. A male politician may favor the women's position in certain issues to get their votes (that's where the numbers came in).

You have to prove that the fact that men have in total more positions of power results in ordinary members of the group having on average more power, to a point that women can be seen as minorities.

[SeanF]

Yeah. The world GDP per capita is about 12 500 US dollars PPP adjusted. These are the yearly earnings everyone "deserve" assuming an equal distribution of wealth.

Nail hit on head. The only privilege that counts, in a Western society, is having money. I'm not rich, but i'm well-off. I have a big house with a lovely garden. I can afford wine. I live in a nice part of town. Apart from paying taxes, the State demands nothing of me. I'm privileged. I''m White, male, and straight, but one certainly doesn't have to share those characteristics to live well, in the West.

[Stannisaurus2]

Which is why, again, I don't find 'privilege' to be a particularly useful concept to apply to specific situations. In broad strokes, its useful to understand that what I experience on a daily basis isn't what others experience and that I can be blithely unaware that some things I do/don't experience aren't universal. But in specific situations, it often falls into this pointless web of "well, I'm privileged in the sense that patients sometimes see a man in scrubs and assume he's a doctor (i get called 'doc' a lot even after I introduce myself as a nurse) but on the other hand, my motives or practice as a nurse are occasionally questioned because I am a man." Am I privileged to be a male nurse? Clearly, yes. At the same time, clearly, no. Which makes it a pointless exercise, in my opinion, to discuss very, very specific instances to determine who "has" privilege. Suffice it to say that my nursing experience is going to be different from my female (or black, or trans, or ESL) colleagues, and we should both remember that. But I find it very hard to deny that, as a general rule, I will be stopped less by police simply because I am white, for instance. And that's important to remember.

But then on what grounds are women called "minorites" or "oppressed" (or "disadvantaged" as a group, or underprivileged as a group or whatever)? Because that implies that women's experiences are not just different but also (in total? on average?) worse by a significant margin. Regardless of how you define "privilege", aren't those actual, situational, on-the-ground experiences what matters when judging who gets the short-end of the stick?

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

Nail hit on head. The only privilege that counts, in a Western society, is having money. I'm not rich, but i'm well-off. I have a big house with a lovely garden. I can afford wine. I live in a nice part of town. Apart from paying taxes, the State demands nothing of me. I'm privileged. I''m White, male, and straight, but one certainly doesn't have to share those characteristics to live well, in the West.

I agree.

[Kalbear]

Tell that to the residents of ferguson.

[Kelli Fury]

See, the tricky thing about privilege, what makes it so hard to address, is that a large portion of those who have the privilege have no earthly idea of it. Since it is something they enjoy so freely they don't even have a reason to think about it or notice it is precisely why it doesn't change. This goes for privileges of gender, of race, of sexuality, and of class. People just don't realize at all that they are entirely exempt from some of the rest of their society's hardships.

[Clueless Northman]

That's just semantics on where you set "normal."

You don't get it, do you?

Using "privileges" is just fucking insulting and it pointlessly aggravates people you actually need to make progress in the areas you want to see things go ahead - people who might well be fine with making things better.

Privileges isn't a good thing; by definition it is a bad thing, because it implies advantages for people who don't deserve them. Heck, by etymology it basically means "private law", special regulations for the benefit of a specific individual or group, implying the basic common law doesn't need to apply to them.

It also implies that said people should not have these privileges and should be stripped of them. I mean, just look at various revolutions, French one to begin with - nobility had privileges, undeserved obviously, and lost them - or lost their heads when they didn't want to give them away freely. That's what privileges are, a situation you shouldn't be in by default, and one you should be brought down as soon as possible so that things would be fair all across the board.

While the real point should be that what you call privileges should be the basic standard for pretty much everyone. Heck, if everyone had them, would you still dare to call them privileges? Nope. In which case, they aren't anymore privileges now, they're just the norm / starting position for a large part of the population, and thing is the rest of the population shouldn't be disadvantaged, segregated or be served a crappy hand, but should just get the same as everyone else. Unprivileged people should see improvements in their situation. The goal isn't that everyone should be brought down to a crappy situation, humiliation, minor annoyances or whatever, but that no one should have to go through them. In which case, "not being in a crappy situation but being treated fairly and equally by the others" is nowhere near to being a privilege, in any way. Unless of course you just want everyone to be treated like crap, because then no one will be "privileged" - because when you say whites have a privilege because they aren't shot on sight by the police, what you imply is not that blacks shouldn't be shot by the police either, but actually that whites should be shot on sight, like black people are.

If you want to fight for all this, it's fine, but at the very least, stop butchering words.

I mean, really, if we begin to talk about "not being harassed by every idiot in town" as "privilege", we can go very far this way. Fuck, "not being dead" is a fucking privilege, compared to the tens of billions of dead human beings in history.

Bottom-line, you just won't ever get the sympathy of the majority of the people you actually need to get real improvements if you're just telling them they're in an undeservedly good situation, you'll only get them to work for you if you tell them people are in an undeseverdly bad situation.