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Remedial women's studies course
mrt144
King of the NumbernamesRegistered User regular
King of the NumbernamesRegistered User regular
What is privilidge and why should I care?
I see the constant invocation and incantation (yes) of privilege all the time when it comes to reasons why I can't begin to grasp something as inherently harmful or worth caring about. The entire concept that because of who I am, I cant possibly be part of the conversation or begin to fathom an equitable solution to a problem is a discussion killer.
The entire concept of privilege is a rhetorical nuclear bomb and I'd like to see examples of how it isn't.
I see the constant invocation and incantation (yes) of privilege all the time when it comes to reasons why I can't begin to grasp something as inherently harmful or worth caring about. The entire concept that because of who I am, I cant possibly be part of the conversation or begin to fathom an equitable solution to a problem is a discussion killer.
The entire concept of privilege is a rhetorical nuclear bomb and I'd like to see examples of how it isn't.
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That's not what privilege means.
Privilege in general means that the privileged person has more power in a particular context, but with the additional connotation that they are not necessarily aware of their power.
For instance, in the Gamer Gurlz thread, somebody said that they didn't understand why a girl should identify herself as a girl online. After all, he didn't identify himself as a guy.
This is ignoring that it is his privilege to draw attention to his own gender. If he were to say "Hi, my name is Mark" in text chat, or say anything at all in voice chat, it is highly unlikely that the revelation that he is male is going to change anything. He has the choice to draw attention to it, or not.
A woman in the similar situation doesn't have the same calculus. If she says "Hi, my name is Michelle," or says anything at all in voice chat, a lot of the time attention is going to be drawn immediately to her gender with comments like "A girl on the Internets? No way!" or heavy unwanted flirting.
To her, the choice isn't as simple as it is to a guy. That's what male privilege means in that context.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
In the gamer gurlz thread, the question "why should you feel like you have to make your gender an issue?" comes from the male perspective. You may not get a satisfactory answer to that question - because you're coming at it from a particular perspective.
What privilege means in this context is that you have to accept that your perspective is not necessarily the only correct one, or the most correct one. Discounting the experience of another human being because it doesn't fit your perspective is a reaction of privilege. It is saying, "This person doesn't behave in the ways I would behave, therefore it is her fault what happens to her." In other words, there's the implication that if this girl didn't draw attention to her gender, she wouldn't suffer the brunt of unwanted sexist comments or sexual advances. Unfortunately, this doesn't work, because it requires her to hide her identity, something that men don't have to do.
So sometimes the morally optimum thing for a man to do when hearing a woman's perspective is to just listen. Offering advice, even if it is well-meaning, is coming from your perspective as the dominant party and is therefore going to reinforce perspectives of dominance. You have to step back and think, "My perspective might not apply to her situation. I might learn something from her."
That is not to say that you never have a part in the conversation, but that you need to be extra-careful not to immediately fall into a position of dominance and authority, but rather make a good faith effort to apply as much (or more) skepticism to your own perspective as you do to hers.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
So people use the idea of priviledge with the intent to discredit your opinions in conversations? That's got to be some kind of rhetorical fallacy.
"The fact that so many vacation days and time off occurs around the end of the year and that postal delivery or businesses take Sundays off is great because that makes things more convenient for everybody."
Do you see it?
Privilege are the assumptions which undergird your particular worldview and which are reinforced by society at large to the absence or detriment of other worldviews and so forth. The most prevalent being middle-class suburban white male christian cisgendered chaps heading to college but it is far from the only.
Privilege is what allows a dominant group to perceive things as "normal" that are actually rigged in their favor.
There are some excellent examples here: http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/03/11/faq-what-is-male-privilege/
One very classic example is this. If a man and a woman get married, the normal thing is for the woman to take the man's name. But what if they don't? What if she keeps her name. That is commonly perceived as a progressive (or even transgressive) decision. It's abnormal.
Normality in this situation promotes the dominance of the male spouse.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
He isn't ever!
Ok, he's right at the moment but still, there is one more thing to add. While male privilege can often be a frustrating concept to get across it is sometimes over applied and often used as a dismissal, which is definitely not an ok way to go around these parts.
Except the only people I see around here that use privilege in their arguments... do it appropriately, so it's not exactly a huge worry.
edit: I may have spent too much time in college talking to women's studies majors. At my college women's studies majors were not thoughtful about their feminism.
--LeVar Burton
Unfortunately, my copy of it is at home - so I'll have to look it up on Friday when I go home for Thanksgiving.
The built environment is not designed for people who deviate from 'normal' and efforts to redress that fact are typically met with a maelstrom of douchiness except when its done practically invisibly. The ADA is only 10 years old, after all, and people still bitch about the general idea of it. (Finicky complaints about specific requirements don't count, I think the width requirements for handrails should be slightly wider for instance but am glad it exists on the whole.)
The dominant self-select privilege for themselves, and then hand it out for those who acquiesce to sharing traits with them (the active process of hegemony.)
If you're not part of the dominant group, you are denied access and agency, but if you work with that group you receive some benefits.
An easy example of this mapping is the experiences of African-American musicians in the music industry: those who buy into the overarching system (take for example Jennifer Lopez) receive more access and promotion as their work becomes more accessible to those in power.
Contrast to Public Enemy and their reception when they attempted to take on the establishment.
(for those of us who have taken Women's Studies: tl;dr, bell hooks.)
:P
It isn't a verb. And if you use it as a verb then you are worthless scum and probably a Nazi.
Social privilege is often an expression of social dominance, which is why it can be tough to communicate. The person that gets to take advantage of the privilege often has no idea it is happening, and so often feels insulted or accused of wrongdoing.
--LeVar Burton
I am privileging this post with big ups.
Biiiiiiiiiiig uuuuuuuuups.
J-Lo is black?! o_O
Mandy walks by a playground, thinks nothing of it. Joe does the same but is uncomfortable that the women with children suspect he is a pedophile. What does that have to do with dominance?
Edit: Listening to Aqualung.
Using "up" as a noun means you're probably a British.
A British Nazi.
Which is historically anomalous.
Like a time traveler.
How exciting!
This is the only problem I have with your otherwise illuminating post. "Privlege" is all too often on these boards used as a cudgel by people in lieu of an actual argument to shut down discussion or to "other" someone.
Joe should stop giving the women in the playground reason to suspect him of being a pedophile, or be less self-conscious.
Many children today have little to no idea how badly they could have been treated less than a hundred years ago. Them not knowing isn't their fault or a "bad" thing, but they are still blissfully unaware of the privileges they have for being born now as opposed to hundred years earlier.
game, set, and match 8-)
She's Puerto Rican. So?
And Jesus fucking a Care Bear, this isn't some kind of contest. I'm just asking a question.
Well, I feel that AngelHedgie was too snarky in his comment in the other thread. "Privileged goose" directly implies that having privilege is a character failing in the privileged party.
Privilege is a product of systems, even when it is perpetuated by individuals. When it is inadvertently perpetuated by individuals, I don't think it's right to be antagonistic towards them. Especially since we're talking about something akin to quantum statistics - we can clearly identify general trends, but when we start to look at individual interactions it can be as hard to pinpoint one particular example of privilege as it is to pinpoint the precise location of an electron in an orbital cloud.
Yep, and much like it is important to respectfully point out examples of privileged thought, words, or actions... it's also important not to take it personally when it comes up. As I said above, privilege is the product of systems, perpetuated by individuals, so it's not necessarily a moral failing to have privilege. It's a major moral failing to consciously reinforce it... and a minor moral failing to refuse to confront it.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
That's a tricky thing.
Sometimes people use "privilege" to mean "you should shut up forever."
Sometimes people use it to mean "you should shut up for a minute and listen." But the person on the receiving end hears it as "you should shut up forever."
Sometimes people use it to mean "you're not applying the same critical thought to your own position as you are to the disadvantaged person's position" but the person on the receiving end hears it as "you should shut up forever."
To tell somebody in a position of power that they should give up some of that power is an inherently confrontational act. And because privilege defines social roles to a certain degree, the disadvantaged party is going to be (almost by definition) violating some social roles in that confrontation. This is why "speaking truth to power" is intrinsically subversive and transgressive, no matter how politely or quietly that truth is spoken.
So the disadvantaged party has a responsibility to ask him or herself, "Am I using the appropriate amount of confrontation in this situation?" Sometimes the appropriate amount is dispassionate, detached, intellectual conversation. Sometimes the appropriate amount involves a bullhorn and a float.
The other party also has a responsibility to ask him or herself, "Am I really being silenced? Or am I merely being asked to step out of myself and give somebody else's opinion more consideration than I'm used to?"
And no, there are no clean rules for discourse. But if everybody checks themselves [tiny]before they wrecks themselves[/tiny] and maintains a modicum of self-skepticism, then conversation generally stays productive (even when it is challenging).
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Here you go. This was really helpful for me when I first read it to illuminate what "privilege" means. It hasn't come up in the thread yet, but one defensive reaction when privilege is brought up is something like "I grew up poor, how can I possibly be privileged?" (simplified for brevity). The essay is also helpful for separating economic and other kinds of privileges.
I used to have that same defensive reaction. I still kind of do. I just recognize that growing up poor, white, and male put me at a disadvantage compared to somebody middle-class, white, and male, but I'm still a lot better off than somebody poor, black, and female.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Honestly, one of the best things about spending so much time in the city (and also having a commute where the train goes through areas of varying socio-economic clout) is being reminded of just how good I have it every day. A lot of people unfortunately get their vision blurred so that they can only see the other people above them and wonder why they don't have all the same toys and shiny things where they complain about how hard it is to make ends meet earning half a mil a year like that UofC professor and numerous NYT columns during the recession about 'middle class millionaires' and so forth. And yeah, if you compare yourself to Warren Buffet you sure as hell aren't "rich" but when you walk by people who are struggling just to eat and don't have ready access to things like plumbing; well, it helps ground me.
There but for fortune go I.
I'm pretty sure that this sort of thing contributes to the more left-wing attitudes in urban population centers.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
If I have this right, white males can do nothing on their own without being propped up by privilege, whether they ask for that advantage or not.
Everybody's accomplishments are a combination of endogenous and exogenous forces.
Privilege means you have more exogenous forces in your favor. It does not mean that you have fewer endogenous forces.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Money will not make you happy. But lack of money may make you unhappy.
Well, privilege will not make you successful, but lack of privilege may make you unsuccessful.*
*not a perfect analogy, but the thrust of it works.
--LeVar Burton
Overquoted privilege!
pfft worst analogy ever
hobos by definition have no privilege
thats the whole point of hoboing
that's part of it
the other part, i'm convinced, is that people just want the fucking government to step up and do something with all these homeless people and drunk townies and youth thugs already.
and maybe fix the fucking streets while you're at it.
urban areas really require a much more active government in order not to break down in very short order.
i don't really know what to think about privilege. it strikes me as something that is often invoked in a pretty unreasonable way.