How do you feel about the word "privilege"?

submitted by moody_ape from self.GenderCritical

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[–]zephyranthes 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

"you have _______ privilege" has been rendered meaningless, so much that using it at all makes the audience assume the speaker is woke and place her words in the wrong context. I'm not hung up on words; speech is meant to be understood. (We're fighting for "woman == adult human female" because that's what it means to the vast majority of the population.)

Most sources which don't mock the use of the word assume that: - privilege is based on identity, not reality - the wokes assign identities, both their own and yours - the wokes decide which minority or majority identities are privileged and underprivileged (nevermind that the wokes are college-educated trustafarians) - the wokes can't even agree on a hierarchy of privileged identities and are free to invoke and attack any identity they've assigned to their opponent ("neurotypical" as a last resort, if you aren't stunning and brave enough to unlearn potty training).

Additionally, a significant part of the societal blame for the existence of "male privilege" (sex-based discrimination of women) rests not with the individual man possessing the "privilege" but with the judges above him who unfairly pronounce him superior to a woman, and with the woman's caretakers who suppressed her admirable ("male") qualities and made her into a person subsequently fairly pronounced inferior to a man. When you say "male privilege", a man hears "it's your fault I had a shitty math teacher, I should be your boss even though I'm dumberer".

So when I need to talk about "male privilege", I say "discrimination of women" and give either a statistical example (e.g. studies which show _____ attributed to fake women are ranked worse than the same _____ attributed to fake men) or an example that's obviously sexed and/or sexualized according to the perp. The discourse wokeification treadmill is a fact of life (and, I think, a deliberate strategy of the wokes).

[–]moody_ape[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

the wokes decide which minority or majority identities are privileged and underprivileged

This reminds me of phrases like "this is the thing about pivilege: you don't realize you have it". I think it kinda makes sense, but it also sounds like a bit of a stretch. If I question my own privilege, than it's because I can't see it, which confirms that I have it. It seems legit and bs at the same time. It means I need someone who doesn't know my experience to tell me that I am privileged because they can see that I am treated better than them for being a member of a certain group. So I get to be judged for things I'm not even aware of and I see myself feeling guilty and being held accountable because such privilege isn't fair. It's just weird.

a significant part of the societal blame for the existence of "male privilege" (sex-based discrimination of women) rests not with the individual man possessing the "privilege" but with the judges above him who unfairly pronounce him superior to a woman, and with the woman's caretakers who suppressed her admirable ("male") qualities and made her into a person subsequently fairly pronounced inferior to a man.

This adds to what I wrote in the previous paragraph.

I think the way you deal with the subject when talking to people (using "discrimination of women" instead of "male privilege") is good and I'll probably do the same from now on.

[–]Anna_Nym 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I think the idea that no one can be conscious of privilege is a sign of how watered down and overgeneralized the concept has been. I don't live in a current monarchy, but I'm fairly certain the artistocracy are very aware of their privilege relative to commoners. I am also fairly certain that prior to the feminist revolution, men were very aware of their privilege relative to women. In Jim Crow or apartheid, white people were very aware of their privilege relative to Black people. When there are systems of difference written into law, everyone is aware of those systems of difference.

But in egalitarian systems, we're talking about the gap between the way society is theoretically supposed to function and the way it functions in lived experience. This is a much squishier concept. I think "privilege" becomes used as a way to paper over that squishiness. We should be doing the work to listen to each other and ground our understanding of inequality in site-specific and time-specific systems. What inequality comes from intentional actions? What inequality comes from historical legacies? What inequality comes from demographic numerical differences? What inequality comes from biology? "Privilege" often lets activists skip that analysis.