privilege: it watches you while you sleep

Hey, you know what I want to write about now? Privilege and what that means! So horray, let's read on.

I'm not actually sure where you all are on your understandings of privilege so I'm going to start from a fairly basic place, which works good for me, since I'm just beginning to learn how to write about this stuff. I'm going to ask everyone to keep an open mind while reading. Privilege is a touchy subject, people don't like getting called out on it but it is important to understand our own privilege before we can really get anywhere with the work of change.

A big part of privilege is that anyone reading this has some privilege. Our society is pretty much hierarchical and the higher up in the hierarchy you are, the more privilege you have. Who has the most privilege (in this country at least)? Rich white heterosexual Christian dudes. And there are all kinds of privilege. Heterosexual privilege, white privilege, male privilege, body privilege, the list goes on.

Privilege isn't something we ask for. It's not something we get because we earned it or because we are smarter or better. It is because we live in a patriarchy that rewards people based on arbitrary gender, race, sexual orientation, size, age and other lines. It's not all obvious things either. It can be small things, like, in the case of heterosexual privilege, the ability to be affectionate with your partner in public without fear of retaliation from other people. Like all things, this is not true without exception. If we go to the Castro, plenty of gay couples are openly affectionate. But in most places, queer people must either risk getting some degree of homophobic crap thrown in their direction or just not be affectionate with their partners.

Example of male privilege? What about the fact that women are expected to pluck every unsightly hair from their body and what about the fact that women are expected to find the non-existant happy medium between being a prude and a slut because god forbid a woman have sex as she pleases and god forbid she be anything but the vision of perfect beauty.

What about white privilege? Well this is a subject that I am markedly less knowledgeable in so I will link you guys over to an article that helped me understand what kind of privilege I have as a white person. So go here to read it and enjoy it. It's interesting.

I'm gonna move on now, going through every kind of privilege would take a long time.

So our privileges shape how we see the world. This is true. It means that when we are talking, we need to watch our privilege. Make broad statements about other oppressed groups or excluding these groups is a way of showing that we are unaware of our privilege

The absolute first thing we can do when we want to combat any kind of oppression where we are not a member of the oppressed group is to acknowledge our privilege. This is hard, I think, mostly because people don't like the idea that they are given special, unearned privileges at the expense of oppressed groups. They don't want to be known as racist, sexist, homophobic, or bigoted in any way. But it's important to understand that as a privileged person that we have a view of the world that is colored by our unearned privilege.

Privilege doesn't make us bad people, it doesn't make us evil or mean or awful. It just means that we live in a society that rewards and punishes us for things that should never be an issue of punishment or reward.

The sooner we understand these things and the sooner we understand how privilege works and what it means in our world, the sooner we can get down to actually working to eliminate privilege and, particularly, the society structure we live in now.

Know who I blame for all of this shit in our society? Why the patriarchy of course!

Recommended Readings!
Shakesville: The Blindness of Privilege
Shakesville: Hear Them Roar
I Blame The Patriarchy: Spinster aunt forgoes spider safari in selfless service of greater good
I Blame The Patriarchy: A day in the life of a patriarchy blamer
Punkass Blog: Oppression Olympics, Baby!