Privileges
This page has been gathered from my white cis male brain with myself and fellow privileged readers as target group.
What are the privileges⚑
Privileges are a group of special structural benefits, social advantages, that a group holds over another. So they are elements that should be removed from our lives.
Although our individualist culture pushes us to think that the privileges are the result of our own individual efforts, they mainly come from facts that are structural, so they are out of our reach. Such as our genre, skin colour, ethnic, sexuality or overall economic status.
Most of the things we consider privileges are rights that we should universalize. This confusion makes us mix them with the ones that should be eliminated because they reinforce the hierarchies and give the privileged license to keep on feeding the inequality relationships.
To differentiate between privileges and rights, we can answer the question: Is it desirable to remove that privilege to the privileged?
- If the answer is yes, it is a privilege and we should fight to remove it.
- If the answer is no, then we should fight to universalize the right.
What can we do to fight the privileges?⚑
As white cis males we can:
- Make the different access to the basic security and dignity rights visible.
- Raise awareness on yourself and others on this topic among our fellow privileged environment. It's more effective to address and permeate a privileged person from a privileged position.
Unstructured ideas⚑
- It is really difficult to notice a privilege if you've always lived with it. Go to the Michael Kimmel book for more information.
- The limits and barriers that slow us down is what is usually seen, unlike the facilities we have to run faster.
- The individual solutions usually fail to solve social issues.
Unfinished list of male privileges⚑
- Male positions are more valued by social structures, even when we are wrong.
- There are several abilities that are taken for granted.
- We can neglect the care work.
- We are more hireables as stated by the Jennifer-John effect.
- We escalate more in the organizational hierarchy due to informal fraternity networks.
- We can use violence when we want.
Unfinished list of rights to universalize⚑
- Science in general is performed by white male cis for the white male cis humans. Therefore there is a medical gender gap or facial recognition algorithms struggle to recognize black faces.
Resources⚑
Articles⚑
- ¿Existen los privilegios masculinos?
- How to talk to your family, friends about racism and white privilege
- Peggy McIntosh articles
- How to talk to your white friends and family about privilege
- How to reduce online racism by Mark Holden, a long essay with interesting tips and a lot of useful visualizations, I haven't checked the sources but it looks legit. (Thanks for the recommendation Laurie
:))
