I do believe in fairies, I do, I do

[mothwing]

Ok, f-list, you are all very intelligent, well-educated people, can you do me a favour?

Can you tell me whether you think "privilege" exists? (As in, white privilege, male privilege, heterosexual privilege, etc., etc.)

I think it does. Never named, the concept was touched upon in nearly all our gender studies related courses at the uni. I think it is a rather good concept, and in keeping with other's theories on this (well. Just Connell and Bourdieu, really. I really never read into it that much). Being primarily a literature and now of late an education student, I don't know what the current positions are, of course, but I like it, it seems rather insightful.

It has happened rather often during the last half year that I brought up the term in a discussion and the people I was talking to put a lot of energy into convincing me of the fact that it does not exist, does no longer exist, or has never existed. When I insisted that yes, it does, the responses they gave me betrayed the level of incredulity they'd show with someone who is claiming that fairies exist, or the Easter bunny.

In the latest incident on a message board is not as though I rounded on them, accusing anyone personally and challenging them about their views, it was during yet another discussion on an HP forum about the women in the HP series. I argued that there was evidence of  male privilege in the book and was completely shot down by the others, called sexist for advocating reverse sexism, being an extremist feminist, a man-hating feminazi, accusing others of not seeing my point because they are men, the works.

So, please, does "privilege" exist?

Comments

[princess-magpie.livejournal.com]

I think under certain circumstances, it does exist.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Good to know that I am not the only one who thinks that.

[princess-magpie.livejournal.com]

You're welcome. :)

Being in the deep South of the States, I still see people who have racial prejudice, and show favoritism for white people. My sister used to be friends with a dog breeder, who said that she wouldn't sell dogs to black or Asian people.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

o.O That is a rather strange area to show prejudice. I doubt that it's something restricted to the South of the US, though - in many shape or forms it's bound to come up everywhere.

[fourthage.livejournal.com]

Yes. The privilege is having those concepts (male, white, heterosexual) exist as the default. And the problem is you have to get people to work beyond their assumptions of how the world is to see that that's a privilege. When a person has rights other people have to work for simply by being born into a particular subset of humanity, that's a privilege.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

THANK YOU. Good to know that I am not seeing thing.

[fourthage.livejournal.com]

Not at all. It's a lot easier for me to see male privilege than the other two, because I'm a member of the white heterosexual subset of humanity. I'm better at it than I used to be, but it's still work to remind myself of it at times.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

I've got the same difficulties with white privilege, and ablist privilege, for example. It's sometimes so hard to see them if you are not on the receiving end and I have to practice a lot, too, especially with white privilege.

[bronnyelsp.livejournal.com]

My goodness, of course they do. Though when you asked I was really afraid you were going to take the position that they didn't, because the question took me so much by surprise!

White privilege clearly exists in the mere fact that when I meet someone new, whether they are of my race or not, the chances are they are not going to go away and describe me as "the nice white girl they met at that party." That's the clearest example I always think of, and the reason why I never describe people by their ethnic origin, even if it seems to be the simplest or easiest physical characteristic to describe them by. Because I figure it's probably just my white-person goggles telling me that that's the most obvious thing about them.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Nuuuh I know it exists, I was just getting insecure, because no one else did. Well, Crocky did, but it was just the two of us.

After the third intelligent-sounding person told me ever so fervently they "don't believe male privilege exists anymore" I just had to ask. Especially that one male user was getting really miffed because he felt that I was attacking him personally. He felt I was saying that "he was not able to see my point because he was male", and that I was being sexist and then went on to share his personal experiences as an oppressed male. o.O

Your example is great. I think I'll treat him to that when he asks again, mine did not really seem to do the job.