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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

male privilege and white privilege

23 replies

MitchiestInge · 26/03/2011 10:08

are these theorised almost identically or do people mean different things by privilege in the context of race and gender?

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HerBeX · 26/03/2011 10:09

Dunno mate!

I guess I think I mean the same thing by them - just the luxury of being in the group that is considered the norm versus another group.

MitchiestInge · 26/03/2011 10:18

they seem so distinct from one another in so many ways

was hoping someone might recommend some reading material :)

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Saltatrix · 26/03/2011 10:30

Also social class privilege,

BaggedandTagged · 26/03/2011 10:33

I think social class is different because you can change it, unlike race or gender.

MitchiestInge · 26/03/2011 10:55

perhaps I am looking for a History of Privilege As Thought as a way of understanding and describing inequality - did it start with race? Are there different models?

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HerBeX · 26/03/2011 11:11

Hmm don't think it would have started with race, I think it would have started with class. But depends on what era you're talking - the movement against serfdom in Europe would have got to grips with inequality but it would have been infused with religious ideas about God creating all men equal (but nto women)

HerBeX · 26/03/2011 11:12

And of course at that time, theoretically class was like race or gender in being unchangeable because of the great chain of being, but in practice people did change class

snowmama · 26/03/2011 12:06

I am sure there is work on early racism which was used to justify slavery for example. However, the work I have seen on the intersection between race and male power has looked at the impact of colonialism and slavery, on the construction of our social conventions and different group's resistance to it.

I sincerely hope someone can recommend something more current but some starter texts include, frantz fanon, toni morrison, homi bhabha, edward said, black british feminism reader.

MitchiestInge · 26/03/2011 13:23

ahh Toni Morrison, love her

someone just suggested to start with Marx. Not Marx, not again!

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StewieGriffinsMom · 26/03/2011 14:05

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

sakura · 26/03/2011 14:17

Slightly off topic but male privilege is a bugger because men will not admit they have it. You do get the odd one who might admit sexism and chauvinism is a general problem, but rarely do they ever admit their own male privilege.
I'm white so I can't really comment on white privilege, apart from knowing that I do have it, and that I would never tell a black person that they should shut up about racism, or that it's all in their mind.
And yet men tell women that feminists are talking bollocks all the time

snowmama · 26/03/2011 14:39

Mitchie I thought the same when I wrote toni morrison! Must dig out her books. Whilst I remember the feeling of 'not Marx again!'.....that advice was not a bad shout!

Sakura, I agree but sadly not only a male phenomena. I have come across many men and women who refuse the notion if white privilege. Often quoting class....which brings us straight back to Marx ;-)

There is lots of interesting work on 'whiteness' examining white privilege from a white perspective...started off by Richard Dyer many years ago....if I remember correctly there is also a chapter on it in the black british feminism reader...

MitchiestInge · 26/03/2011 14:45

yes women tell women that feminists talk bollocks too

I don't even like 'feminism' I think I prefer women's rights or women's liberation, not that it matters

black British feminism reader it is then, so far

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sakura · 26/03/2011 14:52

Oh absolutely snowmama. Both men and women refuse to believe in white privilege or class privilege.

Sadly, the fact that women refuse to believe in male privilege goes to show how ingrained male privilege is in our society. It's part of the fabric, it goes unnoticed!

HerBeX · 26/03/2011 14:59

I have met black people who refuse to believe in white privilege as well though.

They say that where they have experienced prejudice or racism, it's a one off individual thing and not systemic and they've never felt discriminated against or disadvantaged because of their colour or race, so therefore apart from the BNP and a few old gimmers in Surrey, racism in Britain isn't really a problem anymore.

I have to say unlike with sexism, that's a minority view though - most black people I've met do recognise that racism is still a serious problem. Also this is just anecdotal but execpt in one case, all the black people I have ever met who expressed this view, were women.

Not sure wht to make of that.

MrIC · 26/03/2011 15:16

"frantz fanon, toni morrison, homi bhabha, edward said," these are all great suggestions Snowmama and were still on reading lists when I was doing my MSc 4 years ago, so still relevant I'd say.

also maybe Cynthia Enloe (Bananas, Beaches and Bases).

But depending on your angle you might want to go right back to the start - Plato's Republic and Aristole's Nichomacaen Ethics - which were largely co-opted by first the Roman Empire, then the early Christian Church, then Renaissance thinkers, and as such inform a lot of western thought and society. Interestingly, while they are quick to assign roles based on class and gender, they say little about race. I think that didn't really come in until the Crusades (anti-muslim/arab rhetoric) that then became more sophisticated with the advent of mass-slavery and modern nationalism. Benedict Anderson (Imagined Communities) is very good on that.

snowmama · 26/03/2011 15:18

I could write an essay in response to that herbex! I think there are several things going on at once ...and all things, in one person at one time...
a. Desire to conform, similar to women who see no reason for feminism
b. Internalised racism
c. Rejection of social constructions of race (ie I am a nice softly spoken artistic black man.....don't identify with general constructions of black man)
d. Acknowledgment that changes have been made
e fear/embarrassment at having difference pointed out

...loads more around self hate...see frantz fanon etc...

Mitchie..I would feel a little remiss if I did not say...take the word feminism to your heart and love it ;-)

snowmama · 26/03/2011 15:26

Imagined communities...! Triggered off so many lightbulb moments for me. I think I need to find time to read again....

snowmama · 26/03/2011 20:21

...realise that I am doing crazy multi posting ..but my post should've read not in all in one person at one time...also massive caveat that post is massively over simplistic.

TondelayoSchwarzkopf · 27/03/2011 09:50

I second reading the Richard Dyer stuff - read it years ago for my thesis and I can't remember whether it was him or another writer who talked about how whiteness and maleness makes itself 'invisible' - that it is so insidiously privileged as the 'norm' that it makes it very difficult to pull it out and challenge it.

Politixmum · 30/03/2011 19:34

Tondelayo if you enjoyed Richard Dyer, you will also like Peggy Phelan. She writes brilliantly about invisibility - if visibility is power, why are semi-naked young white women not running the world?

For a long time, thinking on class, race, gender, disability etc developed in different strands. Each has its own school of thought. However from quite early on there has been cross-over, and e.g. black lesbian writers like Audre Lorde have objected to the way in which black politics assumed it was only liberating men, while feminism focused on middle class white heterosexual women.

Mitchie if you are looking for a basic starter in some of this thinking, you could flick through the Open University text book Social differences and Divisions, there are chapters on class, gender and race politics. (If you sign up for the course Sociology and Society you will get this and other books free!)

Recently we have started to try and think about these different aspects of identity as much better integrated. In social policy we have turned our different agencies into one Equalities and Human Rights Commission - lots of good reports here on different forms of prejudice. Feminist academics have started a school of thought called intersectionality. I work in this area myself, although I am trying to develop a different way of considering identity politics than intersectionality for reasons soon to be revealed in long-winded academic articles!

Wine
snowmama · 30/03/2011 20:05

Politxmum, I would love to hear about work you are doing on identity politics...and new approaches.

Politixmum · 30/03/2011 22:47

snowmama oh dear! That would be rather a long post! I will have a think about a way of getting the information out if there are people who are interested. I have a lot of lecture slides I might be able to put together on a blog I started. Unfortunately my DP refused his consent to appearing in my posts on gender politics and domestic labour! but I will work on him. (I will go on strike and he will get no dinner till he lets me tell everyone that I always have to cook dinner! Not really, he is very supportive, except about me tellig everyone about our lives through the internet! Grin)

I really just came back to say, mitch and others, you would be able to access books in these areas free from local university libraries. You won't be able to take them out unless you are a student but libraries will let you come in on a day pass and use their books. You can usually access their catalogues on the internet.

Night night! [sleepy emoticon]

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