Privileges

It surprised me again. After every reading, I am fascinated, interested in how we should view the world. I learn something new every week.

In McIntosh’s article, I liked the idea of how she related the connection with how the privileges of the whites in the U.S. can also assimilate to the privileges of the male dominance. She stepped herself into the shoes of how some individuals were blind to how comfortable they were according to their privileges.

I couldn’t have agreed more when she stated, whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, average. In relating this to the male centered world, maybe women are taught to think like men, we are to learn everything in the book written by men, their theories, their perceptions of the world. McIntosh pointed out that it allows others to be more like them. We are born into the society and as we grow, we are blind, or don’t realize how we perceive ourselves. We want to be more like men.

We want to be independent, claim our own rights, or maybe just the stronger sex? Is it really because men are given these privileges that make them what they are today? True, the bad thing about it is an “unearned advantage” and “conferred dominance.” But when we do first acknowledge our unseen dimensions, I believe that privileges are good for anyone/anything; it just depends on how you take that advantage. We have too much going on in what we don’t see. Sexism, domination, privileges, homophobia. I wonder what more there is to come.