Systems of Privilege-Blog #1

After reading Ch. 2, the most interesting thing I read was how we, as a society, have certain "norms" in which we use as a standard to judge other people. The book talks about how we use these norms against those who have disabilities but humans generally have standards for every aspect of life; i.e. being heterosexual is normal and being heterosexual is abnormal, being able-bodied is normal and being disabled is abnormal. The questions I always ask is who is to say what is normal or not? Who is to say what is right from wrong? What if being homosexual is actually the way we are supposed to be and being heterosexual is abnormal? Society as a whole has set standards in which the majority of people look up to and believe in, which is why I believe women have been oppressed. For so long, society has embedded in our brains that women aren't as strong, as smart, as capable as men are and it has been this way for so many years that it is going to take a very long time to convince the entire population that men and women are equal.
I also thought that the bootstrap myth was very interesting because it made a lot of sense to me. There are many sayings like, "you can do anything you set your mind to" or "you can be anything you want to be". These sayings I think support this myth because if one is focused and ambitious, according to this myth and these sayings, they will achieve anything they desire. But, many people don't have a lot of the same resources or privileges as other people. For example, I was able to get a car as soon as I was 16 because my father offered to pay the down payment and as long as I have a job, I would be able to pay the monthly payments on my own. Well, not everyone is as fortunate as I am to have someone there to help support them in that aspect. If my dad didn't help me, I wouldn't have been able to get a car at 16. I would have had to wait until I saved up enough money, regardless of how motivated and driven I was to have a car by the early age of 16. Someone can be the most motivated , hard-working, and ambitious person but without the right resources and/or privileges, sometimes it is almost impossible to move up the social ladder.