Privilege &c.
Jul. 26th, 2012 09:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mmanurere"Being a feminist is much more central to my identity than being a man."
It's still true (of course!) -- but it's also an expression of male privilege. The "man vs. feminist" dynamic just doesn't have anything like the moral convolutions of "woman vs. feminist" -- in no small part because "man" is a position of privilege in a whole range of really noxious ways. Every state of privilege (male, white, middle-class, etc.) carries with it a corresponding moral obligation to subvert that state of privilege. Only "subvert" isn't quite enough -- I'm just not sure what a better term would be. In any case, a principled failure to formally embrace one's own position of privilege is rather undermined when one expects cookies for it.
And it's even worse when one gives oneself cookies for what should be a minimum baseline for "not totally failing," not any particular accomplishment. So, yeah. Something I need to pay more attention to in the future if I want to engage in less fail.
It's still true (of course!) -- but it's also an expression of male privilege. The "man vs. feminist" dynamic just doesn't have anything like the moral convolutions of "woman vs. feminist" -- in no small part because "man" is a position of privilege in a whole range of really noxious ways. Every state of privilege (male, white, middle-class, etc.) carries with it a corresponding moral obligation to subvert that state of privilege. Only "subvert" isn't quite enough -- I'm just not sure what a better term would be. In any case, a principled failure to formally embrace one's own position of privilege is rather undermined when one expects cookies for it.
And it's even worse when one gives oneself cookies for what should be a minimum baseline for "not totally failing," not any particular accomplishment. So, yeah. Something I need to pay more attention to in the future if I want to engage in less fail.
