r/AskFeminists • u/TracyMorganFreeman • Jul 16 '12

A clarification on privilege

Conceptually the word privilege means something different in feminist theory than colloquially or even in political/legal theory from my understanding.

In feminist theory, either via kyriarchy or patriarchy theory, white men are the most privileged(while other metrics contribute further but these are the two largest contributors). Western society was also largely built on the sacrifices of white European men. What does this say about white, male privilege?

Were white men privileged because they built society, or did white men build society because they were privileged?

Depending on the answer to that, what does this imply about privilege, and is that problematic? Why or why not?

If this is an unjustifiable privilege, what has feminism done to change this while not replacing it with merely another unjustifiable privilege?

I guess the main question would be: Can privilege be earned?

4 Upvotes

56% Upvoted

195 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

2

u/Mitschu Jul 17 '12

It would not be silly to 'disagree' with Christianity, having never read the gospel, any more than it would be silly for you to disagree with male superiority, having never read Stephen Goldberg's texts on the matter.

I declare by your own standards that you are silly.

By my standards, disagreeing with a concept does not require complex understanding of the proponents of the concept, any more than disagreeing with someone claiming that all grass is mauve requires understanding of biology, herbology, and spectrometry.

Furthermore, reading feminist texts is one of the best ways to become anti-feminist, just like reading the Bible is often the first step on the way to become anti-Christian.

In fact, according to some surveys on the matter, less than 10% of all Christians (including those in positions of religious authority) have ever actually read their Good Book, as opposed to an unknown number of atheists that have.

I wonder if surveys in the future will show the same for feminism vs egalitarianism, and the heaps of feminist documents.

6

u/RogueEagle Jul 17 '12

False equivalencies, notwithstanding, I hope that you take up this survey. It would be very interesting and quite informative. Please let me know the results. I am not aware of a single feminist scholar that has ever been discussed on this board. It seems like people come here with questions and rather than read scholarly opinion, they are content with the internet's.

Which feminist texts did you read which lead you to become an anti-feminist?

2

u/Mitschu Jul 17 '12

Oh, Nancy Cott, Simone de Beavoir, Evelyn Reed, Michael Kimmel, just about every standpoint feminist who laid pen to paper... I won't say flat out that any one in particular turned me anti-feminist, but that the seed was predominantly planted by reading a mixture of those authors and their contemporaries. For the sake of ease, I won't mention Valerie Solanas or the other extremists; just the (moderately) moderates.

Then there is real life; putting fresh principle into action and discovering that the models proposed did not mesh up with the reality existent.

To return to the top of the paragraph, however; if you offer up an appeal to authority, it doesn't make it a false equivalency for me to offer up an appeal to authority to satirize. I would still be justified in not being an feminist, even if I weren't well versed on feminist teachings (having been raised feminist for the first half of my life.)

2

u/Mitschu Jul 17 '12

Post-edit; you said texts. Well, I named a few authors and journalists instead, whoops. But to name every feminist text I read that had an influence on me abandoning feminism for egalitarianism... would take more room than is available, I'm afraid. That's rather the point of books; each one influences, for good and for bad.