KINE 1000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Peggy Mcintosh, Male Privilege, White Privilege
4 Jul 2018
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White Privilege and Male Privilege by Peggy Mcintosh
The author often notices the men’s unwillingness to accept that they are over-privileged
even though they might accept that women have a disadvantage in general
oDenials which amount to taboos surround the subject of advantages which men
gain from women’s disadvantages
oThese denials protect male protect male privilege from being fully recognized,
discussed, and fixed
I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught
not to recognize male privilege
This paper is the author’s personal observations and not a scholarly analysis; it is based
on the author’s daily experiences within particular circumstances
The author will review several types of denial that are protecting and preventing
awareness about male privilege
oShe ten foes to list 46 ordinary and daily ways in which she experiences white
privilege
Writing this paper was difficult for the author because now she was accountable, as a
person who benefited from white privilege
After the author realized that men work from a base of unacknowledged privilege, she
understood that much of their oppressiveness was unconscious
As Elizabeth Minnich pointed out: whites are taught to think of their lives as morally
neutral, normative, and average, and also ideal, so that when we (the white) work to
benefit others, this is seen as work which allow “them” to be more like “us”
The author states that “If white and male privilege are true, this is not such a free
county; one’s life is not what one makes it; many doors open for certain people
thorough no virtues of their own
The pattern of assumption was passed onto the author as a white person
The author states that her white skin was an asset to any move she was educated
enough to take
In proportion as the white racial group was being made confident, comfortable and
oblivious, other groups were likely being made inconfident, uncomfortable, and
alienated
To the author, the word “privilege” seems to be misleading because its connotations are
too positive to fit the conditions and behaviors which “privilege systems” produce
Privilege carries the connotation of being something that everyone wants
oBut, as the author pointed out, privilege grants dominance, gives permission to
control, because of one’s race or sex
Even though privilege might grant power, it does not grant moral strength
oIn some oppressed (inferior) groups, those dominated have a actually become
strong through not having all of these unearned advantages, and this gives them
a great deal to teach to others
Power from unearned privilege can look like strength when it is in fact permission to
escape or to dominate
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