Scratching the Privilege Itch

When people start using the meaningless word "privilege" in a political context, they soon slip into the depths of ridiculousness without ever noticing it. They start publishing endless posts and articles that attempt to construct profoundly weird hierarchies of privilege without ever stopping to question the validity of the word they use more often than an indefinite article.

Who is more privileged, a fat Asian transgendered heterosexual male or a thin white visibly disabled gay woman? A cisgendered working-class able-bodied Latina or an upper-class white gay transgendered invisibly disabled man? Protracted debates around these questions occupy so much time of the pseudo-progressive privilege-pushers that no real political activism takes place.

The reason why I write so much about my annoyance with the privilege-analyzing folks is twofold. For one, this small minority of jargony pseudo-Liberals make the entire progressive movement look ridiculous. If a reasonable, progressively minded individual reads a post like this one, how likely are they to take anything coming out of the Liberal camp seriously? The answer is obvious. Another reason why this masturbation around privilege bothers me is that it occupies the space where meaningful political discussions and genuine activism could take place. It creates an illusion that people are doing something important while in reality nothing other than a senseless parsing of a meaningless concept occurs. 

The self-righteousness that the privilege-pushers unanimously possess comes from their deep conviction that by owning up to something as non-existent as privilege they have confessed their deepest sin and can now receive the absolution from the Liberal community and rest on their laurels. After that feat is accomplished, they start policing those of their progressive brethren who have managed to resist the allure of scratching their self-aggrandizing privilege itch.

P.S. Now, whether you agree with the ideas I expressed here or not, wouldn't you say that this is a very well-written post? I kind of think it is. I need to go and examine my privilege of somebody who writes well.

Why Gender Privilege Does Not Exist

I have always said that "privilege" is a meaningless, useless, empty concept which is employed by people with lazy brains whenever they want to avoid any attempt at analysis. Let me use the mythical "gender privilege" to demonstrate that privilege is non-existent.

As a woman, I am routinely underpaid and discriminated in the workplace. In this country, women in all professions are paid less than men for performing the same work. This is disgusting, unfair, and wrong. When you experience it yourself, as I did, it is also very painful. So is that male privilege at work? You could say so if it weren't for one little thing. I could quit my job today and spend the rest of my life painting my nails and snoozing on the couch while my husband would exercise his male privilege to pay all of my bills, bear the financial responsibility for both of us, stress out about the competition in the workplace and the danger of being laid-off, and die several years earlier than I do. 

If I decided to exercise my female privilege never to work for a living again, everybody would applaud this decision. The New York Times routinely celebrates women who "opt out" of the workplace. "Choice feminists" keep screeching that women should have the right to choose to be kept by men their entire lives. If a man chose to stay at home permanently doing his nails and snoozing in front of a soap opera, there would be no similar social acclaim and support for him. He'd be a laughing stock and an object of derision for the rest of his life. 

Feminism got itself into a dead-end when it chose to analyze the workings of patriarchy in terms of gender privilege. Only when we recognize that patriarchy benefits both men and women while at the same time causing great harm to both men and women, will we be able to move ahead. This is a system that has existed for such a long time because it offers huge rewards to people whom it oppresses. It's time we stopped all senseless blabber about privilege and started recognizing that.