Check Your Privilege: The Basics
Someone just called you out on privilege. It’s a strange encounter because you don’t feel privileged. You probably feel the opposite because, let’s be honest, life is tough.
When someone calls you out on privilege, they are not claiming your life is always rainbows and sunshine. You’re not privileged in every aspect of life.
Let’s say you’re called out on A. You may be compelled to note your disadvantage in B, C, D, and E. But you still have an advantage in A, which will remain in your favor as long as society deems “A” worthy of benefits and immunities.
Because privilege is not about you — a singular individual with your particular backstory and set of hardships — it’s about “you,” the unwitting benefactor to a system created generations before you were born, a system that’s perpetuated this widespread, accepted notion of what is “standard,” “normal,” “beautiful,” or “right.”
Having privilege does not make you a bad person. But having privilege without recognizing it means you don’t know your impact on others. “Checking your privilege” allows you to exercise privilege more consciously, preferably to the equity of marginalized people.
In the image above, you have three fans watching a game. “Privilege” for these people isn’t just about being tall — it’s about having enough height to see over a fence someone else has built. Becoming aware of privilege is acknowledging other people need more than one box to stand on, not because they’re “special snowflakes” but because the fence wasn’t built with them in mind.
The following are some basic privileges to become aware of. Keep in mind this is not meant to be an exhaustive list of every privilege out there. Additionally, these were written from an American/Western perspective.
Quick Acronyms
PoC = Person of Color
AMAB = Assigned Male at Birth
AFAB = Assigned Female at Birth
—
AMERICAN
American privilege is living in a ‘superpower’ nation “that wields enough military, political and economic might to convince nations in all parts of the world to do things they otherwise wouldn’t.” This includes having the US dollar stand as the world standard in currency. It’s living in a land known for the oldest working constitution and the beacon for immigrants* wanting a fresh start.
(*also hypocrisy)
America is a cultural imperialist, from Hollywood to NASA. It’s a leader in higher education and birthplace of some of the most powerful brands in the world (think Apple and Coca-Cola). America’s best global export may very well be its television programs.
Oftentimes, American privilege is mixed up with white privilege because much of American history is based on white supremacy. American privilege, at its core, is enjoyed by any person born, raised, or living in the USA. When American PoC travel abroad, they still experience American privilege.
American privilege is needing the world to care about American culture and politics while simultaneously picking and choosing which international cultures and politics to follow. It is expecting other people to speak English, accept dollars, and avoid the metric system.
>>American privilege checklist
WHITE
The idea of white privilege comes from European colonialism. “Prior to the British experience with the Irish and the enslavement of Africans in North America, the concept of race, including categories such as ‘white’ and ‘color’ as social markers of inferiority and superiority, did not exist.”
The Irish now benefit from white privilege, while Indians and Africans generally do not. East Asians are beginning to feel white privilege in America, and “it’s a reminder that whiteness has never been defined by a person’s country of origin or genetic makeup.”
White privilege often extends to light-skin people of color who can be mistaken for white. If you are a light-skin PoC in the company of darker-skin PoC, you get a boost in status because of mainstream culture promoting whiteness as rightness. On the flip side, if you are a white person with darker/olive skin, you may sometimes be mistaken for a person of color and have trouble benefiting from white privilege all the time.
People with white privilege tend to feel less impact from other forms of discrimination relative to people of color. White women tend to be heard over women of color, and white people dealing with poverty tend to experience less direct hostility than PoC who’ve risen to upper class.
In Western culture, white privilege is looking at the media and seeing white faces looking back at you. It’s this analysis on the colors “flesh” and “nude.” It’s not realizing the “politically correct” term ‘Caucasian’ is actually racist.
MALE
Male privilege is a systematic power imbalance between men and women that gives men more power and prestige than women. It is rooted in the societal construct of patriarchy, in which “property and wealth were passed down through the line of the patriarch, or father… [and] in order to ensure a rightful heir, a woman’s sexuality had to be controlled. This is why it became so important for a woman to be a virgin before marriage.”
If you are male or AMAB, you are granted male privilege. Some aspects of male privilege extend to people who identify as, or are mistaken for, men and people who present as masculine (see: cisgender privilege).
Male privilege is being the core demographic of most media, regardless of the female/AFAB percentage. It is having excellent health care because “for the past century, drugs that are approved and released into the marketplace have been tested only on male cells and male animals, and human clinical trials have been performed ‘almost exclusively’ on men.” Male privilege is having the male body be the default, to the effect that all fake skeletons have a male frame.
Male privilege is also subtle. It is being given more influence and authority than your female, AFAB, or feminine peers. It is built into the notion that masculine traits, such as strength and aggression, should be valued over feminine traits, such as patience and compassion.
CISGENDER
A cisgender identity is when your sex (a complex combination of biological factors) matches your gender (a neural perception of your being).
Cisgender privilege is being a gender (man or woman) that is in direct relation to your sexual anatomy (male or female) to the point that your sex and gender are interchangeable terms (man⇄male or woman⇄female).
A transgender identity is when a person is assigned male or female at birth and does not always identify with their “corresponding” gender. Gender is a spectrum and people who fall under the transgender umbrella include, but are not limited to, trans men, trans women, non-binary, genderqueer, genderfluid, bigender, agender, and androgyne.
Additionally, if a person is born intersex, their sex and gender can never be interchangeable. Oftentimes, parents and doctors coercively assign them as male or female, resulting in irreversible surgeries and a childhood of forced hormone therapy. Watch these four individuals talk about their experiences growing up intersex.
A transgender or intersex person may sometimes benefit from cisgender privilege, but this is usually appearance-based and depends on circumstance. In cultures where more than two genders are recognized, cisgender privilege is less prominent.
>>Cisgender privilege checklist
HETEROSEXUAL
The definition of ‘heterosexual’ came about in the twentieth century as a way for psychiatrists to separate “normal” and “deviant” sexual behavior. Jonathan Ned Katz, a historian of sexuality, argues: “Contrary to today’s bio-belief, the heterosexual/homosexual binary is not in nature, but is socially constructed, therefore deconstructable.”
In 1948, the Kinsey scale was developed to address the reality that sexuality is, in fact, a continuum — bringing in the concept of bisexuality. More recently, the Red-Purple Scale of Attraction builds upon the Kinsey by including the spectrum between asexuality and hypersexuality. Both scales operate under the assumption you like some variation of the same or opposite sex (see: cisgender privilege). People can also identify as pansexual, queer, or skoliosexual.
Heterosexual privilege is granted to people who seek out, or are in, opposite sex relationships, regardless of where they land on the Kinsey or Red-Purple Scale (often to the point of bisexual erasure). The privilege can sometimes extend to trans men and trans women who are attracted to the opposite gender.
Heterosexual privilege is seeing your orientation dominate the media, from film to literature. It is not having to fight for the right to love another person because friends, family, religions, or governments deem your orientation to be “wrong,” “not real,” or “sinful.”
>>Heterosexual privilege checklist
ADDITIONAL CHECKLISTS
- Middle-to-Upper class privilege — because resilience and self-determination aren’t found in a wallet
- Young privilege — because older people are just as capable
- Thin privilege — because shaming fat people doesn’t help anyone
- Neurotypical privilege — because autistic, and neurodivergent, people are adults who can take care of themselves
- Able-bodied privilege — because disabled people didn’t choose to be disabled
- Vanilla privilege — because what people do in the bedroom doesn’t reflect who they are as a person
—
Written and compiled by Adrian Fridge.
I apologize in advance if I’ve said or implied something oppressive. I’ll do my best to revise this post as things comes up. Please check out Medium’s handy in-line responding feature to leave notes on specific words or phrases.
