I have privilege. What can I do to help?
I am a cis-gendered, white male. Aside from my sexuality (I do not meet the qualifications for a straight white male) I hit the proverbial lottery. I relate heavily to Peggy McIntosh’s assumptions that I was taught not to see my own privilege. I understood that women and people of color did not have the same experience that I did, that their lives were inherently more difficult; however, I did not understand (and I still wrestle with this to this day) that my experiences, again speaking to my race and gender identification, precluding my experiences as a queer individual, were not really a default one, but were rather better than the default. Allow me to explain myself better.
I grew up assuming that my life, my experiences as a white male were normal. It took a lot of reprogramming to comprehend that this isn’t true. It isn’t just that women and people of color are disadvantaged, but that I am also advantaged. My privileges are inherently unfair. And so, with the question of equity between genders and races in mind, can it be enough that I acknowledge my privilege? If I do acknowledge that I am privileged, Peggy McIntosh might argue that alone would be a step in the right direction. She writes: “Since I have had trouble facing white privilege, and describing its results in my life, I saw parallels here with men’s reluctance to acknowledge male privilege. Only rarely will a man go beyond acknowledging that women are disadvantaged to acknowledging that men have unearned advantage, or that unearned privilege has not been good for men’s development as human beings, or for society’s development, or that privilege systems might ever be challenged and changed.”
But this is unsatisfactory to me, and thus my question remains. If I want to work towards equity in terms of gender and race, it cannot be enough that I am simply aware of my own privileges. What steps can I, on an individual level, take to help reach a place of equity between myself and my classmates and colleagues who are women and/or people of color?
The UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, has some ideas. On their FAQ page, they answer some questions dealing with gender equity. The UN discusses the differences between gender equity and gender equality and why both are so important. Their website says: “ Gender equity is the process of being fair to women and men. To ensure fairness, strategies and measures must often be available to compensate for women’s historical and social disadvantages that prevent women and men from otherwise operating on a level playing field. Equity leads to equality. Gender equality requires equal enjoyment by women and men of socially-valued goods, opportunities, resources and rewards. … Therefore a critical aspect of promoting gender equality is the empowerment of women, with a focus on identifying and redressing power imbalances and giving women more autonomy to manage their own lives. Gender equality does not mean that men and women become the same; only that access to opportunities and life changes is neither dependent on, nor constrained by, their sex. Achieving gender equality requires women’s empowerment to ensure that decision-making at private and public levels, and access to resources are no longer weighted in men’s favour, so that both women and men can fully participate as equal partners in productive and reproductive life.”
This gives me some of the answers I am searching for. So the way that I understand it, is that I, as a male need to actively participate in the empowerment of women. This will get me closer to my desired goal of gender equity. And yet this feels too simplistic. What else am I missing? What else can I do to forego my privileges, or utilize my privileges, in a way that is mutually beneficial to myself and my non-male counterparts?
