The Recipe for Success…
Be born a White Male!
Disclaimer: This was really difficult for me to publish as I have noticed that articles calling out systemic sexism tend to get trolled hard and fast. If ever we need proof that sexism is alive and well, this instantaneous backlash seems symptomatic of misogyny and the threat felt when anyone dares question the status quo. As it is, my intention is not to add to the aggression but merely state an observation. I am writing this to be heard, to highlight the voices of others that may get drowned out. I feel this is a good platform on which to do so as my experience of Medium thus far is that trolling is never tolerated.
Some of my best friends are straight white men. My brother and dad are straight white men. And yes, I know that generally whenever someone begins something with: Some of my best friends are -insert group of people here-, they immediately follow it up with something discriminatory. As if the opening is a license for the ignorance that follows.
But this is not an attack on straight white men. It’s not discrimination if there’s no power differential. Great quote I saw on Twitter to illustrate this:
White pride, straight pride, “meninists;” it’s all the same thing. A reaction to marginalized people’s refusal to stay on the margins.
I am not saying there is anything wrong with being a straight white male. This is not laying blame or going on an attack. This is not about claiming privilege is intentional, because it’s not. This is merely pointing something out about ‘how to be successful’ articles. Pointing out something about them which I consider more important to examine than the fact that people find them annoying, trite or pandering click-bait.
The Internet is riddled with stories of start-ups and kick-starters that have taken off — hit the ground running and climbed sky high ever since. Incredible income! Fantastic quality of life! Work for yourself! It’s easy! I did it, you can do it too!
And these are written by many different people from many different backgrounds but a majority are written by straight (presumption — I know), white men.
I click on a link, all excited to read an article with some tip or guide only to find that I already do everything that’s been written about. In fact, I do more than what they describe and a lot of it is pretty damn obvious stuff: work hard, persevere, be confident, take risks, up-skill.
I look at the authors of these articles and — oh — right: White. Male.
I appreciate that these articles are well-meaning, written with the best intention to ‘send the elevator back down’, but they are being written by someone who doesn’t even realise that they have few, if any, barriers, which is probably why so many people find these articles annoying. Not because they’re trite or seemingly obvious, but because they lack genuine substance. Reading these articles is a bit like reading a recent study that says exercising and eating well will improve your health.
The phrase ‘Check your privilege’ is unhelpful. This generally puts people on the back foot because it implies that privilege is a choice we make, rather than conditions that work out for us due to current societal structuring. For that reason I’d like to flip it. Rather than ‘check your privilege’ I like to say: “Notice if you have barriers”.
I don’t have certain barriers. I’m white, from a middle class background, perceived to be heterosexual (oddly enough) and don’t face barriers based on my physical ability. I’m aware of that and by and large I feel pretty damn lucky. I don’t have a lot in my way and outwardly the perceptions others have of me should and do work to my advantage. But there is one thing about my outward appearance that is largely impossible to control.
I am a woman.
The value of an article on becoming a successful entrepreneur drops significantly for me when I see that the author lacks the barriers I face.
This is when the #NotAllMen crowd pipes up and someone decides to interject with ‘white men get discriminated against these days!’ to which I would like to offer a few rebuttals.
1) ‘Not all men’ is benevolent sexism. It’s not accounting for ‘but enough men’ and it doesn’t account for the fact that sexism is not a men vs. women issue. It’s a human issue. #NotAllMen dismisses that there is a problem and detracts from the conversation.
Just as saying #AllLivesMatter in response to #BlackLivesMatter doesn’t address that racism does exist and is a problem. We are not enlightened enough as a society to introduce #AllLivesMatter when we don’t get that regardless of that, some people repeatedly get the short end of the stick for something they cannot change about themselves.
2) You may have seen this article about a potential unconscious bias published by Catherine Nichols on Jezebel. If you haven’t, please go read it, it’s fascinating and it made quite an impression. Twitter was all a-tweet with agents and publishers with a lot to say on both sides.
The publishing world is full of women so it could be said that Nichols’ experiment proves that sexism towards women is not perpetuated by men alone.
There was a lot of arguing that this experiment didn’t prove anything. That causation couldn’t be proven, which is the challenge of subtle sexism. It’s so easy to argue that it doesn’t exist or the motivation wasn’t because of Nichols’ gender that she got so few responses. But I would say that the thing at play here was unconscious bias.
3) I said it at the beginning of this article and I’m saying it again: In order for discrimination to exist those who are being discriminated against must have a certain lack of power. Please don’t for a second claim that men, especially white men, lack power.
Need some proof? There is a wonderful group of people who can speak to the privilege gender does or doesn’t give you because they’ve been through the gambit: Trans people.
I have many trans friends and they see it very quickly. I appreciate that this is anecdotal but it’s still worth taking note of. An article by James St. James really highlights the lack of barriers faced by men and how he came to experience this after his transition.
4) Changing diapers is not impressive. Yet, when a man does something that’s not perceived as ‘normal’ for men to do it’s often lauded as some wonderful achievement.
I’m not saying sexism isn’t something that just sucks for women. Men may not experience discrimination but they do experience a lot of pitfalls, shaming and pressure as a result of sexism.
Sexism and gender inequality are problematic for the men who choose to be stay at home dads. Who are criticized for not being the bread-winner or regularly told they’re so amazing for doing something they want to do and is pretty damn ordinary. It sucks for the man who is being abused by his partner, male or female, and can’t find a safe space to go because there simply aren’t organisations providing it. But I digress*…
Sending the elevator back down is great, but when it gets to the bottom it might be held open for some people and not others. I decided to write this piece after reading a series of articles written by Karyn Finney, who ran a very successful Kickstarter campaign. I read her first two articles with great interest and enthusiasm.
Finney has written a piece with significant value for me: The success story of someone with obvious barriers.
She’s not just a woman, she’s a Black woman in tech.
You’d have to be living under a rock and incredibly naive to doubt that Finney faces significant barriers. When she sends the elevator back down she’s actually telling me how to make myself more sellable, more able to get to the front of the queue, more likely to step through the door and get a ride up.
Her reflections are far beyond ‘work hard and be yourself’. She’s providing a way to infiltrate the system, to play it so the barriers are accounted for.
Her article stands out in a sea of obvious platitudes written by people who have potentially never considered that the society we live in makes it easier for them.
I don’t think it’s any new discovery that women and people of visible minorities have to work that much harder to prove themselves in almost any professional setting. Articles that get specific about this hard work are actually providing something substantial and meaningful. Something that stands out against a crowd of ‘Get up early, don’t multi-task and remember to eat eggs for breakfast’ style articles.
I’d like to see more of them and in the mean time, I’m ignoring all the click-bait with a nice smiling white face of man next to it.
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Sharing is caring! Please recommend by clicking the green heart. Also — if you have any articles along the lines of what Finney wrote that you’d like to recommend, post them in the comments!
* I wrote a piece on how much discrimination sucks for everyone where this digression is actually the main topic.
