Privilege

I know a thing or two about privilege. I was born white, male and comfortably middle class with a United States passport. All of these things together puts me well within the 1% by any worldwide standard. I am quite used to being privileged, what I am not used to is seeing privilege.

My privilege surrounds me like a castle. I cannot leave the castle, and, I cannot look back upon it. I cannot see it as others can. I imagine what it looks like, but everything is distorted when I look down from the walls.

There are people on the outside. People I love dearly. They can’t come in unless I dismantle the walls, and I can’t dismantle something I can’t understand. So, it’s my responsibility to listen and hear what is said about my castle.

I have been a part of several online discussions about sexism and misogamy since last Friday. Generally it breaks down to women saying “this thing is a thing,” and men saying “it can’t be THAT big of a thing.” It’s the difference between looking up the outside of a wall, and looking down the same wall. The wall looks a lot smaller from the top. From the top, it really does not look like that big a thing.

#yesallwomen and the Everyday Sexism Project gives us the opportunity to look at that castle in a safe environment. You don’t need to respond, just go over there and read. Don’t worry about defending yourself (or us), you don’t need to share your thoughts or have them evaluated, just read the experiences of others.