Why I do not like the term "privilege"

[pozorvlak]

[This post is basically a holding page for a discussion that started on Twitter but quickly spiralled beyond 140 characters per point.]

I think that the term "privilege", as used by feminists and other equality-campaigners, is unhelpful. I think the concept to which it refers (which I attempted to explain here) is extremely helpful and important;

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Interesting Links for 9-3-2011

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User andrewducker referenced to your post from Interesting Links for 9-3-2011 saying: [...] On disliking the term "privilege" [...]

Thinking as a technical author...

[zornhau]

...i.e. my job is to come up with terms that communicate to the general public.

"Privilege" as a technical term means "Largely unremarked advantage society confers on a particular group."

First of all, I think we're better using "advantage" because it's less loaded with judgement.

I can't help my sex, gender or ethnicity, or that my great grandfather's generation painted the world red, or that my parents clawed their way into the Middle Classes. Calling all this a privilege invites an angry response, or a reasoned defence. Calling it an "advantage" is fair.

But, how do we convey the unquestioned nature of the advantage?

I'd tack on "Default".

So, I benefit from the British Straight White Male Default Advantage. Fair enough. I do tend to bear this in mind in my dealings with others.

Re: Thinking as a technical author...

[pozorvlak]

I like it! Less concise than "privilege", but also easier to spell...

Re: Thinking as a technical author...

[zornhau]

Sometimes a large spade is a large spade.

[meowpurrr]

always capitalise the initial to set the word apart from normal usage?

[pozorvlak]

I've seen this done in philosophy books (to distinguish, say, the Form of an object from its form), and it's always struck me as rather mannered and artificial. It also doesn't work when spoken aloud. Or in German :-)

On the other hand, this idea would probably have a much easier time getting adopted than an entirely new term.

I've read this post and it's comments a number of times...

[anonymous]

...and I still can't see any difference between this so-called 'technical' term and the my understanding of the 'normal' meaning of privilege.

That said, I don't get feminism. I've never understood why it seems to need it's own technical terms, books, blogs, t-shirts and so on. Doesn't "women and men should be treated equally now let's get on with doing that" cover the entire thing? Ho hum.

-mat.

Re: I've read this post and it's comments a number of times...

[pozorvlak]

I still can't see any difference between this so-called 'technical' term and my understanding of the 'normal' meaning of privilege.

You're not alone: as you've seen above, plenty of people agree with you, including some people who've read a lot deeper into this stuff than I have. But I think the idea of invisibility - that it requires a conscious effort and some education to notice your own privilege - is, at least, widely understood among equality-campaigners and not among the general public, and that means that misunderstandings occur.

BTW, did you read this post? I found that helpful for understanding how feminists think about privilege.

Doesn't "women and men should be treated equally now let's get on with doing that" cover the entire thing?Well, yeah, but "let's get on with doing that" turns out to be both complicated and hard. It's a bit like saying "an operating system should allocate system resources to userspace programs" - that covers the entire thing, but there's quite a lot of detail to get right, and often it helps to

Re: I've read this post and it's comments a number of times...

[anonymous]

"often it helps to invent some specialised concepts and terminology