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raincitygirl, I stumbled across the... shitstorm is the best way to characterize it, I guess, currently convulsing the feminist blogosphere (for those wanting more info, RCG has a couple of links and there are more via coffeeandink). It reminded me of a couple of things - one that academic feminism and most of organized feminism gives me a headache (quite literally - ow). I am a feminist but I've always felt alienated from the "movement", a feeling that comes from growing up with a profound love for my faith. My shiny happy feelings towards Roman Catholicism have faded in the intervening years but Jesuits said give me a boy at seven and I will show you the man and the same holds largely true for me - once a Catholic, always a Catholic. I've never been and likely never will be completely comfortable with the the aggressive pro-abortion stance I remember from the big name feminists of my youth, despite my pragmatic attitude towards guarding women's reproductive rights as an adult (which would no doubt annoy many a Jesuit, were they to hear of it - not to mention the nuns who tried to recruit me in January). So, largely not a fan of organized feminism for reasons that only sometimes have to do with organized feminism itself.
Two, as much as I find the term "white privilege" personally annoying and overused by white people trying to beat other white people over the head for their lack of vision, it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist or that it doesn't affect the way I see the world. There's a problem with the word "privilege", I think, and the connotations of monetary affluence and social prestige attached to it - it's one thing to recognize that you are privileged compared to Sudanese orphans in Darfur, it's another to recognize how a culturally white Anglo-Saxon Christian society privileges you compared to the South Asian woman working in the cube next to yours. Toronto is probably as heterogenous a city as you'll find anywhere in the world but the dominant culture is still white - white people are the majority on TV, white voices dominate on the radio (regardless of the ethnicity of the announcer), white faces on magazine covers, white actors at the movies, white names on the spines at the bookstore. It means picking up a book or turning on the TV or going to the movies and overwhelmingly seeing my experiences as a white North American of a certain level of education and affluence reflected back at me as what is normal. I'm not certain if that constitutes a privilege but it is certainly a benefit of being white.
It means I am less likely to feel excluded or under-represented in society. It raises the chances that my point of view or political positions will be validated, which I believe translates into greater confidence in my self. And that is certainly a benefit of being white and one that is connected to the getting of the affluence and social/political position associated with the word privilege. So maybe all white people (and white women) aren't privileged but they benefit from being white in a way that a person of colour doesn't, regardless of money or position. We live in a society that still posits white as the norm, just as our society continues to posit straight as the norm (which is far less likely to change IMO but that's a thought for another time). While that benefit exists, white people have access to the levers of our society in a way that people of colour simply don't. Hating the term "white privilege", as I do, doesn't change this basic fact. Nor does being a woman and disadvantaged in other ways mean that I don't benefit from being white*.
As a sort of post-script, these thoughts rolling around in my head have changed how I look at my writing, both in encouraging me to include more people of colour in my work and to be more consciously aware of how I present these people. I think it would be a loss if white creators - particularly those who actually have those levers in their hands and the potential to effect and encourage change that goes with them, and not merely us wannabes and tryingtobes - stopped writing characters of different colours and orientations (and genders) for fear of criticism. I think there's a difference between appropriation of voice and universality of voice (although that's a post for another time as well) but at the same time, white creators need to be responsible for how they present their characters. I think this is a responsibility that applies to characters in general but especially to characters who represent minority or marginalized groups in our society such as gays, people of colour and women, and especially if you are one of the lucky few who benefit and/or are privileged by your race, gender, orientation, etc**.
*By extension, being gay doesn't mean you don't benefit from being a (white) man *cough*RussellDavies*cough*.
**I now have TWO gay women of colour in my novel - I fear I may be trying to hard (that's like 70 per cent joke, in case you were wondering).
raincitygirl, I stumbled across the... shitstorm is the best way to characterize it, I guess, currently convulsing the feminist blogosphere (for those wanting more info, RCG has a couple of links and there are more via coffeeandink). It reminded me of a couple of things - one that academic feminism and most of organized feminism gives me a headache (quite literally - ow). I am a feminist but I've always felt alienated from the "movement", a feeling that comes from growing up with a profound love for my faith. My shiny happy feelings towards Roman Catholicism have faded in the intervening years but Jesuits said give me a boy at seven and I will show you the man and the same holds largely true for me - once a Catholic, always a Catholic. I've never been and likely never will be completely comfortable with the the aggressive pro-abortion stance I remember from the big name feminists of my youth, despite my pragmatic attitude towards guarding women's reproductive rights as an adult (which would no doubt annoy many a Jesuit, were they to hear of it - not to mention the nuns who tried to recruit me in January). So, largely not a fan of organized feminism for reasons that only sometimes have to do with organized feminism itself. Two, as much as I find the term "white privilege" personally annoying and overused by white people trying to beat other white people over the head for their lack of vision, it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist or that it doesn't affect the way I see the world. There's a problem with the word "privilege", I think, and the connotations of monetary affluence and social prestige attached to it - it's one thing to recognize that you are privileged compared to Sudanese orphans in Darfur, it's another to recognize how a culturally white Anglo-Saxon Christian society privileges you compared to the South Asian woman working in the cube next to yours. Toronto is probably as heterogenous a city as you'll find anywhere in the world but the dominant culture is still white - white people are the majority on TV, white voices dominate on the radio (regardless of the ethnicity of the announcer), white faces on magazine covers, white actors at the movies, white names on the spines at the bookstore. It means picking up a book or turning on the TV or going to the movies and overwhelmingly seeing my experiences as a white North American of a certain level of education and affluence reflected back at me as what is normal. I'm not certain if that constitutes a privilege but it is certainly a benefit of being white.
It means I am less likely to feel excluded or under-represented in society. It raises the chances that my point of view or political positions will be validated, which I believe translates into greater confidence in my self. And that is certainly a benefit of being white and one that is connected to the getting of the affluence and social/political position associated with the word privilege. So maybe all white people (and white women) aren't privileged but they benefit from being white in a way that a person of colour doesn't, regardless of money or position. We live in a society that still posits white as the norm, just as our society continues to posit straight as the norm (which is far less likely to change IMO but that's a thought for another time). While that benefit exists, white people have access to the levers of our society in a way that people of colour simply don't. Hating the term "white privilege", as I do, doesn't change this basic fact. Nor does being a woman and disadvantaged in other ways mean that I don't benefit from being white*.
As a sort of post-script, these thoughts rolling around in my head have changed how I look at my writing, both in encouraging me to include more people of colour in my work and to be more consciously aware of how I present these people. I think it would be a loss if white creators - particularly those who actually have those levers in their hands and the potential to effect and encourage change that goes with them, and not merely us wannabes and tryingtobes - stopped writing characters of different colours and orientations (and genders) for fear of criticism. I think there's a difference between appropriation of voice and universality of voice (although that's a post for another time as well) but at the same time, white creators need to be responsible for how they present their characters. I think this is a responsibility that applies to characters in general but especially to characters who represent minority or marginalized groups in our society such as gays, people of colour and women, and especially if you are one of the lucky few who benefit and/or are privileged by your race, gender, orientation, etc**.
*By extension, being gay doesn't mean you don't benefit from being a (white) man *cough*RussellDavies*cough*.
**I now have TWO gay women of colour in my novel - I fear I may be trying to hard (that's like 70 per cent joke, in case you were wondering).