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[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; I'm objecting only to the signifier, not the signified. The reason I think "privilege" is an unhelpful term is that the word's ordinary meaning hides the fact that it has a nonobvious technical definition, leading the uninitiated to think they know what's being talked about, draw (wrong) conclusions, and get offended/drag the argument off in the wrong direction/generally mess things up. This annoys equality campaigners and impedes the enlightenment of the uninitiated person.
The workaround is to say "blah blah blah privilege - which I am using in a technical and nonobvious sense which you should read up on quickly if you haven't met it before - blah blah pay gap blah." But this is unsatisfactory because (a) it takes (perhaps unnecessary) extra time and effort from the equality-campaigner every time, (b) you have to do it early on or you're already off down the wrong path.
This is one of the reasons I prefer the term "kyriarchy" to "patriarchy": it sounds like jargon, sure, but it doesn't have an obvious wrong meaning for your interlocutor to focus on. If they haven't met it before, they'll have to ask what it means, and you can tell them, and then you'll both be on the same level.
Some possible objections
1. Who the hell are you to tell us what term to use?
Oh, nobody in particular. Ignore me if you like. But I've seen this failure mode play out a number of times (most recently this morning, kicking this discussion off), and I bet you have too. Think of this as a bug report, which you're free to mark as WONTFIX.
2. Other scholarly disciplines give technical meanings to ordinary words all the time, and that doesn't cause a problem.
Well, sure. But those subjects don't deal with the basic stuff of everyday life. If I see "jerk" in a physics textbook or "exact" in a book on homological algebra, I'm probably going to assume that they're not using those words in their ordinary sense, and turn to the index. It helps that those words are very unlikely to be used in places where their ordinary meanings would make sense, of course. However, if I as an uninitiated person encounter the word "privilege" on a feminist website, in a piece about something I already think I have some handle on, I'll read it with the ordinary meaning, decide it more-or-less makes sense but is WRONG, JUST WRONG, and charge off in the wrong direction.
3. Why should we change our established terminology to make life easier for people who can't be bothered to do their own Google searching?
Well, the problem is not that they can't be bothered to do their own Google searching, it's that they don't realise they need to. Something which flags up "this is a technical term" would solve this problem (while still leaving you with the folks who genuinely can't be bothered to do their own Google searching, who constitute a more intractable problem).
Besides, you want your ideas to be widely disseminated and understood, don't you? Just think about the current penetration of feminist ideas into the wider culture. As a society, we still struggle with "equal pay for equal work" and "rape is bad". Anything more sophisticated, like the concept of privilege, is (I believe but have not checked) understood only by a depressingly tiny minority.
4. We've already got loads of books and websites that use "privilege". Are we meant to change them all?
This is a genuine problem - something I remember vividly from my time among mathematicians is how hard it is to change entrenched terminology. The problem is particularly acute when there's wide agreement that the old terminology is bad, but not about what to replace it with, because then you get lots of splinter factions using different words, and the only sensible default for the unaligned is the bad old terminology.
But as I said above, if "privilege" is entrenched terminology, it's only entrenched for quite a small fraction of the people who would benefit from understanding the concept.
I don't have any good suggestions for how to achieve a switchover, but hopefully one of my lovely commenters will.
5. Do you have a better term to suggest?
Alas, no. Sorry. But perhaps you do?
[Also: Happy International Women's Day! If you're feeling depressed about the much-tweeted statistic that women do 66% of the world's work, produce 50 percent of the food, but earn 10 percent of the income and own 1 percent of the property, then cheer yourself up with The Guardian's top 100 women or the Awesome Shit Women Did tumblr.]
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; I'm objecting only to the signifier, not the signified. The reason I think "privilege" is an unhelpful term is that the word's ordinary meaning hides the fact that it has a nonobvious technical definition, leading the uninitiated to think they know what's being talked about, draw (wrong) conclusions, and get offended/drag the argument off in the wrong direction/generally mess things up. This annoys equality campaigners and impedes the enlightenment of the uninitiated person.
The workaround is to say "blah blah blah privilege - which I am using in a technical and nonobvious sense which you should read up on quickly if you haven't met it before - blah blah pay gap blah." But this is unsatisfactory because (a) it takes (perhaps unnecessary) extra time and effort from the equality-campaigner every time, (b) you have to do it early on or you're already off down the wrong path.
This is one of the reasons I prefer the term "kyriarchy" to "patriarchy": it sounds like jargon, sure, but it doesn't have an obvious wrong meaning for your interlocutor to focus on. If they haven't met it before, they'll have to ask what it means, and you can tell them, and then you'll both be on the same level.
Some possible objections
1. Who the hell are you to tell us what term to use?
Oh, nobody in particular. Ignore me if you like. But I've seen this failure mode play out a number of times (most recently this morning, kicking this discussion off), and I bet you have too. Think of this as a bug report, which you're free to mark as WONTFIX.
2. Other scholarly disciplines give technical meanings to ordinary words all the time, and that doesn't cause a problem.
Well, sure. But those subjects don't deal with the basic stuff of everyday life. If I see "jerk" in a physics textbook or "exact" in a book on homological algebra, I'm probably going to assume that they're not using those words in their ordinary sense, and turn to the index. It helps that those words are very unlikely to be used in places where their ordinary meanings would make sense, of course. However, if I as an uninitiated person encounter the word "privilege" on a feminist website, in a piece about something I already think I have some handle on, I'll read it with the ordinary meaning, decide it more-or-less makes sense but is WRONG, JUST WRONG, and charge off in the wrong direction.
3. Why should we change our established terminology to make life easier for people who can't be bothered to do their own Google searching?
Well, the problem is not that they can't be bothered to do their own Google searching, it's that they don't realise they need to. Something which flags up "this is a technical term" would solve this problem (while still leaving you with the folks who genuinely can't be bothered to do their own Google searching, who constitute a more intractable problem).
Besides, you want your ideas to be widely disseminated and understood, don't you? Just think about the current penetration of feminist ideas into the wider culture. As a society, we still struggle with "equal pay for equal work" and "rape is bad". Anything more sophisticated, like the concept of privilege, is (I believe but have not checked) understood only by a depressingly tiny minority.
4. We've already got loads of books and websites that use "privilege". Are we meant to change them all?
This is a genuine problem - something I remember vividly from my time among mathematicians is how hard it is to change entrenched terminology. The problem is particularly acute when there's wide agreement that the old terminology is bad, but not about what to replace it with, because then you get lots of splinter factions using different words, and the only sensible default for the unaligned is the bad old terminology.
But as I said above, if "privilege" is entrenched terminology, it's only entrenched for quite a small fraction of the people who would benefit from understanding the concept.
I don't have any good suggestions for how to achieve a switchover, but hopefully one of my lovely commenters will.
5. Do you have a better term to suggest?
Alas, no. Sorry. But perhaps you do?
[Also: Happy International Women's Day! If you're feeling depressed about the much-tweeted statistic that women do 66% of the world's work, produce 50 percent of the food, but earn 10 percent of the income and own 1 percent of the property, then cheer yourself up with The Guardian's top 100 women or the Awesome Shit Women Did tumblr.]
What is blogging for?
For example, most feminist blogs aren't set up to educate non-feminists. They're set up as a space where feminists can talk to each other and discuss things from a feminist perspective, because those spaces are lacking in the mainstream media. It's fine if a non-feminist commentator comes along and wants to learn. But most of the time, non-feminist commentators on feminist blogs aren't there to learn; they're there to spoil the conversation, to turn the attention on themselves and to waste feminist energy. These people are never going to learn anything even if they're patiently spoonfed day after day.
As you point out, we don't have a good substitute for the word "privilege". If bloggers avoid using it, they'll have to go round the houses to say things that they could say a lot more easily if there was just a simple word for it - see muted group theory. And for what? So that bad-faith trolls will have one fewer "mistake" to make in their armoury of a thousand fake mistakes?
Kate
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Re: What is blogging for?
If bloggers avoid using it, they'll have to go round the houses to say things that they could say a lot more easily if there was just a simple word for it
I absolutely agree that this is a concept that needs a concise term. I think it's possible to find a better term than "privilege", but I don't know how :-(
muted group theory
That's a new one on me (and "group theory" tends to spark the wrong associations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_theory) in my head :-) ). Reading now - thanks!
And for what?
Easier outreach, more obvious segmentation. The feminist blogs which are doing outreach will have one less misconception to overcome; those which aren't will look less like they are.
If, as you say, the majority of non-feminists commenting in feminist spaces are trolls, then this won't make much difference. But if not, it would save feminist time and energy and aid the spread of some very important ideas.
Re: What is blogging for?
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I'd also be curious to hear more about the ways in which you think the colloquial use of the word 'privilege' differs from the way it's used more 'technically' in feminist (etc) contexts.
I don't want to sound combative, I'm very interested. I've been immersed in feminist, anti racist etc writing online for years and don't particularly remember having 'aha! this doesn't quite mean what I assumed it meant' moments around the word 'privilege' myself. But it might just be too long ago.
Having just googled and checked a few dictionaries to see how the word is used in a wider context, I'm not actually convinced that the 'ordinary' definition of the word is all that misleading. (The OED definitions seem particularly spot on, if you have access, and have usage examples dating back to the 1300s). I wonder if some of the resistance that you're attributing to genuine miscommunication around the signifier is at heart more to do with resistance to the concept being signified. Not to mention the very basic idea that feminism has any intellectual points worth looking into. That's certainly been my experience when trying to have these discussions.
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If you look at Kate's Twitter account (http://twitter.com/griffinkate), you'll see that she's spent most of today trying to explain the concept to people who think they already know what "privilege" means, that they certainly don't have it because they're not rich/posh/whatever, and how dare she be so offensive as to undermine their accomplishments by calling them privileged? Now at least one of those guys is being genuinely unpleasant, but I don't think he's deliberately misunderstanding her.
I don't think that this is the best use of her time and emotional energy. Multiply by, oooh, every feminist activist in the English-speaking world, and we see the scope of the problem.
a privilege is an advantage one person or group of people has over others
Well, yes, but AIUI feminists use the term in a more precise sense - privilege (uncountable noun...) is a systematic advantage enjoyed by members of a group that they are not, in the main, aware of.
Re: What is blogging for?
Re: ...
I bet they'd get an easier ride from the police if they took it into their heads to try, though. Compare the Bullingdon Club's drunken restaurant-smashings.
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I think this is a very accurate summary of how these conversations generally go. And also I think the second half of my quote here is key. They do understand what's meant by 'privilege', and they do think it exists. They just refuse to believe that they themselves have any. It's a very different issue.
Re: What is blogging for?
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Re: What is blogging for?
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I think that privilege is normally defined as being some visible, tangible advantage, as opposed to the invisible miasma referred to in feminist discourse.
Re: What is blogging for?
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I think I hear the sound of a nail being hit on the head.
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Certainly being privileged in way X does often mean that you are able to remain blissfully unaware your privilege in that area, because that's kind of basic to the whole kyriarchical mess that is our culture. But being unaware is not integral to the concept as far as I can see. I mean, I can notice my privileges all I like, that doesn't make them evaporate away. My parents are still able to financially support me if I decide to do a masters, I still don't get hassled in women's loos for looking like I don't belong there, etc. Even if I'm aware that some people experience these things differently. Privilege is about how society accomodates you, not about your own mindset.
Sorry I'm all over this thread, and not sure if I'm explaining myself well. If I'm not making sense just say.
Re: What is blogging for?
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Well, I think the colloquial meaning is something like "David Cameron", and the technical meaning includes the following points:
1) conferred by society on groups
2) largely invisible, or perceived as "normal", by the beneficiaries.
This blogger (http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/03/11/faq-what-is-male-privilege/) doesn't include point (2) in her one-sentence definition, but does include it in her "in a nutshell" pull-quote. I think it's pretty crucial (more on that below), though I'm aware you're much better read than me in this field.
I've been immersed in feminist, anti racist etc writing online for years and don't particularly remember having 'aha! this doesn't quite mean what I assumed it meant' moments around the word 'privilege' myself.
I'm fairly new to this stuff, and had exactly this misunderstanding (and subsequent ugly argument) when I first encountered the term.
I wonder if some of the resistance that you're attributing to genuine miscommunication around the signifier is at heart more to do with resistance to the concept being signified.
Quite possibly, yes. These days I deliberately look for opportunities to treat disagreements as miscommunication, because (a) they very often are, (b) it does wonders for my blood pressure, (c) trolls often get bored in the face of my earnest explanations and wander off, (d) carefully establishing terms early on makes it much easier to have a sensible discussion over the real points of disagreement, whatever they turn out to be.
But! This is where point (2) comes in. A feminist might say "You are privileged", meaning "through no fault of your own, your viewpoint has become warped and untrustworthy; you need a reality check". But what is heard is "you are David Cameron, the vile recipient of unearned largesse". This is hard to accept, even if true. But the crucial point, the one about unreliable viewpoints, is much less uncomfortable (I think). Does that make any sense?
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I think this may actually be something we can genuinely blame on "human nature". I'd need to know a lot more about cognitive biases and cross-cultural replication studies before I could make that claim with any confidence, however.
Privilege is about how society accommodates you, not about your own mindset.
Hmmmm. Looks like I need to do some more reading.
Sorry I'm all over this thread, and not sure if I'm explaining myself well. If I'm not making sense just say.
You're making perfect sense, you're just contradicting what I thought I knew :-) But that's OK: the whole point of posting this (and one of the major reasons I blog at all) was to invite discussion and have my ideas challenged. The discussion's turned out very differently to how I'd expected (I was expecting more general discussion on techniques for changing entrenched terminology), but that's part of the fun :-)
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Interesting Links for 9-3-2011
Thinking as a technical author...
"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.
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I've read this post and it's comments a number of times...
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: Thinking as a technical author...
Re: Thinking as a technical author...
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On the other hand, this idea would probably have a much easier time getting adopted than an entirely new term.
Re: I've read this post and it's comments a number of times...
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 (http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/03/11/faq-what-is-male-privilege/)? 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 invent some specialised concepts and terminology.
[If you don't think that's a fair comparison, reflect that it's possible for one bright hacker to write a basic-but-functional operating system, but (as the stats from the UN page linked above make clear) women are still worse-off than men in all sorts of ways, despite 150 years of worldwide activism.]
In particular, we need to know about existing inequalities so that we can address them. And if some of those inequalities are invisible to those with the upper hand, that's important to know.
You could well be right about the jargon - it's a common complaint, and I certainly find it offputting at times. I haven't read many feminist books (and wasn't too impressed (http://pozorvlak.livejournal.com/153178.html#cutid2) by the last one I tried), but I'd be surprised if none of them have anything interesting to say...
Re: I've read this post and it's comments a number of times...
I don't think it does. What doing that tends to do - outside of technical/engineering fields where the words and concepts genuinely don't exist - is make the people inventing them feel clever and important while achieving very little.
"let's get on with doing that" is actually very easy. You make and enforce laws which ban sexual discrimination, you educate young women that they're equal (not better!) to men (thanks, Spice Girls), then you wait for the older generation who are set in their ways to retire/die. But that doesn't get you any awards or praise from your peers and nobody thinks you're clever. So you start writing masturbatory essays and inventing technical terms and so on. Shut up, and go and chain yourself to some railings outside a government where women have no legal rights. I'll be right there with you (well, in spirit at least, but hey, you know my thoughts of the pointlessness of direct action)
I'm also reminded of Morgan Freeman's thoughts on racism - to paraphrase him: "I am going to stop calling you a woman and I'm going to ask you to stop calling me a man." Problem solved.
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/10482634/ns/today-entertainment/
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I'm really not an authority by the way, I just lurk and read a lot!
Here's another take on privilege I read a while back and liked, that agrees with you:
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Basically, if you call it "a privilege" you're probably well aware of it. "It's a privilege to be here", "Getting my own office is such a privilege".
But privilege, the uncountable noun, is the whole set of privileges that your status in society gives you. It's a whole bundle of things and of course you can't be conscious of all of them, all the time, because part of the nature of privilege is that you take it for granted. So I know intellectually that I am privileged because I got to go to university, but that won't stop me moaning about having a bad time there.
People who don't understand the concept of privilege are making two interrelated mistakes. First, they think their own situation represents some kind of norm, or even some kind of minimum, and they compare themselves to the better-off rather than the worse-off. Secondly, they confuse privileges with the status of being privileged. So they think they can't possibly have privilege because by definition, everything they see as *a* privilege is something they don't have. Because they're the norm, remember?
This article (http://sindeloke.wordpress.com/2010/01/13/37/) is, for me, one of the best explanations of privilege on the internet.
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Re: What is blogging for?
I think feminist outreach is needed, but not on the web where it's hard to find things you didn't know you needed to look for. I think it's more valuable in real life, challenging people's ignorant views when you hear them.
I think you do get people commenting on feminist blogs who are genuinely clueless, but cluelessness about the meaning of "privilege" is just the tip of the iceberg. All too often there's a massive arrogance reinforcing the cluelessness, leading to faux-naive questions which are really about pointing out how pointless feminism is rather than about learning anything. It's all coming from the basis that the commenter knows better and what they've worked out from first principles in ten seconds must be better than what you're saying with a lifetime of experience and theory behind you. I've seen carefully-argued thousand-word essays dismissed with the word "Dumb" more times than I like to think about.
And of course all this is coming from a privileged perspective, if the commenters could only see it (but they won't). That kind of faith in your own ill-informed opinion doesn't usually grow in a vacuum; it comes from being educated to expect that people should listen to you.
This is why I so rarely write about anything to do with feminism on my blog. I don't have the energy to deal with the trolls and the people who Just Don't Get It.
Kate
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Re: What is blogging for?