Characterization

No
time for blogging today - gotta draw, gotta go to work, blah blah blah.
So instead, here’s a piece I compiled five or six years ago, originally
as an exercise for a women’s studies class. It’s probably my most
widely-read piece; as well as floating around on the internet, it’s
been used in dozens of high school and college courses.

The Male Privilege Checklist
An Unabashed Imitation of an article by Peggy McIntosh

In 1990, Wellesley College professor Peggy McIntosh wrote an essay called "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack".
McIntosh observes that whites in the U.S. are "taught to see racism
only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems
conferring dominance on my group." To illustrate these invisible
systems, McIntosh wrote a list of 26 invisible privileges whites
benefit from.

As McIntosh points out, men also tend to be
unaware of their own privileges as men. In the spirit of McIntosh’s
essay, I thought I’d compile a list similar to McIntosh’s, focusing on
the invisible privileges benefiting men.

Since I first
compiled it, the list has been posted several times on internet
discussion groups. Very helpfully, many people have suggested additions
to the checklist. More commonly, of course, critics (usually, but not
exclusively, male) have pointed out men have disadvantages too - being
drafted into the army, being expected to suppress emotions, and so on.
These are indeed bad things - but I never claimed that life for men is
all ice cream sundaes. Pointing out that men are privileged in no way
denies that sometimes bad things happen to men.

In the end,
however, it is men and not women who make the most money; men and not
women who dominate the government and the corporate boards; men and not
women who dominate virtually all of the most powerful positions of
society. And it is women and not men who suffer the most from intimate
violence and rape; who are the most likely to be poor; who are, on the
whole, given the short end of patriarchy’s stick. As Marilyn Frye has
argued, while men are harmed by patriarchy, women are oppressed by it.

Several
critics have also argued that the list somehow victimizes women. I
disagree; pointing out problems is not the same as perpetuating them.
It is not a "victimizing" position to acknowledge that injustice
exists; on the contrary, without that acknowledgement it isn’t possible
to fight injustice.

An internet acquaintance of mine once
wrote, "The first big privilege which whites, males, people in upper
economic classes, the able bodied, the straight (I think one or two of
those will cover most of us) can work to alleviate is the privilege to
be oblivious to privilege." This checklist is, I hope, a step towards
helping men to give up the "first big privilege."

The Male Privilege Checklist

1.
My odds of being hired for a job, when competing against female
applicants, are probably skewed in my favor. The more prestigious the
job, the larger the odds are skewed.

2. I can be confident that my co-workers won’t think I got my job because of my sex - even though that might be true.

3. If I am never promoted, it’s not because of my sex.

4. If I fail in my job or career, I can feel sure this won’t be seen as a black mark against my entire sex’s capabilities.

5. The odds of my encountering sexual harassment on the job are so low as to be negligible.

6.
If I do the same task as a woman, and if the measurement is at all
subjective, chances are people will think I did a better job.

7. If I’m a teen or adult, and if I can stay out of prison, my odds of being raped are so low as to be negligible.

8. I am not taught to fear walking alone after dark in average public spaces.

9. If I choose not to have children, my masculinity will not be called into question.

10. If I have children but do not provide primary care for them, my masculinity will not be called into question.

11.
If I have children and provide primary care for them, I’ll be praised
for extraordinary parenting if I’m even marginally competent.

12. If I have children and pursue a career, no one will think I’m selfish for not staying at home.

13.
If I seek political office, my relationship with my children, or who I
hire to take care of them, will probably not be scrutinized by the
press.

14. Chances are my elected representatives are mostly
people of my own sex. The more prestigious and powerful the elected
position, the more likely this is to be true.

15. I can be
somewhat sure that if I ask to see "the person in charge," I will face
a person of my own sex. The higher-up in the organization the person
is, the surer I can be.

16. As a child, chances are I was encouraged to be more active and outgoing than my sisters.

17.
As a child, I could choose from an almost infinite variety of
children’s media featuring positive, active, non-stereotyped heroes of
my own sex. I never had to look for it; male heroes were the default.

18. As a child, chances are I got more teacher attention than girls who raised their hands just as often.

19.
If my day, week or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative
episode or situation whether or not it has sexist overtones.

20.
I can turn on the television or glance at the front page of the
newspaper and see people of my own sex widely represented, every day,
without exception.

21. If I’m careless with my financial affairs it won’t be attributed to my sex.

22. If I’m careless with my driving it won’t be attributed to my sex.

23. I can speak in public to a large group without putting my sex on trial.

24. If I have sex with a lot of people, it won’t make me an object of contempt or derision.

25.
There are value-neutral clothing choices available to me; it is
possible for me to choose clothing that doesn’t send any particular
message to the world.

26. My wardrobe and grooming are relatively cheap and consume little time.

27. If I buy a new car, chances are I’ll be offered a better price than a woman buying the same car.

28. If I’m not conventionally attractive, the disadvantages are relatively small and easy to ignore.

29. I can be loud with no fear of being called a shrew. I can be aggressive with no fear of being called a bitch.

30.
I can ask for legal protection from violence that happens mostly to men
without being seen as a selfish special interest, since that kind of
violence is called "crime" and is a general social concern. (Violence
that happens mostly to women is usually called "domestic violence" or
"acquaintance rape," and is seen as a special interest issue.)

31.
I can be confident that the ordinary language of day-to-day existence
will always include my sex. "All men are created equal," mailman,
chairman, freshman, he.

32. My ability to make important
decisions and my capability in general will never be questioned
depending on what time of the month it is.

33. I will never be expected to change my name upon marriage or questioned if I don’t change my name.

34.
The decision to hire me will never be based on assumptions about
whether or not I might choose to have a family sometime soon.

35.
Every major religion in the world is led primarily by people of my own
sex. Even God, in most major religions, is usually pictured as being
male.

36. Most major religions argue that I should be the
head of my household, while my wife and children should be subservient
to me.

37. If I have a wife or live-in girlfriend, chances
are we’ll divide up household chores so that she does most of the
labor, and in particular the most repetitive and unrewarding tasks.

38.
If I have children with a wife or girlfriend, chances are she’ll do
most of the childrearing, and in particular the most dirty, repetitive
and unrewarding parts of childrearing.

39. If I have
children with a wife or girlfriend, and it turns out that one of us
needs to make career sacrifices to raise the kids, chances are we’ll
both assume the career sacrificed should be hers.

40.
Magazines, billboards, television, movies, pornography, and virtually
all of media is filled with images of scantily-clad women intended to
appeal to me sexually. Such images of men exist, but are much rarer.

41. I am not expected to spend my entire life 20-40 pounds underweight.

42. If I am heterosexual, it’s incredibly unlikely that I’ll ever be beaten up by a spouse or lover.

43. Complete strangers generally do not walk up to me on the street and tell me to "smile."

44. On average, I am not interrupted by women as often as women are interrupted by men.

45. I have the privilege of being unaware of my male privilege.

(Compiled
by Barry Deutsch, aka "Ampersand." Permission is granted to reproduce
this list in any way, for any purpose, so long as the acknowledgment of
Peggy McIntosh’s work is not removed. If possible, however, I’d
appreciate it if folks who use it could tell me about how they used it;
my email is barry-at-amptoons-dot-com.)

(Updated since the original posting to add some new items to the list.)

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Thanks to Ampersand for posting such a poignant blog post.