Privilege: Expanding on Marilyn Frye's “Oppression”
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1. Frye's Structural Analysis of Oppression
Privilege:
Expanding on Marilyn Frye's "Oppression"
Alison Bailey
Marilyn Frye's "Oppression" (1983) is essential reading in most courses with
political and feminist content. One of the merits of her essay is the way in which
examples such as men opening doors for women, metaphors that equate oppression
with a double-binds, and birdcage-like social structures get tied to the meaning of
oppression. Anyone who teaches this essay knows how difficult it is to get students
initially to understand how Frye uses the term 'oppression' to refer to systems. Each
time I teach this essay I try to move the conversation one step further to make
connections between oppression and privilege so that, in Frye's words, these terms do
not get "stretched to meaninglessness" (1983, 1). Yet when I suggest that the oppression of people of color is systematically held in place by white privilege, or that
women's subordination makes male privilege possible, or that homophobia holds
heterosexual privilege in place, students who otherwise embrace Frye's analysis
become reluctant to extend it to cover their own unearned advantages. To my surprise,
conversations about what it means to have privilege are met with responses parallel to
those Frye mentions at the beginning of her essay "Blacks and other minorities are
privileged too; they get athletic scholarships and affirmative action benefits," my
students say Or, "women are privileged too; they don't have to register for the
selective service and men pay for their dinner on dates." Or, "gays and lesbians are
privileged; current city ordinances for domestic partnership give them special rights."
If students really do understand oppression as the product of systematically related
barriers and forces not of one's own making, then why do they abandon Frye's
analysis when I raise issues of privilege to explain how the oppression of one group
can be used to generate privilege for another? It would appear that they have not
understood the structural features of oppression well enough to grasp how their use of
"privilege" to describe mere advantages, such as having someone pay for your dinner,
puts the term "privilege" in danger of being stretched to meaninglessness. I've come to
conclude that any understanding of oppression is incomplete without recognition of
the role privilege plays in maintaining systems of domination.
This essay continues the conversation Frye began in a way that makes
connections between oppression and privilege. It is my hope that by providing a
parallel account of privilege in general-and white, heterosexual, male privilege in
particular-I can extend Frye's analysis to clarify the political dimensions of privilege.
JOURNAL of SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY, Vol. 29 No. 3, Winter
1998, 104-119 © 1998 Journal of Social Philosophy
In her careful analysis of oppression, Marilyn Frye argues that one of
the reasons people fail to see oppression is that they focus on particular events,
attitudes, and actions that strike them as harmful, but they do not place these
incidents in the context of historical, social, and political systems. According
to Frye, members of oppressed groups commonly experience "double-binds,"
that is, they are faced daily with situations in which their options are reduced
to a very few, all of which expose them to penalty censure, or deprivation1
(1983, 2). These binds are created and shaped by forces and barriers which are
neither accidental nor avoidable, but are systematically related to each other in
ways that confine individuals to the extent that movement in any direction is
penalized. To make visible the systemic character of the barriers shaping the
double-bind Frye uses the metaphor of a birdcage.
[Oppression is] the experience of being caged in.... Consider
a birdcage. If you look very closely at just one wire, you
cannot see the other wires. If your conception of what is
before you is determined by this myopic focus, you could
look at that one wire, up and down the length of it, and be
unable to see why a bird would not just fly around the wire
... it is only when you step back, stop looking at the wires
one by one, microscopically, and take a macroscopic view of
the whole cage, that you can see why the bird does not go
anywhere; and then you will see it in a moment. (1983,5-6)
Ignoring the systemic and interlocking nature of what I call complex
systems of domination (e.g., racism, ableism, sexism, anti-Semitism, or homophobia) has misleading consequences. When the effects of sexism, for
example, are not understood macroscopically as the products of systemic
injustices, they are understood microscopically as the exclusive problems of
particular women who have made bad choices, have poor attitudes, are too
sensitive, or who are overreacting to a random incident. Failure to examine
sexism, homophobia, racism, and anti-Semitism as harms produced by
systematically related forces and barriers blurs the distinction between harm
and oppression.
For oppression to be useful as a concept, Frye argues, the differences
between harm and oppression need to be sharpened. All persons who are
oppressed are in some way harmed, but not all persons who are harmed are
oppressed. Men who cannot cry in public or whites who are ineligible for
minority loan programs may feel harmed by these restrictions, but they are not
oppressed. The gender roles which make public tearfulness inappropriate for
men are unfair and may indeed be harmful to men's emotional well-being, but
there is no network of forces or barriers which says both crying and
not crying are unacceptable and that to do either is to expose
oneself to "penalty, censure or deprivation" (1983, 2). Similarly, whites
Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1334782
106
Alison Bailey
Privilege: Expanding on Marilyn Frye's “Oppression”
who are ineligible for loan programs designated for racial or ethnic minority
applicants are only oppressed if there are no other reasonable means of securing a
loan open to them. If whites are eligible for a variety of existing loan options,
having one avenue closed to them may feel unfair, but it does not mean they are
oppressed in Frye's sense of the word. Whites who find options for financing their
education severely limited may be oppressed by their class, but not by their race.
There is nothing in these cases to suggest racial barriers or forces that leave loanseeking whites optionless.
Since oppression is a structural phenomenon that devalues the work,
experiences, and voices of members of marginalized social groups, it might be said
that oppression is experienced by persons because they are members of particular
social groups. In the language of Frye's cage metaphor: "The 'inhabitant' of the
'cage' is not an individual but a group.... Thus, to recognize a person as oppressed,
one has to see that individual as belonging to a group of a certain sort" (1983, 8).
Before turning to my analysis of the concept of privilege, I wish to make two
important comments regarding Frye's observations about group membership and its
role in systems of oppression. First, because individuals are rarely members of one
community, oppression is not a unified phenomenon. Group differences in
race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, or class cut across individual lives to the
point that privilege and oppression are often experienced simultaneously The felt
experience of oppression of a working-class white woman, for example, will be
different than the felt oppression experienced by a middle-class African American
male. Because of the complexity of these intersections, Iris Young argues that to be
oppressed persons must experience at least one or a combination of as many as five
conditions: economic exploitation, social/cultural marginalization, political
powerlessness, cultural imperialism, and violence (1990, 48-63). The double-bind
may be a characteristic of an individual's experiences of oppression, but it is not the
defining feature, Both Frye and Young, I think, would argue that the strength of the
bind depends upon which of these oppressive conditions are present in a person's
life, how many conditions are present, how long they are present, and whether the
individual is privileged in ways that might weaken or mediate the binds.
Next, to say that women are oppressed as members of the group women, or
that lesbians are oppressed as lesbians, or that African Americans, Cherokees, or
Chicano/as are oppressed as members of particular racial-ethnic group suggests that
sexism, heterosexism, and racism require identifiable sexes, sexual orientations, and
racial-ethnic groups. Yet to understand how oppression is experienced by these
marginalized groups, it is not necessary for social groups to have fixed boundaries.
In fact understanding the systemic nature of oppression requires just the opposite: it
requires that one understand how the lack of a rigid definition of social groups is
part of complex systems of domination. One of the features of privilege is the
ability of dominant groups to construct, define, and control the construction
of categories.
In the United States, for example, the invention of the category
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"white" illustrates how systems of oppression are held in place by purposely
unstable racial categories. The word "white" began appearing in legal
documents around 1680 as a direct result of legislation enforcing the
hereditary bond servitude of Negroes, antimiscegenation laws, and new antiNegro attitudes. In time, the idea of a homogeneous "white" race was adopted
as a political means of generating cohesion among European explorers,
traders, migrants, and settlers of eighteenth-century North America. The
borders constructed between races have never been static. Racial borders are
well guarded but intentionally porous: the political nature racial classification
requires that these borders be redrawn as patterns of immigration challenge
them and new candidates for whiteness arise. Racial designations, then,
historically shift to preserve power and privilege of those who have the
authority to define who counts as white.
2. The View From Outside of the Birdcage:
Privilege and Earned Advantages
When I argue that members of dominant groups-men, whites, heterosexuals, or the wealthy-have privilege by virtue of their being members of
particular social groups, I do not mean "privilege," as Joel Feinberg defines it,
in its philosophical broad juridical sense as synonymous with mere liberties or
the absence of duty.2 In this sense to say that person P is privileged or at
liberty to do action A means that P has no duty to refrain from doing A, To say
that I am privileged or at liberty to take a job in Seattle means that I have no
obligations to refrain from taking a job in Seattle. Although privilege, in the
sense I will be using the word, does imply a greater freedom of movement and
choice, there is nothing about belonging to a group such as whites or men that
would imply that one does or does not have duty to refrain from choosing to
move to Seattle.
Neither am I using privilege in the sense of a legal benefit that is not a
right. Privilege in this sense offers valuable benefits granted to persons or
organizations by institutions (e.g., the state of Illinois, the federal government,
or the Catholic Church) at the discretion of those institutions. Having a driver's
license, being a naturalized citizen, or holding public office are common
examples of privilege in this sense. Because my driving or voting privilege
may be revoked at any time, say, for speeding or treason, the privileges to
drive or to vote count as mere privileges; the state does not have a duty to
grant these to me. I have neither a prior right to get a license nor a right to
retain it once I pass the examination. While legal structures have historically
played a role in holding heterosexual privilege, male privilege, or white
privilege in place, privilege in this sense is not captured by legal language.
My interest is in a narrower sense of privilege as unearned assets conferred systematically. My aim is to fashion a distinction between privilege and
advantages that parallels Frye's distinction between oppression
and harm.
Just as all oppression counts as harm, but not all harms count as
Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1334782
108 Alison Bailey
oppression, I want to suggest that all privilege is advantageous, but that not all
advantages count as privilege. Like the difference between harms and oppression, the
difference between advantages and privilege has to do with the systematically
conferred nature of these unearned assets. If we want to determine whether a
particular harm qualifies as oppression, Frye argues that we have to look at that harm
in context (macroscopically) to see what role, if any, it plays in an maintaining a
structure that is oppressive. Likewise, if we want to determine whether a particular
advantage qualifies as a privilege, we need to look at that advantage macroscopically
in order to observe whether it plays a role in keeping complex systems of domination
in place. We need to know if the advantage enables members of privileged groups to
avoid the structured system of forces and barriers which serve to immobilize
members of marginalized groups.
I am interested in providing an account of privilege and advantages that
further clarifies Peggy McIntosh's distinction between "earned strength" and
"unearned power conferred systematically" As McIntosh argues:
Power from unearned privilege can look like strength when it is,
in fact, permission to escape or to dominate. But not all
privileges... are inevitably damaging. Some, like the expectation
that neighbors will be decent to you, or that your race will not
count against you in court, should be the norm in a just society
and should be considered as the entitlement of everyone. Others,
like the privilege not to listen to less powerful people, distort the
humanity of the holders as well as the ignored groups. Still
others, like finding one's staple foods everywhere may be a
function of a numerical majority. Others have to do with not
having to labor under pervasive negative stereotyping and
mythology. (1991, 78)
McIntosh's explanation suggests that strength is something necessarily
earned and that power is something unearned. She explains that the power of
unearned privilege can appear as strength, when in reality it is just permission to
escape or to dominate. And later, she says that privilege may confer power, but not
moral strength.
McIntosh's distinction between strength and power puzzles me. Her point
can be stated more simply by distinguishing between two kinds of assets: (unearned)
privilege and earned advantages. The general distinction I will make between
privilege and earned advantages begins with an etymology of privilege and rests on
four related claims: (1) benefits granted by privilege are always unearned and
conferred systematically to members of dominant social groups; (2) privilege granted
to members of dominant groups simply because they are members of these groups is
almost never justifiable; (3) most privilege is invisible to, or not recognized as
such, by those who have it; and, (4) privilege has an unconditional "wild card"
quality
that extends benefits to cover a wide variety of circumstances
and conditions. To understand how the benefits granted by privilege are always un-
Privilege: Expanding on Marilyn Frye's “Oppression”
109
earned and conferred systematically to members of dominant social groups,
privilege must first be understood as a class of advantages. The words "advantage" and "advance" have a common Latin root-abante meaning "in front
of" or "before." To possess any kind of advantage is to have a skill, talent,
asset, or condition acquired-either by accident of birth or by intentional
cultivation-that allows a person or a group to rise to a higher rank, to bring
themselves forward, to lift themselves up, or otherwise to make progress.
Privilege, in the sense that I will be using the word, is by definition
advantageous, but not all advantages count as privilege. Advantages that are
not privilege I will call earned advantages. Earned advantages are strengths
which refer to any earned condition, skill, asset, or talent that benefits its
possessor and which under restricted conditions helps to advance that person.
Earned advantages include things such as being awarded extra frequent flyer
miles, learning a second language, working hard so that you afford to live in a
neighborhood with a good school system, or dutifully attending athletic
practice in order to be eligible for a volleyball scholarship.
The difference between earned advantages and privilege is not hard and
fast; but I want to hang onto the distinction in a way that recognizes how
privilege and earned advantages do not operate independently from one
another, and at the same time highlight the connections between them. So, the
distinction between privilege and advantages becomes less clear when it is
challenged by cases where, for example class oppression diminishes the
currency of white or male privilege. Consider the role privilege plays in one's
ability to get good work, to afford to fly, to buy a house, or to rent an
apartment. To earn frequent flyer miles, for instance, assumes that one can
afford to fly Regardless of race, the homeless have few, if any, chances to take
advantage of opportunities to earn frequent flyer miles. Working long hours so
you can afford to buy a house in a good neighborhood also assumes that you
are able to get a high-paying job, that real estate agents will show you houses
in the "good parts of town," and that the owners of those houses will sell to
you. Regardless of economic class, practices like redlining commonly keep
fan-Lilies of color that can afford to live in middle or upper-class suburbs from
purchasing real estate and moving into those areas. In addition, malicious
stereotypes of African Americans or Puerto Ricans as lazy, dirty, or
untrustworthy, or stereotypes of gays and lesbians as pedophiles, promiscuous,
or diseased also discourage landowners from renting to these individuals
even if they are good tenants. The distinction between privilege and advantage
is also blurred by in stances where, for example, class, race, or heterosexual
oppression are temporarily transcended or overlooked. I have in mind here the
gay community leader or the working-class philanthropist who, by virtue
of
outstanding community service, earns a good reputation in the community and
is granted the status and authority commonly associated with heterosexual
or class privilege. Or the African American who has elevated her economic
status to the point where she is granted privileges commonly associated
110 Alison Bailey
with well-to-do whites. In these cases members of dominant groups are often willing
to make exceptions for certain individuals because of their economic success,
community visibility, or civic reputation. There are also instances where closeted
gays or light-skinned Latinas and African Americans are granted privileges because
they can pass as straight or white.
Perhaps the point here is not that earned advantages and privilege are
necessarily distinct, but rather that some advantages are more easily earned if they
are accompanied by gender, heterosexual, race, or class privilege. Privilege and
earned advantages are connected in the sense that privilege places one in a better
position to earn more advantages. The link between earned advantages and unearned
privilege generates a situation in which privileged groups can earn assets (e.g.,
control of resources, skills, a quality education, the attention of the mayor, a good
reputation, a prestigious well paying job, political power, or a safe place to live)
more easily and more frequently than those who don't have white, male,
heterosexual, or economic privilege. Failure to recognize the differences between
earned and unearned assets allows privileged groups to interpret all privilege on the
same footing as earned advantages. Ann Richards' insightful remark, "George Bush
was born on third base, and to this day he believes he hit a triple," is a telling
illustration of the failure to make this distinction .3
The cases of the black entrepreneur, the working-class activist, or the gay
community leader weaken the tie between privilege and birth. Privilege also helps to
move a person forward, but unlike the advantages described above, privilege is
granted and birth is the easiest way of being granted privilege. In this sense, for a
person to have privilege is to be granted benefits automatically by virtue of their
perceived or actual class, sex, race or sexual status that others not of that status have
had to earn. Suffrage, for example, was initially granted to white property-owning
males; white women and emancipated Negroes, Native Americans, and immigrants
had to struggle to earn this privilege. Marriage is also a highly regulated privilege
which is granted exclusively to heterosexual couples. Gay, lesbian, and bisexual
couples are currently struggling to secure this privilege in ways similar to Mildred
Jeter Loving and her husband, Richard, who struggled to have their interracial
marriage recognized by the Commonwealth of Virginia in the early 1960s. Being
granted the privilege to marry because you are heterosexual, or the privilege to vote
because you own land, are male, or are white, then, is unearned in the same way that
having a friend or relative who will work on your car for nothing, or having goodnatured and caring neighbors is unearned; they both seem to be largely a matter of
luck. In spite of their significant differences the words privilege and advantage are
used interchangeably. For this reason I want to be clear about how my use of
privilege-as unearned advantages or assets conferred systematically differs from
standard philosophical and conversational usage.
Like McIntosh, I recognize and am disturbed by the misleading ordinary
language
connotations
of
privilege
as
something
positive.
The privilege that gives some people the freedom to be thoughtless at best, and mur-
Privilege: Expanding on Marilyn Frye's “Oppression”
111
derous at worst should not be thought of as desirable (1988, 77). The etymology of the word "privilege" helps to clarify my use of privilege as unearned
advantages conferred systematically. "Privilege" itself is derived from the Latin
privilegium, a law or bill in favor of or against an individual, from priv-us,
meaning private, individual, or peculiar, and from lex, or law. So, privilege
literally means private or individual law.4 As one legal definition holds:
"Privileges are special rights belonging to the individual or class, and not to the
mass."5 The etymological roots of privilege as private law or special rights
reveals the worrisome nature of privilege. Historically, to have a privilege
meant to have a right or immunity granting a peculiar benefit, advantage, or
favor, such as a right or an immunity attached to a particular position or office.
The exemption of ambassadors and members of Congress from arrest while
going to, returning from, or attending to their public duties is an example of
this. Here, having privilege means that holder of particular offices such as
queen, police officer, senator, judge, parliamentarian, or bishop are either
exempt from the usual operations of public law or accountable to a less formal
set of private laws (sometimes of their own making) or both. In this sense to
have a privilege means that a particular individual, like the president of the
United States, or a specific group, say members of the Senate, are exempt from
particular burdens or liabilities o public law (e.g., having to pay their parking
tickets); their activities are governed by an individual or private set of
immunity-granting rules. If the contemporary connotations of privilege strike us
as too positive, then sure1 the denotations reveal the disturbing origins of this
term.
Second, since exemptions and benefits of offices are sometimes
understood as arbitrary favoritism, privilege in this sense has pejorative
connotations; but it could be argued that some exemptions, and thus some
privilege, is justified. For example, it is reasonable to grant ambulance drivers
immunity from speeding laws, since emergency care re quires getting to the
hospital as quickly as possible. In this sense paramedics maybe said to have
special rights in the sense that they are granter temporary immunity from
speeding laws while they are on duty. The extension of privilege to particular
practices such as ambulance driving which enable emergency care to continue
efficiently, are generally regarded as justifiable. However, by most standards of
fairness it is not justifiable to grant immunities to persons simply because they
are perceived to be white, heterosexual, or male. Laws granting immunities to
individuals because they are perceived to be members of dominant groups, if
they can be justified at all, certainly ought not to be justified on the grounds that
these private laws are needed for members of dominant racial or economic
groups to move through the world safely at the expense of others.
Dominant group privilege is a particular class of unearned
benefits an immunities enjoyed by individuals who, by moral luck, belong
to groups with race, heterosexual, gender, or class privilege. I refer to groups
such men, whites, and heterosexuals as dominant not because of their numbers,
112 Alison Bailey
but by virtue of the fact that historically their lives and experiences define the
standards for what is deemed valuable or "normal." Dominant group privileges can,
as I have argued, also be extended to individuals outside of these groups. Dominant
group privilege is established partly through legislation and public policy but also
through informal and subtle expressions of speech bodily reactions and gestures,
malicious stereotypes, aesthetic 'judgments, and media images. In this way
privilege is systematically created and culturally reinforced.
My third point is that one of the functions of privilege is to structure the
world so that mechanisms of privilege are invisible-in the sense that they are
unexamined-to those who benefit from them. What Frye's birdcage metaphor does
for oppression, Peggy McIntosh's invisible knapsack and Jona Olsson's computer
metaphor do for privilege.6 The systemic and unexamined nature of what it means
to have dominant group privilege is made clearer by McIntosh's metaphor of the
"invisible knapsack." White privilege, she argues:
[is] an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on
cashing in each day, but about which I was "meant" to remain
oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack
of special provisions, assurances, tools, maps, guides, code books,
passports, visas, clothes, compass, emergency gear, and blank
checks. (1988, 71)
It is worth highlighting some of the common examples of privilege in this sense.
Briefly white privilege includes:
• I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.
• I can be sure that my children will be given curricular material that testifies
to the existence of their race.
• I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.
• I can dress any way I want and not have my appearance explained by the
perceived tastes of my race.
• Whether I use checks, credit cards, or cash I can be fairly sure that my skin
color will not count against the appearance of my financial reliability.
• In most instances I can be assured of having the public trust. (1991, 78)
Privilege: Expanding on Marilyn Frye's “Oppression”
The structural nature of privilege is made visible by Jona Olsson, who
compares privilege to having a very user-friendly word processing program.
When I open up a new document in this program, the font, margins, page length,
type-point size, spacing, and footnote style are set in a commonly accepted
format for me. I do not have to do anything: this preset style is the default mode.
I expect this service when I open up a new document, so much so that I take the
professional shape and appearance of my document for granted. The structured
invisibility of the word processing program insures that the flawless professional
presentation of my documents will be attributed to my own talents and individual
merits, rather than to my software. Privilege offers a default mode not unlike the
default position on my word processing program. White, male, and heterosexual
privilege are default positions. Either I can choose to be aware of these default
positions or I can ignore them and decide to experiment with new fonts, margins,
or document styles. If I become unhappy or frustrated with these new modes, I
can always go back to the default positions.
Like the default mode on a word processing program, the bars on the
birdcage are especially difficult to see from outside of the cage. The structured
invisibility of privilege insures that a person's individual accomplishments will
be recognized more on the basis of individual merit than on the basis of group
membership.7 Redirecting attention away from the unearned nature of privilege
and toward individual merit allows persons born on third base to believe
sincerely that they hit a triple. In fact, the maintenance of heterosexual, white, or
male privilege as positions of structural advantage lie largely in the silence
surrounding the mechanisms of privilege. For persons situated inside the borders
of privilege, the privilege associated with being white, male, wealthy, or heterosexual is difficult to name, yet for those situated outside of these borders, the
benefits of privilege are seen all too clearly.8 White, heterosexual, or male
survival do not depend upon an awareness of default positions and invisible
knapsacks, so whites are not encouraged to recognize or acknowledge the effects
of racialization on white lives, men have difficulty seeing the effects of sexism
on women's lives, and heterosexuals rarely understand the impact of homophobia
on gay, bisexual, and lesbian communities. Reflecting on the racial heterogeneity
within her own family, for example, Cherrie Moraga uncomfortably
acknowledges that her giiera (light-skinned) appearance is something she can use
to her advantage in a wide variety of difficult situations.
Heterosexual privileges include:
• Being able to publicly show affection for one's partner without fear of public
harm or hostility.
• Being assured that most people will approve of one's relationship.
• Not having to self-censor gender pronouns when talking about one's
partner.
113
Then [my friend] Tavo says to me, "you see at any time
[you] decide to use your light skinned privilege [you] can."
I say, "uh huh. Uh huh." He says, "You can decide that you
are suddenly no Chicana."
That I can't say, but once my light skin and good
English saved my lover from arrest. And I'd use it again. I'd
use it to the hilt over and over to save our skins.
114 Alison Bailey
Privilege: Expanding on Marilyn Frye's “Oppression”
115
3. Positive and Negative Dimensions of White Privilege
"You get to choose." Now I want to shove those words right back
into his face. You call this a choice! To constantly push against a
wall of resistance from your own people or to fall nameless into the
mainstream of this country, running with our common blood?9
The invisibility of the default position here means that whites are rarely aware of the
times light skin and/or clear English benefits us. Since whites rarely examine their
privilege, we rarely perceive the barriers and hassles faced by those who appear to
others as "nonwhite."
The final claim I want to make is that privilege facilitates one's movement
through the world in a way that earned advantages do not. The systemic nature of
privilege gives it a wild card quality, which means that privilege has a broader
currency than earned advantages. Most earned advantages will advance a person
under limited conditions. For example, frequent flyer miles are only an advantage if I
need to travel, living in a neighborhood with a good school system is only an asset if I
have children, and being bilingual is only beneficial to me if I live in or travel to
communities where speaking two languages facilitates my daily activities. Unlike
earned advantages, playing the privilege card (e.g., using the passports, checks, and
codebooks in my knapsack) grants extra advantages to holders in a broader variety of
circumstances. This is to say that being heterosexual, male, or white will almost
always count in one's favor. To have white, heterosexual, or male privilege means that
the immunities and benefits you have because of your race, sexual orientation, or sex
extend beyond the boundaries of your comfort zones, neighborhood, circles of friends,
or what Maria Lugones calls the 'worlds' in which you are at ease.10 Although
privileged persons feel ill at ease outside of their own worlds, they rarely lose
privilege outside of their comfort zones. The meaning of privilege as "special rights"
or "private laws" should now be clear: immunity granting passports, checks, and
tickets in the knapsack are wild cards in the sense that they are accepted almost
everywhere. Regardless of where I am, being a member of a dominant group will
almost always count in my favor.
Andrew Hacker (1992) has designed a particularly effective exercise to
illustrate the extent to which whites unconsciously understand the wild card character
of white privilege. He asks his white students to imagine that they will be visited by an
official they have never met. The official informs them that his organization has made
a terrible mistake and that according to official records you were to have been born
black. Since this mistake must be rectified immediately, at midnight you will become
black and can expect to live out the rest of your life-say fifty years-as a black person
in America. Since this is the agency's error, the official explains that you can demand
compensation. Hacker then asks his white students: How much financial recompense
would you request? The figures white students give in my classes—usually between
$250,000 to $50 million—demonstrates the extent to which white privilege is valued.
The wild card quality of privilege points to the possibility that dominant
group privilege is more complex than simple immunities from the systemic
barriers of which Frye speaks. Members of dominant groups not only receive
benefits from the default options and knapsack tools they use to maneuver
themselves around barriers, they also receive additional benefits. Barriers are put
in place with the intention of creating privilege, but it is here that we encounter
the limits of Frye's barrier metaphor. The collective package of privileges given
to members of dominant groups takes two distinct forms: negative privilege,
which can be understood simply as the absence of barriers, and, positive
privilege, which can be understood as the presence of additional perks that
cannot be described in terms of immunities alone.
The distinction between positive and negative privilege is not merely
two ways of expressing the same phenomenon. I first became aware of this
distinction during a conversation I had with a young white male student in my
"Introduction to Women's Studies" class. Once he became aware of the unearned
aspects of his male privilege, this student was eager use it in politically useful
ways. He suggested that one way to do this would be to accompany women on a
Take Back the Night March, a historically women only demonstration against
sexual violence. Since men can go out at night with little risk of sexual assault,
he reasoned, he might use this unearned privilege to, in his words, "protect the
women as they marched." What this student had in mind, no doubt, was to
exercise his role as protector to defend the marching women against members of
his gender with predatory leanings. In other words, he wanted to use his
privileged protector status in a way that supported feminist projects.
But, it might be objected, what is wrong with wanting to use male privilege to help women and girls demonstrate for their right to safe access to the
streets at night? Shouldn't our male allies use privilege to open up opportunities
for women and to advance feminist causes? Certainly, in some cases persons
with privilege should actively seek ways of using privilege supportively, but this
is not one of them. The purpose of Take Back the Night Marches is to give
women and girls the opportunity to reclaim the night in ways that do not rely on
male protection. On a practical level, when male protectors step in, the
symbolism of the march is undermined; with male protection the marchers no
longer experience the autonomy and empowerment which come with walking
around at night and feeling safe.
On a theoretical level, the problem is that the gendered roles of both
"protector" and "predator" are the products of the ideology of hetero-patriarchal
dominance. The student fails to understand how the protector role
that heterosexual male privilege grants him is the product of the systemic nature
of heterosexism; that is, the benefits of the protector role depend
on and cannot be secured independently of the heterosexual paradigm
which cast women in male-serving subordinate roles. As Sarah Hoagland argues,
116 Alison Bailey
"there can be no protectors unless there is a danger. A man cannot identify himself in
the role of protector unless there is something which needs protection" (1988, 30). In
his eagerness to help the cause he does not notice the systemic links between his
heterosexual male privilege as a protector and women's oppression. He does not notice
how his offer of protective services reinscribes the function of the hetero-patriarchal
protector/predator gender role assigned to men.11 In attempting to supportive he falls
into his scripted role as a protector.
Protector status is a wild card which can be played in a wide variety of
circumstances beyond the example of the march. By virtue of a hetero-patriarchal
system that casts men in the role of protector, men are granted additional credibility and
power. It is expected that males will be protectors; being a protector is understood as a
natural innate male trait. Men who deviate from this role are often thought of as
cowardly or as sissies. The unquestioned presupposition here is that men's so-called
"natural protector" status gives them additional benefits beyond protectorship. It suggests that men, by virtue of their "natural" role, are automatically the rightful heads of
households, the proper leaders, the best organizers, administrators, and educators. Thus,
the Take Back the Night March example reveals the tightly intertwined nature of
positive and negative privilege. First, this student was aware that male privilege meant
that, as a man he saw no barriers to his being able to move about at night (a negative
privilege). Second, the student was also aware on some level that male privilege conferred upon him the status of protector (a positive privilege) that is not characterized by
the absence of barriers alone.
The unearned privilege accorded to whites can also be explained in terms of
both negative and positive privilege. Whiteness-the expression of white privilegemeans more than just being granted immunity from demeaning stereotypes and the
removal of barriers to housing or high-paying jobs. Since privilege and oppression
intersect all identities, having light skin and whitely mannerisms does not automatically
grant one immunity from misfortune or failure, but even for those whites who are poor
or unemployed, being white does have some value. If whiteness is associated with
"being an American," hardworking, or a trustworthy neighbor, then to be white in
America is to have a culturally valued identity. The positive dimension of white
privilege captures what, for lack of a better phrase, might be called a reputational
interest in being regarded as white. In fact, this reputational interest was used as
grounds for Plessy s case in Plessy vs. Ferguson. When Homer A. Plessy, a lightskinned man of European and African descent, boarded a railway car reserved for
whites, he was arrested for violating a Louisiana Jim Crow statute
mandating
separate cars for white and "colored" passengers. Plessy's gripe was
not that he had an additional barrier placed in his path. He charged that the refusal to
seat him on the white passenger car deprived him of "the reputation [of being white]
which has an actual pecuniary value."12 Because Plessy appeared to
be white, not allowing him to ride on that car reserved for whites deprived him of the
Privilege: Expanding on Marilyn Frye's “Oppression” 117
white privilege to which he felt entitled. The entitlements Plessy gained from
being regarded as white are not expressed negatively in terms of being denied
freedom of access to the best seats on the train, but being denied the status (or
positive privilege) associated with being treated as a person worthy of respect.
To treat persons with respect and dignity is to listen to what they have to say,
to respond to their requests, or to give their need,, and concerns priority. The
unquestioned presupposition that whites are it most cases hardworking,
honest, good trustworthy citizens may suggest that white people will be better
candidates for jobs, scholarships, and public office.13 By virtue of a system
that understands white and male superiority to be the natural state of affairs,
Plessy is granted the credibility and respect appropriate to white men.
If the structural features of oppression generate privilege, then a
complete understanding of oppression requires that we also be attentive to
the ways in which complex systems of domination rely on the oppression of
one group to generate privilege for another. A complete understanding of the
systematic features of oppression requires not only that we understand the
differences between oppression and harm, but also that we understand both
the differences between privilege and earned advantages and the connections
between oppression and privilege. Silence about privilege is itself a function
of privilege and it has a chilling effect on political discourse Conversations
that focus exclusively on oppression reinforce the structure invisibility of
privilege. White women who focus solely on their oppression as women, for
example, generate incomplete accounts of oppression when they fail to
explore the role white privilege plays in the subordination o their sisters of
color. Attention to the construction of privilege, then, is necessary
component for a full account of oppression as well as a way to make visible
the role of privilege in maintaining hierarchies.
This paper has benefited greatly from conversations I've had on
privilege any oppression. In particular I would like to thank Charlotte Brown,
Susan Feldman Marilyn Frye, Kay Leigh Hagan, Lisa Heldke, Sarah
Hoagland, Ambe Katherine, Jona Olsson, Mark Siderits, and Nancy Tuana
for their comment on earlier drafts of this project. This essay is dedicated to
the loving memory c Linda Weiner Morris.
1
Maria Lugones has challenged Frye's account and Marxist accounts of oppression tha leave
oppressed groups in the discouraging position of the double-bind. In respons to these
theories she suggest a more liberatory "contradictory desiderata" for oppression
theory which rests on embracing a pluralist notion of the self. See "Structure and AntiStructure: Agency under Oppression," The Journal of Philosophy, 88:10 (October
1990), p. 500.
2
See Joel Feinberg, Social Philosophy, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1963, pp. 58-5c
and Black's Law Dictionary, 6th ed., St. Paul, Minn.: West Publishing, 1990, pp. 1197-9£ My
remarks follow Feinberg's examples here.
118 Alison Bailey
3
I am grateful to Jona Olsson for demonstrating the appropriateness of Richards' remark in this context.
My definition here follows the Oxford English Dictionary. Privilege: [from old French; and
middle English] privilegium a bill in favor of or against an individual; fr. L. priv-us, private,
peculiar + lex, legem law.
5
Given this definition it is ironic that current struggles for equality on the part of historically
disenfranchised groups are described as "special rights" by conservatives. See, Loans v. State, 50
Tenn. (3 Heisk.) cited in Words and Phrases, permanent edition, 1658 to Date, Vol. 33A, St. Paul,
Minn.: West Publishing, 1995, p. 494.
6
"The word processing metaphor comes from Jona Olssori s unpublished work on white
antiracism. "White Privilege" Workshop. August 10, 19th Annual Womyri s Music Festival. Hart,
Michigan.
7
The term "structured invisibility" comes from Ruth Frankenburg, White Women, Race Matters: The
Social Construction of Whiteness, Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minneapolis Press, 1993. In
another context Frye refers to this phenomenon as "structured ignorance." See Marilyn Frye,
"Critique, "Philosophy and Sex, eds. Robert Baker and Frederick Elliston, New York, N.Y.:
Prometheus Books, 1984, p. 447. I'm grateful to Mark Siderits for having called my attention to Frye's
phrase.
8
For instance, contrast bell hooks's account of whiteness with that of Judith Levine or Minnie Bruce Pratt.
See hooks, "Representations of Whiteness in the Black Imagination," in Black Looks: Race and
Representation, Boston: South End Press, 1992, pp. 165-79. Judith Levine, "White Like Me," Ms.
Magazine (March/April 1994), pp. 22-24. Minnie Bruce Pratt, "Identity: Skin, Blood, Heart," Yours
in Struggle: Three Feminist Perspectives on AntiSemitism and Racism, ed. Elly Bulkin, Minnie
Bruce Pratt, and Barbara Smith, Ithaca, N.Y.: Firebrand Books, 1984, pp. 11-63.
9
Cherrie Moraga, Loving in the War Years, Lo Que Nunca Paso por Sus Labios, Boston: South
End Press, 1983, p. 97.
10
I'm using "world" in the sense that Maria Lugones uses it in her essay "Playfulness, World
Traveling and Loving Perception." For those unfamiliar with Lugones's notion of world traveling,
'worlds' are not utopias; they may be an actual society as it is constructed by either dominant or
nondominant groups. Worlds need not be constructions of whole societies, they may be just small parts
of that society (e.g., a barrio in Chicago, Chinatown in New York, a lesbian bar, a women's studies
class, an elegant country club, or a migrant farmworkers community). The notion of 'worlds' is
useful in that it helps us to understand why we are constructed differently in worlds in which we are
not at ease. Lugones's own example is of being constructed as "serious" in Anglo/ white worlds
where she is ill at ease and as "playful" in Latina worlds where she is at ease. The shift from being
one person in one world, to being another person in a different world is what she calls travel. See
Maria Lugones, "Playfulness, 'World-Traveling, and Loving Perception," Hypatia, 2:2 (Summer
1987), pp. 3-18. Lugones's observations are supported by sociologist Joe Feagiri s research on the "black tax"
or the added hassles African Americans face in getting through the day. See Feagin, "The Continuing
Significance of Race: Antiblack Discrimination in Public Places," American Sociological Review,
56 (February 1991), pp. 101-22.
11
Some ways of using male and heterosexual privilege may reinscribe privilege, but it is not obvious
that all will. The fact that the male student could not use the privilege his protector status
afforded him in this instance does not mean that male or heterosexual privilege can never be used in
traitorous ways. It does not mean that men should never use their privileges to protect women and it
would be foolish for women not to ask for protection in some instances.
12
See Derek Bell, "Property Rights in Whiteness-Their Legal Legacy, Their Economic Costs," in Critical
Race Theory: The Cutting Edge, ed. Richard Delgado, Philadelphia, Penn.: Temple University Press,
1995, pp. 75-83; Cheryl Harris, "Whiteness as Property," Harvard Law Review, vol. 106, no. 8 (June
1993), p. 1746; and Andrew Hacker, Two Nations: Black and White, Separate, Hostile and Unequal,
New York, N.Y.: Scribner's, 1992, esp. pp. 31-49.
13
The political significance of whiteness as I have described it in the Plessy case is highly gendered. For
4
Privilege: Expanding on Marilyn Frye's "Oppression" 119
example, had a Mrs. Plessy taken a seat on the train that day, the reaction would have been very
different because reputation and respect have different values for women. As Frye
explains: "Being rational, righteous, and [law abiding]... do for some of us some of
the time buy a ticket to a higher level of material well-being than we might otherwise be
permitted.... But the reason, right, and rules are not of our own making; white men
may welcome our whiteliness as an endorsement of their own values and as an
expression of our loyalty to them (that is, as proof of their power over us), and because it
makes us good helpmates to them, but if our whiteliness commands any respect, it is
only in the sense that a woman who is chaste and obedient is called...
"respectable." See Frye "White Woman Feminist," Willfid Virgin: Essays in Feminism., Freedom, Calif.: Crossing Press, 1992, p. 161.
References
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__________ . "White Woman Feminist." In Willful Virgin: Essays in Feminism.
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Hacker, Andrew. Two Nations: Black and White, Separate, Hostile and Unequal. New
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Hoagland, Sarah. Lesbian Ethics: Toward New Value. Palo Alto, Calif.: Institute of
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