Yale English professor Claudia Rankine writes in the New York Times Magazine (H/T Simple Justice Blog) about White Male Privilege. She wanted to know what white men thought about their privilege, but she ran into a problem:
Racism
The term White Male Privilege is inherently racist and sexist. It is a slur. Rankine acknowledges this:
What must it be like for a white man to be subject to the implicit assumption of racism? Even questioning the assumption leads to further accusations of racism and privilege. It is no wonder then that a white man is unwilling to engage a black woman in casual conversation.
Later, Rankine makes a peculiar comment about racial violence highlighting how she incorrectly assumes white men are racist because they are white:
Rape
What happens if a woman accuses a man of rape? His life (unless he is a protected politician: see “Politics” below) is effectively over, even if he is innocent. In the era of #MeToo and #BelieveTheVictim, women have all the privilege. Rankine could falsely accuse the men she speaks to of rape and they would have no recourse. If it came to light that she fabricated the accusation, she would likely see no punishment. It is no wonder then that a white man will not engage a black woman in casual conversation.
Consider the case of a white male teacher having sex with a 17-year-old girl. Compare his punishment to the relative slap on the wrist that a female teacher impregnated by a 17-year old boy will get. She might even get to go on a talk show tour with the father of her child.
Divorce
Rankine, a black woman, has a white husband and a daughter. Imagine if she had an affair with 20 different men and dragged her husband into divorce court demanding full (or majority) custody of their child. A judge would note her privilege and grant her custody, along with receiving child support payments, and even alimony. She could take more than half of the liquid assets while kicking him out of the house and “forgetting” to sell the house to avoid splitting the proceeds. Her “privileged” white male ex-husband would have no recourse.
Domestic Violence
What happens if Rankine’s husband, a white man, hits her? He could be arrested for domestic violence. A judge will quickly issue a restraining order. But what happens if she hits him? Almost certainly nothing will happen. No arrests. No restraining orders. A white man is expected to take it when his wife abuses him, both physically and emotionally. This is her privilege.
Imagine the situation where a husband and wife get into a joint physical altercation. Who will be punished when the neighbors call the police? Both of them or just the white male husband? It is his privilege to take her punishment.
Masculinity
Men are subject to a continual stream of denigration of healthy (i.e. “toxic”) masculinity and boyhood/fatherhood in media and society. Although it is everywhere, consider the Gillette advertisement and the Lego Movie 2 specifically. Advertisements and movies critical of fathers are easy to find. Good luck finding any critical of mothers.
Pick a random mainline Christian church and listen to the online broadcasts of their Mother’s and Father’s Day sermons. You are most likely to find a Mother’s Day service heaping praise upon mothers for everything they do. It’s not unusual for Father’s Day services to barely mention fathers or to take the time to criticize men [PDF] (“man up!”) and praise single-mothers. This is privilege?
Education
The public educational system is heavily biased in favor of girls. Girls have many privileges over boys, including higher grades in both math and language as well as girls-only extracurricular activities. There is only one area where boys exceed girls: math testing for boys of rich (mostly white) families, but society will not stop until girls beat boys in every area.
Rankine describes a discussion with a white man who laments that his son can’t get into Yale because he can’t play the “diversity card.” She writes:
Adoption
If a single black woman wants to adopt a child from China, she can do so. If a single white man wants to do so, he cannot. Society is generally uncomfortable with men being alone and unaccountable with small children. There is no problem when women do this. The man is presumed to be a pedophile. Even in the States, when a single man does his adoption home study, the social worker will place him under much greater scrutiny than they would a single woman. This is her privilege.
Studies show that children do best with heterosexual adoptive parents. Among other reasons, heterosexual (and often white) marriages are more stable than homosexual and single-parent families. Yet, Catholic Charities had to shut down in a number of states because it refused to allow adoptions to homosexual couples, even though CC were fighting for the best interests of the children. Homosexual couples could still go to many other adoption agencies, but this wasn’t good enough to satisfy their privilege by reducing the availability of adoption at the cost of children.
Pay
It is well known that women’s wages are a bit lower than what men make for the same nominal job (~90%). Studies have shown that this is almost completely accounted for by the desire of women to work fewer hours, get pregnant, and raise children at home. In large companies that utilize race and sex quotas, it can be argued that women are paid more for ‘equivalent’ work. These policies benefit minorities and women most. It is their privilege.
Politics
White Male Privilege is a smoke screen for two things: political privilege and feminist privilege. Most of the above examples show how women hold substantial privilege over men in today’s society. Rankine notes that there is another group that holds substantial privilege:
“White men have held almost all the power in this country for 400 years.”
This is correct, but it’s also a case of faulty reasoning. Why have white men held power? Do they hold power because they are white men or are they all white men because they held power? This is the difference between White Male Privilege and a Ruling Class. The reason white men hold all the power is because the ruling class has historically been made up of white men with significant barriers to entry. There are many white men who hold no political power, myself included. We have no such privilege as a result of being white or men.
Rankine has noted this without realizing it:
But let’s take this even farther. The Democrat party is increasingly made up of women and minorities. Society has changed to allow construction of a new Ruling Class, but this class is just as exclusive and privileged as the historical one. It just happens to be a lot less white.
There is an elite ruling class made up of one group of white men and another group of females and minorities. Being a member of the ruling elite grants special privileges, like immunity from committing sexual assault or racial discrimination. There is no white male privilege—this alone buys you nothing.
Conclusion
Do certain white men have advantages in certain areas? Sure they do. But advantages are not restricted to that class alone. Women, minorities, the rich, and many other arbitrary classes have their own advantages. Moreover, skill and ability are not the same as privilege. The notion of an all-encompassing White Male Privilege is a myth and a slur. You could very easily argue, as I have done, that women, the ruling elite, and various minority groups have significant unearned privileges.
There aren’t scholarships for single dads, or specifically for men. I’ve never seen a scholarship that was for white men.
I’ve seen hundreds of scholarships that were exclusively for various minority groups though.
Hiring policies, especially for government positions, disfavor white males.