There’s a lot of talk about privilege these days. The debate is usually framed as one group being privileged vs another group. E.g., that white people have privilege over non-whites, men over women, hetereosexual over gay, rich over poor.
Often there is analysis looking back into history - for example the calls for slavery reparations in America, or references to patriarchal societal structures.
I have something of a questioning, challenging mind. I rarely take things at face value - I strive to see things clearly, objectively. My wife jokes that I always want to see the data.
It seems clear to me that privilege is real. Some people have an easier route to success in life. But something about the way it is framed hasn’t been sitting comfortably with me. I’m going to try to articulate why that is.
I have a lot of privilege in my life, some of which I’m blind to. I’ll probably get some stuff wrong in this post. I’d love to be shown my blind spots if I do.
Defining privilege
In this type of discussion it’s important to start from a definition. It turns out that’s not so easy for privilege. Even the Cambridge Dictionary has four different definitions, just for the noun:
an advantage that only one person or group of people has, usually because of their position or because they are rich
an opportunity to do something special or enjoyable
the way in which people who are rich, come from a high social class, or belong to a particular race or gender have more advantages in society than people who do not belong to these groups
the special right that some people in authority have that allows them to do or say things that other people are not allowed to
Those definitions are interesting, particularly the first and third. They cement this idea that privilege is a function of a group you belong to, or characteristics that you have.
For me, those are just proxies for privilege. They are broad brush approximations that may apply with some accuracy to most people in that group, but almost certainly capture others inaccurately and label them privileged.
When we think about definitions of privilege I am left asking why privilege matters in the first place. It can only matter if it has an impact on equality of opportunity, like the Cambridge definition #2. Which then begs the further question of… opportunity for what?
Down the rabbit hole we go…
Privilege, opportunity, and defining success
Some people have privilege that others don’t have. That privilege affords them an easier start. It’s a springboard to the potential for future success.
To think about privilege we therefore have to define success. There are dictionary definitions of success “Success is the achievement of a high position in a particular field, for example in business or politics” (Collins), but how you define success really is a very personal thing.
As a society we, in the UK and I believe in most of the Western world, seem to define success primarily through an economic lens. Acquiring more wealth or more resources is seen as the ultimate goal, for a country, an organisation, or an individual.
Don’t get me wrong. Wealth matters. Money is a significant driver of personal happiness, at least up to a point that is well above average earnings (~£120k).
So one reasonable factor influencing the idea of privilege is the opportunity to accumulate wealth.
However, we all know people with money who are miserable. The Venn diagram of happy people and wealthy people doesn’t have perfect overlap, not even close. Is that success? To have accumulated wealth but be miserable?
Maybe success is about becoming a parent, raising kids, contributing to future generations. But some research shows that non-parents are happier as well (although I really want to see the data on that - I wonder over what time frame they measured it).
I’m talking a lot about happiness. I think that is my default definition of success. If people are truly happy - defined as being at peace, not experiencing pleasure - my observation is they share more kindness into the world, are more productive, and build stronger communities.
That sounds like the kind of world I want to live in.
The proxies of privilege
Let’s get back to those proxies of privilege. The idea that simply being white, male, heterosexual, neurotypical, mentally “well”, able-bodied, or rich is a default privilege. That belonging to those groups gives you an innate advantage in life.
For many people that appears to be true. But for others it doesn’t appear to be true.
Let’s take a well known example: White working class kids underperform at school. This is particularly true for boys, with girls 35% more likely to go to university than boys.
So we have a group who are told repeatedly that they are amongst the most privileged in society: white males. Many of them will also be straight and healthy, giving them even more privilege. Based on the narrative of privilege they’ve won the lottery right? The only thing they are missing is wealth.
Does that mean that wealth trumps all other forms of privilege? Maybe so. Why then is there so much focus on the other areas, like gender and race?
I think this point gets to the heart of my discomfort with these proxies for privilege. Framing the narrative in this way causes a lot of damage for people in those groups who don’t actually experience that privilege.
Toxic approximations
There’s a fundamental concept that is missed in a lot of online debate & argument. That’s the idea of a bell curve, a normal distribution.
When we use proxies for privilege we are effectively making the claim that all members of a group have the same experience, the same opportunities. We are conflating averages with individuals, and ignoring the bell curve.
We see this often when gender differences in the workplace are discussed. On average, men and women have small differences. They are much more similar than they are different. But at the edges those small differences become big differences.
On average, men are more interested in things and women are more interested in people. So when you take the 100 people who are at the extreme in terms of their interest in people, at the very edge of the bell curve, in that 99.9% section - they are nearly all women.
When you are at the edges of a bell curve, a few standard deviations from the mean, that average experience can bear little relation to your lived experience.
Telling a working class white boy, struggling at school, that he is privileged is… unhelpful (at best). That kid already feels powerless to improve his life. Bombarding him with messages that he is born into a privileged group only reinforces his sense of being a failure.
Yes, he’s a white male, but he’s at the left edge of the wealth bell curve. His lived experience bears no relation to those in the middle.
At the other end of the bell curve, a similar-but-different toxic approximation plays out. There are people with extraordinary privilege who also happen to be non-white, female, or gay. Yet the message these people are given is that they are victims because they belong to one of those groups.
As victims we encourage them to see themselves as oppressed, rather than encouraging them to step forth, embrace their privilege, and use it to bring joy into the world.
A new perspective on privilege
In pondering this concept of privilege proxies I think it’s time to go deeper. I also think there is a fundamental factor that is absent in most discussions on this topic.
That factor is self-belief, rooted in a sense of worthiness that can only be put there by experiencing unconditional love and acceptance from at least one of your parents, ideally both. I’m talking truly secure confidence, not the narcissistic insecure flamboyance that often masquerades as confidence.
We don’t talk about crap parenting enough. It’s a taboo subject. But having loving, supportive parents seems to me to be a real source of privilege as well.
When we define success through the lens of being at peace, this is a critical part of the equation. When wealthy people are miserable, even suicidal, we see evidence that they are carrying emotional trauma. When those in less privileged groups are happy, we often see strong familial bonds and a deep sense of security.
Bringing all of this together, I think there are three elements that really underpin privilege:
Loving parents
Access to money
Access to advice
When we map those against the proxies for privilege there is significant overlap. A lot of white, male, healthy, wealthy people grew up with disproportionate access to money and to advice, and the most at-peace of them seem to have a great relationship with their parents too.
And, of course, there are examples of people who have achieved success without any of those 3 root sources of privilege. That’s why remembering bell curves is important.
When we talk about privilege the problem statement often seems to centre on access to money and financial inequality. The solutions often centre on access to advice - after all, it’s cheaper to give away than money.
I can’t help wondering where we’d get to if we talked more about the privilege of good parents and faced into the impact crap parenting has on our collective sense of peace and cohesion.
With more capable parents would we build a happier, more connected, society?
Privilege proxies
Thanks, Deri, for this very though-provoking piece. I agree with you wholeheartedly that there are many different ways in which one can be advantaged - and that parenting, in particular, is often overlooked.
I would look to tease apart the concept of "privilege" a little more though. Certainly, it is very important insofar as it contributes to us being happy, being at peace. But I think we need to go down the Maslow pyramid a bit more as well - to ideas of safety and basic physiological needs.
For many people, the experience of prejudice is horribly basic: the fear of physical or psychological harm from individuals or the establishment. I am lucky in that I have experienced little or none of this in my life (being white, male, middle class etc.) - but it does seem particularly pernicious that many people have a constant fear for their own safety as they go about their daily lives, based on their identity. Sexual assault, police bias, homophobic abuse etc. - notwithstanding the sensible caveats you make above - are real and present factors in many people's lives in ways that I will always find hard to understand.