“Privilege” has a pretty specific meaning though. It means “social advantages that are not perceived as advantages but as the normal condition”. In other words: Some people have X, while others don’t; and those who do have X think that having X is unremarkable and normal.
I’ve occasionally been given definitions of “privilege” by activists, and each time the definition is different. A more common one is “an unfair advantage that people have by virtue of being in certain groups”.
You’re right, and both definitions tend to be used interchangeably. I’ll work on correcting that in my own speech, but I think in the meantime here’s the essence of it:
Privilege is a phenomenon that occurs as the result of a special kind of status, but the term also gets used to describe the form of status that generates the phenomenon.
When a status based on group identity is pervasive enough to be invisible to members of that group, the resulting assumptions lead to a set of behavior called “privilege”. It’s probably even clearer to use the term “privileged status” than mere “privilege”, when talking about the status itself rather than the resulting behaviors; I’m going to try using that myself for the next few weeks and see if I can anchor some critical self-analysis to the process.
Privilege is a phenomenon that occurs as the result of a special kind of status, but the term also gets used to describe the form of status that generates the phenomenon.
That still doesn’t work since the weasel example involves “privilege” in fubarobfusco’s sense but as I pointed out here doesn’t actually involve status.
I’ve occasionally been given definitions of “privilege” by activists, and each time the definition is different. A more common one is “an unfair advantage that people have by virtue of being in certain groups”.
You’re right, and both definitions tend to be used interchangeably. I’ll work on correcting that in my own speech, but I think in the meantime here’s the essence of it:
Privilege is a phenomenon that occurs as the result of a special kind of status, but the term also gets used to describe the form of status that generates the phenomenon.
When a status based on group identity is pervasive enough to be invisible to members of that group, the resulting assumptions lead to a set of behavior called “privilege”. It’s probably even clearer to use the term “privileged status” than mere “privilege”, when talking about the status itself rather than the resulting behaviors; I’m going to try using that myself for the next few weeks and see if I can anchor some critical self-analysis to the process.
That still doesn’t work since the weasel example involves “privilege” in fubarobfusco’s sense but as I pointed out here doesn’t actually involve status.