Male Privilege Analysis

Privilege; it goes Unacknowledged.

This paper will be discussing privilege as analyzed by Peggy McIntosh in her paper “White Privilege and Male Privilege” and my analysis of the show Girls. The definition of privilege can be stated simply as a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people. Privilege often goes unacknowledged, notably more by those who have it.

The first thing Peggy McIntosh discusses in her paper is that in her own experience men tend to agree that women are disadvantaged but they do not agree that men are over privileged. There are denials that surround male privilege that allow male privilege to go unrecognized. This brings her to the conclusion that if male privilege goes unacknowledged then more than likely white privilege has gone unacknowledged to. Just as males have been taught not to recognize their own privilege she has been taught to not recognize her own white privilege. She goes on to explain that she sees her white privilege as an imaginary knapsack in which she has all these tools to help her through life. Then she begins to discuss how the denial of men’s privilege takes place when it comes to curriculum change. Men will look differently

However Peggy McIntosh really gives some insight as to how often privilege goes unacknowledged, mainly because the privilege gets handed to special people and they never get taught that they have this unearned privilege. White People and Men have some of the most privilege. This subject is very hard to write about because of how many denials surround privilege, also making it harder to acknowledge in our own lives, but the only way for a change to really begin is to evaluate your own privilege, like most of the characters do not do in the show