White privilege is the result of white people teaching one another to remain unaware of their privilege in order to deny its existence and avoid confronting the problem. Even when privilege is acknowledged, it is often used for one’s own benefit against the oppressed group more often than not. Historically privilege has been denied or accepted and used to harm others. This same concept goes for Male privilege. Unacknowledged privilege may be the result of not having the proper education on the subject or not being introduced to the concept of unearned privilege, but men are very much aware of their privilege historically and currently. Privilege’s existence is argued when individuals claim that it isn’t widespread but a handful of bad apples committing acts of racism or sexism. Despite racism and sexism being widespread issues that are perpetuated by people in power majority of the time, they refuse to admit to this simply because it would either force the oppressor to confront the accompanied guilt and or evenly distribute the social or economic power until they are no longer benefiting from said privileges. Instead, remaining ignorant (whether they honestly are or not) allows these structures to be reinforced and unchanged. Often if people are confronted with their privilege they will try to distance themselves from the group associated with the privilege, either by claiming it isn’t “all of them” or listing out financial and social struggles they have encountered throughout life. However individual struggles do not equate to being systematically oppressed in the same nature that a certain race or sex is oppressed. A common deflection is to try to downplay the issue of sexism and racism by saying that it was only individual experiences instead of a collective experience. Those with privilege, white or male or both need to do more than talk about it. Peggy McIntosh in their article White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack talks about this,

“Disapproving of the systems won’t be enough to change them. I was taught to think that racism could end if white individuals hanged their attitudes.”  More needs to be done than feigning anger over privilege on social media platforms if they truly want to deconstruct or destroy the systems that give them the advantages in life that they were unfairly awarded because of something they were born with others were not. 

As a black woman I would love to have as many allies as there seems to be but the oppression I experience has molded me into critically thinking about who is a real ally and who is only using my social issues as an accessory. Being oppressed racially and because I am a woman requires me to analyze people’s approach to both feminism and Black Lives Matter. Over the past two years I did witness a huge wave of support for the movement, but I also witnessed how our deaths were aestheticized on the internet, almost as if BLM was becoming less of a movement and more of a “Hey I’m one of the good ones” badge for people to put in their bios, on their jackets, or wear our movement on their wrists, and that being the peak of their activism. The same goes for men who are self proclaimed feminists. As someone who was raised to have heavy distrust in men because of harm done to the women who raised me and the potential harm I could run into, I have found myself often wondering what were their motives for becoming a feminist and if it was only due to it being ‘trendy’ and beneficial to them or because they truly cared about women. I’ve encountered men who only respect women they are attracted to but claim to respect women, and this being a collective experience among my groups resulted in me coming to the conclusion that a good majority of those with white/male privilege despite saying that they are trying to dismantle it don’t actually mean it. Majority of the progress made and work is done by the oppressed. Junie mentioned in their response post that “Society tends to label black people, as criminals, drug dealers,  being a different color means not having the same rights as a white person, and that most people live on edge based on the fact that they don’t know if they will leave another because of the colored And they always have to pretend to be something they are not to be able to survive.” I can most definitely relate, being profiled in any business I enter was and is a lifelong experience. I would have to almost always present myself as someone of a higher class to avoid even worse treatment, and this idea was practiced throughout the entirety of my family. Dress nice when going to the hospital and they will treat you better, don’t go to the back of the store for long to avoid suspicion and accusations, speak a certain way when interacting with non black people. Behaviorally we were conditioned to present ourselves in a way that would apparently lessen our probability of being accused and murdered. However none of my non black friends ever had to worry about this, or grow up seeing people who looked like them getting turned into t-shirts and having their deaths immortalized on the internet.

Living as someone who is gender nonconforming or gender nonbinary means you are subjected to constant questioning, ridicule, and victim blaming. In a society that constantly focuses on their appearance, it allows for people to deflect from the main issue at hand. Their expression is reduced to costume wear, entertainment, or an act instead of their genuine identity and portrayal of it. Cisgender people have the privilege of not being constantly asked why they dress the way they do, why they look the way they do, or why their existence should be acknowledged and at the very least given the same respect as everyone else’s. Racially, this problem becomes exacerbated when you factor in the dangers of being a certain race added in with your gender. Black trans women and black transfeminine people are murdered at an alarming rate and yet no attention or support is given, because this society allows one’s murder to be pinned on their gender identity instead of the person who committed the act in the first place. The same goes for homelessness, and the discrimination faced in the workplace. Rather than blaming the killer they’d rather blame the ones who cannot speak to defend themselves anymore. It is almost always perceived as deceit or trickery when someone expressing their gender is neither of those things, and will never be an excuse to harm someone. Cis people have always had the privilege of not worrying that if they were harmed, that it would be because they decided to express themselves in the way they did. 

More value and weight is given to Cis people’s opinion of those who are gender nonbinary than the actual gender nonbinary people living among us. It is silencing. It doesn’t allow for queer voices to be heard at all let alone given meaning or weight in these discussions. As Menon stated in Beyond the Gender Binary “People’s fixation on “proper” grammar or “new terms” often hides a more sinister motive, even if it’s not conscious. They are ok with language shifting as long as it’s the people in power and not us.” Non genderqueer people are reluctant to do something as simple as respecting someone’s pronouns. It’s something they never have to worry about themselves but they still can’t extend that same social respect to others. Vanique in their content response said “Cis people defend the gender binary as if we are being erases from existence, when we are the ones doing the erasing. Too often cis gendered people flip the script and play victim, Alok talks about this in their book. Cis people need to decenter themselves and listen to other people for a change.” and I heavily agree. The behavior exhibited by cis people when the gender binary is challenged or is being actively dismantled is immature to say the least. We often pretend as if we are being threatened and harmed when we are being asked to simply give gender queer people the same protection and respect we were born with. However I don’t believe at this point that it’s entirely due to ignorance. The refusal to act with their privilege to positively benefit nonbinary people comes from a place of not wanting to relinquish power.

Feminism was and currently is a movement established to end sexism, and achieve social economic and political equality among the sexes. It’s a common misconception that feminism is rooted in misandry, or is anti-men by nature and that all actions are motivated by a hatred for men rather than a hatred for the oppression that benefits men systemically and endangers AFAB people. Bell Hooks in Feminism is for Everybody, explains the growth of feminism and its branches over time, it’s impacts on society as well as the blocks that halt progression. In a society heavily influenced by Chrisitianity, it dictates the population’s social perspective on women’s positions in society in relation to men. However, although feminism has an open ended definition which diminishes the clarity surrounding the purpose of the movement, two types of feminism emerged in this reading. One being ‘Reformist feminism’ and ‘Revolutionary feminism’. Revolutionary being the kind that seeks to abolish sexism and the patriarchy, and reformist reflecting male envy or women constantly seeking the position of men in society. Gender equality and nothing more. Reformist feminism was more easily accepted and did provide progressive change within the workforce but not without having some if not more benefits for white supremacy. “These discussions did not trivialize the feminist insistence that “sisterhood is powerful,” they simply emphasized that we could only become sisters in struggle by confronting the ways women – through sex, class, and race – dominated and exploited other women, and created a political plat- form that would address these differences.” (Hooks 3). 

Shavoya Easy mentioned how gender roles impact our life decisions and when we deviate from them we are reprimanded or looked down upon. An experience I had with this was my experience with P.E throughout my entire 6-12th grade years. I wasn’t good at sports but I had an interest in them, however it was quickly obliterated because of how little patience P.E instructors had for young girls in comparison to the boys. We were expected to fail, to fall behind, and because of this kind of sexism, many girls had accepted this role that was given to us unfairly and decided to never participate at all and sometimes frown down upon those that did, but I believe this was due to stereotype threat as well. They were socialized to believe they were incapable of playing sports because of how much our instructors enforced gener roles, even with their behaviors. It wasn’t always verbal sexism but chuckles or eye rolls whenever a girl was picked for a team or whenever she held the ball, or was too afraid to move on the field because of the intense shouting. I specifically remember my teacher during the fitnessgram announcing that push ups were next, and that the girls in the class would go first. Right after he had said “And that won’t take long” not long after he laughed, and the rest of us did nothing but look at each other in collective anger towards what he just implied. Misconceptions about feminism being anti-male arise because challenging gender roles make those who have male privilege (and people who benefit from these roles) feel as though they themselves are being challenged, which brings out the unnecessary animosity towards feminism and feminists.