Connecting Peggy McIntosh's Observations to Your Research
|
|
|
|
| male vs. female: "Only rarely will a man go beyond acknowledging that women are disadvantaged to acknowledging that men have an unearned advantage . . . "(291). | are you ever aware of advantages that men have over women? is there anything about the writing tasks you have that would be easier to perform for men than for women? | do men have certain advantages over women, just because they're men? if so, what forms do these advantages take? do women have any advantages here over men? how does if feel to be a man or a woman in this particular field? |
| conditioning: "I began to count the ways in which I enjoy unearned skin privilege and have been conditioned into oblivion about its existence, unable to see that it puts me 'ahead' in any way, or put my people ahead. . ." (292) | have you been "conditioned" or strongly encouraged, without being aware of it, to write in certain ways? also, is there anything about you, or your background, that automatically puts you ahead of other writers? | do you think your writer has been put ahead of others in the workplace, in ways that the writer may not even realize? |
| helping others: When "we [whites] work to benefit others, this is often seen as work which will allow 'them' to be more like 'us.' I think many of us know how obnoxious this attitude can be in men" (293). | if I write ever about the problems that other groups have, am I implying that they would be better off if they were in some way or ways more like me? | does your writer do any work meant to help others? if so, does this work seem meant to help others be more like your writer, and, if so, is this form of help possibly "obnoxious" in that it give credit to those being helped for being different in ways that might be good differences? |
| specific instances of privilege: McIntosh lists 46 examples of white privilege in her own life (293-94) | do any of these privileges (or lack thereof) get played out in my writing, or influence it? if so, how? | does my writer enjoy some of these privileges? if so, which are especially relevant to his or her workplace situation, or his or writings? |
| open doors: "If these things are true, this is not such a free country; one's life is not what one makes it; many doors open for certain people through no virtues of their own" (295). | has your background provided you with any advantages that have contributed to your ability to write better than others can? for example, could your parents read and write, and did they encourage you to do so? | has your writer's background provided him or her with any advantages that have contributed to his or her ability to write better than others can? to function in this particular workplace better than others can? |
| assets: "My skin color was an asset for any move I was educated to want to make" (295). | has your skin color helped or hindered your efforts to fulfill your desires in life so far? can you think of any specific examples? | has your writer's skin color helped or hindered his or her efforts to get the job he or she has? can he or she provide any specific examples? |
| an advantage of being disadvantaged?: "In some groups, those dominated have actually become strong through not having all of these unearned advantages, and this gives them a great deal to teach others. Member of so-called privileged groups can seem foolish, ridiculous, infantile, or dangerous by contrast" (296). | have I had any disadvantages that have actually made me stronger because I've had to overcome them? | does your writer have disadvantages? could he or she teach others anything on the basis of what they've learned by dealing with these disadvantages? |
| talking about privilege: "In writing this paper, I have also realized that white identity and status (as well as class identity and status) give me considerable power to choose whether to broach this subject and its trouble" (297). | if you can identify various forms of privilege that you have in the writing process, are you willing to acknowledge them with others? Why would you want to? What forms might these advantages take (in terms of race, class, gender, sexuality, or other categories)? | does your writer recognize such privileges in the workplace, or are they one of those things that just doesn't get talked about? Do people there try to deal with these issues in any direct ways? Do they tiptoe around them, avoiding them? |
| other factors: "[S]ince race and sex are not the only advantaging systems at work, we need to similarly examine the daily experience of having age advantage, or ethnic advantage, or physical ability, or advantage related to nationality, religion, or sexual orientation" (297). | are there other significant categories that put you at an automatic advantage or disadvantage in any particular contexts? | are there other significant categories that put your writer at an automatic advantage or disadvantage in this particular workplace, or in terms of any particular forms of writing he or she produces? |
| being oblivious to privilege: "[O]bliviousness about white advantage, like obliviousness about male advantage, is kept strongly inculcated in the US so as to maintain the myth of meritocracy, the myth that democratic choice is equally available to all" (298). | do you write actually from a point of view that is more connected to your class and/or your gender and/or your race than you realized? if any of these categories put you at an advantage in the writing process over others, how do they do so? | does your writer's writings reflect in any ways his or her positions in any of these categories? does your writer seem to prefer to remain oblivious about any unearned advantages in the writing process, or in the workplace, that he or she may have? |
| sexuality: McIntosh begins a list of 8 examples of heterosexual privilege in her own life (298) | does your sexuality determine anything about the writings that you produce? if your sexuality were different, would you somehow write differently, or about any different topics? | is your writer's sexuality in any way an advantage or a disadvantage in his or her job and workplace? |
| the future: "What will we do with such knowledge?" (299) | having thought about various forms of privilege, or the lack of privilege, in your own life, will you do anything differently? will your writing change at all in any ways? | if you have made your writer any more aware of any particular privileges, do you think this person might change anything he or she does on the job? |