In a recent article, Jezebel columnist Kate Dries reported on a troubling phenomenon: the lengthening list of female celebrities who eschew the feminist label. Dries argues that iconic figures like Taylor Swift, Bjork and Lady Gaga refuse to sign off on the feminist agenda, citing their fondness for men as a prime deterrent. As Dries pointed out, such justifications miss the point of feminism by a mile.
Whether the issue is terminological (Madonna, Demi Moore and Sarah Jessica Parker all prefer the word “humanist,” presumably because they see feminism as hostile to men), the substantive point remains: to criticize an institution, in this case male privilege, is not to accuse everyone who is in any way associated with it of intentional immorality. Rather, it is to call attention to the sorts of insidious structures in which we are enmeshed so that we can better work to extricate ourselves.
If this sounds vague, it’s because it is vague. There is no concrete structure that we can point to and scream, “That’s it! That’s the patriarchy!”, nor is there any way of quantifying the extent to which various axes of oppression (racism, classism, sexism and heternormativity) conspire to create unique sorts of injustice. Instead, there are a host of conventions and mores so normalized that we often have difficulty identifying them. Feminism is the process of coming to understand how our own subject positions — our own backgrounds and behaviors — contribute to various sorts of oppression.
Terms like “male privilege” may sound accusatory, but nobody hopes (or nobody should hope) to ascribe malicious intent to individuals solely in virtue of their participation in particular systems. Instead, the feminist program recommends that we contemplate the ways in which our own social standing creates injustices for other people — and that we devise strategies for minimizing these structural injustices that take account of our own backgrounds and roles; it involves a straightforward identification of what facts about social systems entail for us and our actions.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that everyone is innocuous. There is still room to condemn egregious acts of racism and misogyny, and women can be as sexist as men can — just check out Sinead O’Connor’s slut-shaming letter to Miley Cyrus. It also doesn’t mean that everybody should be treated equally in any local, isolated instance, given the set of background assumptions that prejudice our every interaction. It is important for people in power to recognize that the indignities they suffer do not occur within the same sort of institutionalized context that normalizes sexism, racism and homophobia: the sorts of assumptions that are typically made about straight people, male people and white people can be harmful, but they can never be as harmful as the sorts of assumptions that are typically made about queer people, female people and people of color.
To acknowledge that certain groups of people in our society do not confront the same kind of institutionalized bigotry that other groups face — and to conclude that privileged groups have special behavioral obligations as a result — isn’t to condemn or revile these groups. It’s just to appreciate that our personal efforts to alleviate oppression must take account of our own cultural capital. The avenues of resistance that are open to white, male, heterosexual feminists are different than those that are open to female feminists, queer feminists or feminist people of color.
The lesson is particularly instructive for the Dartmouth community, where distaste for institutions is often conflated with distaste for their individual participants. As opponents of the Greek system continue to duke it out with the administration, affiliated students and alumni, it is important for us to remember that structures — not individuals — are the target of our rage.
Dartmouth’s Greek system is difficult to dismantle in part because it is so monolithic, and it is precisely for this reason that it is unfair to direct our anger at affiliated peers. At Dartmouth, affiliation and all the associated evils are not willful acts of malice but rather passive acts of compliance. In most cases, a larger institution is to blame. It’s possible and important for us to hold these structures accountable without accusing or vilifying the human beings who comprise them.
