As painful as it is for most to admit, being white and in the top, few, percent of the world’s wealthiest people certainly makes you privileged. To say I enjoy privilege sounds harsh, conceited, and rather selfish, but not recognizing said privileges is an unrealistic mindset to hold. Maybe this is true because of the verbiage, to say I enjoy privilege is to say that I find bliss from it. When the perks of privilege are broken down, privilege certainly leaves one at an advantage. Growing up we are not asked to recognize our privilege. It is there, and sometimes we see it, but we are never told to acknowledge or act upon it to push for change. Instead, we are motivated with positive sayings like “appreciate what you have”. Sayings like this prevent the youth from not only recognizing the deficit between classes and the differences in privilege, but also. We are told to appreciate, but we are not told to recognize just how much of an advantage our privilege provides.

My privilege has been passed down through my genes, through the color of my skin, and through the success handed to my elder ancestors. I have never been asked “where are you from” and have never been generalized into a minority group purely based off the color of my skin. This is a privilege. Said privilege advances me in ways that sometimes go unrecognized. I have the advantage of my race always being recognized as the people of this nation. We all came from elsewhere and just because of the color of my skin I do not face similar adversity to minorities around me. How are we supposed to assume that a race that dealt with 250 years of slavery, 90 years of Jim Crow laws, 60 years of separate but equal, and 35 years of state sanctioned redlining to have as large of an advantage as the white race? How are races who have been oppressed for so long expected to get ahead when they are too busy playing catch up?

I feel as though I did not recognize privilege until I recognized where my privilege was lacking. While my financial situation and the status of my race put me ahead, my gender put me behind the privilege represented by the straight white male. Now, that is a lot to unpack. In regards to gender, there are plenty of examples of the upper hand earned simply by having a penis. While yes, I recognize privilege, I also understand where my privilege falls short. To be a woman in the world is still a game of catch up. To fight for feminism is not to fight for the overtake of women, but rather, fight for ultimate equality amongst genders. To be a feminist in this day in age often holds an aggressively negative connotation. Said connotation leaves women lacking in the ability to stand up without a negative light being shed.

There are plenty of behaviors that we run into every day that are blatant examples of male privilege. There is almost a graduation of obstacles that women run into growing up beside males. Growing up: If I am showing too much skin I am not expressing myself through the art of fashion I am sexualizing my shoulders and distracting the boys. We teach girls that a man’s education is more valuable because they would rather send you home to change, missing class, than have you distracting the boys in the classroom. Once we learn to obey by the rules, it is as though we have graduated into the next misfortune brought about through privilege. In learning about sex, the two genders at hand are typically talked about in vastly different ways. Sex education, religious principles, and over all societal norms do not consider men significantly less impure after a male loses their virginity. That said, men are typically congratulated on their sexual affairs, not judged or slut shamed. Then, as we grow up people begin to get over the taboo topic of sex and we seem to be in a more mature state with the opposite sex. This state is where we run into social norms that underhandedly give male counterparts even extra privilege that often goes ignored.

As women, if we marry a man, it is nearly expected that we take their last name. If we don’t, there is an automatic line of questions. Even after all these years we as human still falter into social norms such as a woman is a man’s property as defined by his last name. After this graduation, a few harsh truths are ahead for the women of America. This is where we struggle even more than before with gender roles in the home, even pay, and roles in politics. Religions and old social norms place women in the kitchen as far away from political office as possible. We expect men to win office and when they have a woman running against them, her gender never can simply go ignored. Women make up under a quarter of congress and the judicial system, especially on higher levels, is saturated with testosterone. There are breakthroughs all the time, but the fact that they are still considered breakthroughs just goes to show that we oppress women as far as to be surprised when they are finally able to break down barriers.

Recognizing where the female seems to societally fall short of the male triggers empathy for minorities with less privilege handed to them at birth. Recognizing that the distribution of privilege is not even makes me hyper aware of situations around me. I feel as though I conduct myself in a manner constantly trying to make up for the disadvantages society provides, but, in doing that, I feel as though I am feeding into the negative truths of societies distribution.

Overall, privilege is a sticky topic for those trying to understand their place in the world. Often, people inadvertently avoid or ignore recognizing just how far the privilege awarded to them, simply at birth, allows them to already have a societal leg up. To live in a society that is fair to all we would have to live in a society without generalizations, prior judgements, and sight for differences. Said society is a difficult one to obtain, but the difficulty of the task should not remove the long-term goal all together. Under no circumstance am I saying that I earned the privilege blessed to me by both my financial situation and the color of my skin, that privilege was handed to me in an unfair version of society that has the difficulties stacked against.