What do we do with our privileges?
Being a feminist is not comfortable at all. We use the metaphor of purple glasses: we have in sight for all time many injustices that are considered normal. However, in recent times, being a feminist has become even more uncomfortable.
We in Europe feel very innovative, we have recently begun to incorporate in the social movements of America a key concept that developed in the 1980s: intersectionality. From this point of view, we cannot analyze in isolation a system of domination such as sexism.
Until now we have referred to “double discrimination” when talking about the reality of Roma, peasant or immigrant women. This view provided a simple arithmetic logic. We might think that a blind lesbian and a transsexual black immigrant man experience similar discrimination: three factors. But it may be that a component that we have not taken into account has more weight, for example, social classes.
Intersectionality refers not only to discrimination, but also to the resources for the resistance of the oppressed and the privileges of the oppressors. According to classical feminism, patriarchal society is universal: women are oppressed and men are oppressed, but it is clear that reality is more complex. Two simple examples. 1. Angela Merkel can live sexism, but because she's powerful, she also has a repressive role, and most of the male workers are more repressed than her. 2nd Together with a hungry woman from Niger or unemployed for being transsexual, I am a privileged one.
We have said so many times to men: the first step in the fight for equality is to give up privileges. I've always been fascinated by the habit of taking my t-shirt off when men are warm in public spaces. Women have to hide the breasts; we can only show sexist advertising to adorn and to breastfeed. So to the extent that we're denied this right to women, it's a privilege for men to choose to show their nipples in a park or a gaztetxe. The collective Stop Gordophobia (gordophobia) states that beauty is a system of oppression and that compliance with aesthetic codes places us in privileged status. So when I'm wearing a miniskirt, do I enjoy the privilege of being thin? Isn't it like the men took the shirt off?
When I travel abroad, being white and European, I am not nervous at border posts or at airports. No one will think I am an “illegal immigrant.” How to give up this advantage?
At Pikara Magazine, we often try to address such awkward issues. For example, is it a contradiction that the feminist is a domestic worker? Doesn't it feed the classicist, sexist, and xenophobic system? Doesn't it develop a bad power relationship? Isn't it a privilege to kiss a heterosexual couple on the street? Why do we fight lesbians for abortion and heterosexuals do not fight for lesbophobia to the same extent? Most of the comments of this type of articles show a defensive attitude and nothing self-criticism.
It's uncomfortable to detect the oppressions we live in; it's more uncomfortable to accept our privileges because they're white, heterosexual or thin. It is a challenge to take into account the complex network of powers and systems of discrimination, but necessary for a coherent and honest fight for equality and human rights.
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ARGIAk ez du zertan bat etorri artikuluen edukiarekin. Idatzien gehienezko luzera 4.500 karakterekoa da (espazioak barne). Idazkera aldetik gutxieneko zuzentasun bat beharrezkoa da: batetik, ARGIAk ezin du hartu zuzenketa sakona egiteko lanik; bestetik, egitekotan edukia nahi gabe aldatzeko arriskua dago. ARGIAk azaleko zuzenketak edo moldaketak egingo dizkie artikuluei, behar izanez gero.
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