Undoing Privilege

Unearned Advantage and Systemic Injustice in an Unequal World

Professor Bob Pease

• Publisher: Zed Books
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781913441142
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Minority Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

For every group that is oppressed, another group is privileged. Here, Bob Pease argues that privilege, as the other side of oppression, has received insufficient attention in both critical theories and in the practices of social change. As a result, dominant groups have been allowed to reinforce their dominance. The second edition of Undoing Privilege extensively revises the six sites of privilege from the first edition: Western dominance, class elitism, white and patriarchal privilege and heterosexual and able-bodied privilege to reflect policy shifts and new social movement initiatives as well as the latest research and resources. This edition also includes four new chapters on anthropocentrism, cisgender privilege, adultism and Christian privilege. Pease points out that while the vast majority of people may be oppressed on one level, many are also privileged on another. He demonstrates how members of privileged groups can engage critically with their own dominant position, and explores the potential and limitations of them forming relations of solidarity against oppression and their unearned privilege. The second edition includes new theoretical developments in privilege theory, collective responsibility, complicity in systemic injustice and allyship. It is an essential book for all who are concerned about developing theories and practices for a socially just world.

Part One Theoretical and conceptual foundations

1 Oppression, privilege and relations of domination

We live in an unequal world structured along the relational divisions of class, race, gender, sexuality and other social divisions. How that inequality is understood and the extent to which it is justified has been the subject of a considerable debate in popular culture and in the social sciences. Numerous books have documented various forms of social inequality in Western societies, including economic inequality, status inequality, sex and gender inequality, racial and ethnic inequality and inequalities between different countries. Many of these books have also examined the sources of social and political inequality in modern capitalist societies and the ways in which social and political arrangements reproduce those inequalities.

To help us understand the costs of inequality, key concepts in the social sciences have been used to explain the dynamics of modern capitalist societies: social exclusion, social divisions, social problems, discrimination, disadvantage, powerlessness, exploitation, oppression and, to a lesser extent, the concept of elites. While each of these concepts is important in illustrating the structural dimensions of unequal social relations and examining the costs of these relations for marginalised and oppressed groups, they do little to address the role played by those of us who benefit most from existing social divisions and inequalities. Nor do most of these books examine how these inequalities are reproduced by and through the daily practices of privileged groups.

Many writers on social inequality demonstrate the structural and institutional dimensions of social inequality and how it is reflected in political and legal institutions. Such theories of social dominance emphasise the importance of locating inequality within the context of institutional and structural arrangements. These theories have been significant in explaining the continuation of social inequality. They have certainly informed my own understanding of modern capitalist societies, and they have shaped my own critical consciousness of structural inequalities. However, most inequality theorists do not explore the responsibility of privileged groups for maintaining these social arrangements. Perhaps they consider it to be self-evident. But it is this self-evidence that lessens the responsibility that members of such groups have to challenge these unequal arrangements.

The other side of discrimination and oppression

One concept that would seem to provide a basis for holding privileged groups responsible is discrimination, whether this be class, race, sexuality, age or gender discrimination. There has been an explosion of literature dealing with the experiences of discrimination. While much of this literature acknowledges the structural basis of discrimination based on race, gender, class, sexuality and so forth, it is usually presented in terms of personal attitudes and prejudices. Terms like ‘racist’ and ‘sexist’ are used to describe people who stereotype and discriminate against others. Such terms focus on the behaviour of individuals and ignore the wider context in which discrimination takes place. Mostly, the individual is blamed for being prejudiced rather than identifying the ways in which the individual’s behaviour is socially reinforced and normalised (Wildman and Davis 2000). These descriptions often hide the flipside of discrimination, which is privilege. The concept of discrimination places too much emphasis on prejudice and is too narrowly focused to address the complexity of dominant–subordinate relations.

In relation to the concept of oppression, there is a considerable amount of literature that focuses on the oppression of particular groups: women, gays, people of colour and so forth. While it is usually recognised that dominant groups gain from the oppression of others, most books on oppression are concerned with changing the way the oppressed think and act. Considerable attention is given to how oppressed groups reproduce their own oppression.

Such writers emphasise how inequality is legitimated through a belief in the ‘rightfulness’ of existing social inequalities. However, when discussing which groups believe in the ‘rightfulness’ of the unequal distribution of rewards and resources, most social theorists emphasise the role played by the marginalised. It is suggested that subordinated individuals perpetuate their own marginalisation and oppression by internalising the ideas from the dominant culture into their psyches. Many people blame themselves for not achieving more in their lives because they are actively encouraged to do so.

One way that has been used to explain this accommodation is ‘internalised oppression’, which Pheterson (1986: 148) describes as ‘the incorporation and acceptance by individuals within an oppressed group of the prejudices against them within the dominant society’. For example, some gay men may internalise homophobia and feel a lack of pride in their identity and their history.

This leads often to a concern with strategies to assist marginalised groups to challenge their oppression. Oppressed groups may accept, accommodate to or reject their subordination. The latter response is what Mansbridge (2001) refers to as ‘oppositional consciousness’. Subordinate groups are said to ‘have an oppositional consciousness when they claim their previously subordinate identity as a positive identification, identify injustices done to their group and demand changes in the polity, economy or society’ (Mansbridge 2001: 1). Such a term is seen to embrace race, class and other forms of consciousness of subordination. Oppositional consciousness encourages subordinate groups to identify dominant groups as oppressors. The rise of second-wave feminism, gay liberation and anti-racist struggles by Indigenous peoples is an example of this critical consciousness of oppression.

The concern is with the opportunities and capacity of the excluded to resist the forces of their exclusion. There is a danger here that those who are socially excluded may be portrayed as reproducing their own marginalisation. This notion comes close to blaming the victim for their own victimisation. To what extent can we charge those who are oppressed with not doing enough to challenge their oppression, while those who are privileged have barely begun to acknowledge the role they play in oppressing others?

The role of dominant groups in legitimating social discourse through the control of ideology is well known in Marxist theory, whether it is in the form of producing ‘false consciousness’ or, in Antonio Gramsci’s (1957) words, ‘ideological hegemony’. The argument is that dominant groups maintain their position by winning over the hearts and minds of those who are exploited by the existing system. This lack of consciousness of inequality is presented as a way of explaining its continuance. The focus is on how those who are marginalised do not acknowledge the structural basis of social inequality. While these writers acknowledge the existence of dominant groups, the self-interest of these groups in maintaining the existing inequalities is usually taken as a given and is not critically examined.

One of the main factors in encouraging oppositional consciousness is seeing unequal relations as unjust. However, why should this concern only be directed at those who are on the receiving end of injustice and subordination? If we focus only on oppression, we reinforce the invisibility of privilege. If we are really going to understand the sources of oppression in society, we must understand how privilege is constructed and maintained. Furthermore, as Bailey (1998: 117) comments, we need to be ‘attentive to the ways in which complex systems of domination rely on the oppression of one group to generate privilege for another’.

Why do sociologists focus primarily on the bottom of the social division and not on the dominant group?¹ It is often noted that academics are more likely to study ‘down’ rather than ‘up’. There are numerous studies of oppressed and marginalised groups but few studies of powerful and privileged groups. Why is this so? Is it simply because it implicates those in power? If we focus exclusively upon the oppressed and the socially excluded, we reinforce the invisibility of privilege. Understanding the construction of privilege is necessary for a complete understanding of how oppression and marginalisation are sustained.

Privileged groups may also come to see the injustice in systems of domination. Men can challenge patriarchy. White people can challenge racism. Heterosexuals can confront homophobia. This consciousness of inequality is particularly more likely if people have an oppositional consciousness about their own subordination on one dimension of stratification. Such people may be able to more easily empathise with the experiences of another group’s oppression. For example, we might expect that Black men would be more likely than white men to support feminism because they have experienced oppression. Sandoval (2000) refers to this as ‘differential oppositional consciousness’. However, while groups that are dominant on one dimension of inequality and oppressed on another may in some instances identify more closely with oppressed groups; on other occasions they may identify their interests with dominant and privileged groups. I examine the complexity of people experiencing both oppression and privilege more fully in Chapter 2.

While it is important to recognise the structural constraints on challenging inequality and equally important to explore the potential of subordinated groups to mobilise collective actions against inequality, those who benefit from existing inequalities are often ‘let off the hook’ and the role they play in reproducing inequalities is neglected. This book explores the ways in which members of dominant groups reproduce their dominance, sometimes consciously but often unconsciously as well.

We need to develop a new vocabulary to understand the ways in which various dimensions of privilege are interconnected and reproduced. This means that the very naming of privilege as opposed to discrimination, social exclusion, oppression and so forth gives us a new perspective to understand social inequality.

Elite studies and studying up

An exception to the focus on the oppressed and marginalised is elite studies that do study upwards. The concept of elites is commonly acknowledged in the social sciences; however, there are considerably fewer studies of them.² Elites are those who have considerable wealth and power usually located in politics and business. More than fifty years ago, for example, Lenski (1966: 43), in setting out to answer the question of ‘who gets what and why’, argued that ‘privilege is largely a function of power’. Similarly, over thirty-five years ago Daniel (1983: 12) argued that ‘(t)he status of occupations provides a useful reflection of the way power and privilege is held in society’. Her focus was on how those at the top of the occupational hierarchy constituted an upper-class elite.

The concept of privilege is inadequately explored in elite studies. The problem with elite studies is that there is often little critic...