How do I define privilege? Here is a scale I put together and you can score yourself

[stevenleser]

Last edited Tue Mar 27, 2012, 11:16 PM - Edit history (9)

RedQueen's thread on White Male privilege got me thinking so I spent some time and put this together:

What is your:
Race (Give yourself 3 for white, 1 for Latino or Asian, and 0 for African American)
Gender (Give yourself 4 for Male, 0 for female)
Wealth Status (Give yourself 5 for Upper Class, 2 for Middle Class, and 0 for Poor)
Orientation (Give yourself 3 for Straight, 1 for bi-female and 0 for all other)
Religion (Give yourself 2 for Christian, 1 for Jewish and 0 for all other)
Physical Beauty (Give yourself a 3 if you believe you are in the top 15% in physical beauty for your age/gender, 0 for all others)

And your score means:
18-20 = Totally Privileged. The Brahmins of our society.
16-17= Your background gives you significant benefits in our society
14-15 = You have some benefits from your background
13 = Neither Privileged by your background nor hurt by it
12 = Your background presents some issues in your life
6-11 = Your background is a moderate issue in your life.
4-5 = Various elements in your background present significant challenges to you
0-3 = You are severely harmed by your negative privilege

[slackmaster]

1. A privi-ledge is a toilet seat mounted on the brink of a precipice

[stevenleser]

2. LOL nt

[burrowowl]

9. Lovely

Where is it?

[flvegan]

3. Thanks for the edit. I was having trouble finding how to get to 15.

Thought I had hit addition fail.

[stevenleser]

4. Last minute alterations before posting ruined my total! LOL

Thanks.

[NYC_SKP]

5. Well, in practice, this is pretty hard to apply.

It's just a demographic thing, absent personality traits like kindness or cruelness, wisdom or dullardry.

Sure, if we want to draw some conclusions about how much more likely one is to lose or gain in a hypothetical situation, all other things being equal, I guess has some limited validity.

But heaven forbid anyone ever use it to draw conclusions about real living breathing human beings.

And we are all members of THAT group!

[stevenleser]

7. True, there is an AOTBE (All Other Things Being Equal) aspect to this

Reality is though, if you are born male, white, straight and into a wealthy family, you can be a jerk and you will probably be OK. Actually, I think that explains a lot of Republican politicians right there.

[NYC_SKP]

24. You got that right. That Noot has any success at all, for example...

...is an indication that goodness and light don't count for much in the privilege game!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

6. How do you define upper class vs. middle class vs. lower class?

Seems to me that the lines kind of blur. Are you upper class if you are a professional who makes $200K a year, or do you have to be Romney-rich? Or somewhere in between? Are you lower class if you have a blue-collar job and don't own a home? Or do you have to be unemployed and/or homeless? What if you used to be a highly-paid professional but you've lost your job and your house?

Obviously a straight, rich, white Christian male is on the top of our social food chain. But I'd posit that privilege (which has no "d&quot is a bit slipperier and more difficult to quantify than your analysis suggests.

[stevenleser]

12. Well, I purposely put 'wealth' in that slot rather than income.

How I define the upper class in wealth is simple. You are below retirement age and, assuming you did nothing stupid with your money and holdings, you never have to work again and you would be fine in terms of providing for yourself and those who depend on you. The lower range of upper class may not be jetsetting if they never worked again, but they still dont need to work.

For the poor class, I will defer to the poverty range defined for wherever a person lives.

Middle class is anything between the poor class and being wealthy enough to where you dont have to work anymore.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

17. That's an awfully, awfully low threshold for upper class.

By your definition I'm in it, which is beyond ludicrous. I'm retired. I had to retire early because my job went away, but I have enough of a vested pension/401K and some other assets that (if I start drawing Social Security) it looks like I might be able to squeak by without having to get another full-time job. That's upper class? Please. I can assure you that my lifestyle is not upper class by any definition of that term. I live in a small, somewhat run-down old house in an older part of my city. I can't afford to travel much or eat in fancy restaurants and I don't buy anything I don't need beyond the occasional book. I think you're going to have to redefine upper class if your analysis is to have any validity.

[stevenleser]

25. There are exceptions as you get over 50 and approach retirement

If you are under 50 and your holdings are such that you never have to work again and you can provide for yourself and those who depend on you, you have significant assets. As you approach retirement age, you get some folks in your circumstance who are basically shoe-horning themselves into an adequate retirement. The scale thus becomes different in the 50-65ish age range.

Still, I think you get my general point.

[izquierdista]

8. 5 points don't equal 5 points

If I could choose which on the list I wanted, I would take the 5 points for wealth. Because if I know when to bow my head and can tell a couple of f*g jokes, I can fool people into giving me 5 points. The first two categories being equal, I think David Geffen gets a lot further with his 9 points than some Larry the Cable Guy clone gets with his 9 points.

[stevenleser]

28. Can you list out which points Geffen and Larry get? I just want to see it laid out...

As far as LGBT goes, being closeted is a serious challenge as far as I am concerned and would itself constitute a life challenge. I havent experienced it myself obviously but that is what my LGBT friends tell me.

[izquierdista]

48. Wait a minute, you changed it on me....

Geffen: 3+5+6+0+1+0= 15
Larry: 3+5+0+3+2+0= 13

With the new number, Geffen comes out 2 points ahead. But as he himself pointed out, once you have $10 million, you can pretty much tell anyone you want to fuck off and you can do anything you want.

[stevenleser]

53. Yep, sorry, I've been adjusting it based on a lot of helpful input from folks...

I think Geffens case as an LGBT wealthy white guy and Oprah's case as a wealthy black woman versus someone like larry the cable guy who is presumably a middle class straight white christian male illustrates a point. Privilege does not automatically translate one way or the other. Being LGBT and being a black woman makes things harder but it doesnt make the top impossible to reach.

On the other hand, significant negative privilege issues would be associated with generalized more negative outcomes, and its hard to go wrong if you are a wealthy white straight male.

[FSogol]

10. Being attractive or tall should count for some points. n/t

[stevenleser]

15. Yes, I agree. I will have to modify my table and scale. nt

[stevenleser]

14. I hope that isnt the impression that people get. To me priviledge is the relative challenge your

background gives you in life.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

20. "Privilege" doesn't have a "d."

[stevenleser]

22. Thanks, I need to remember that. :-(

[Ron Obvious]

13. Thank god I'm an atheist then...

Thank the god I don't believe in that I'm an atheist then I would have scored the maximum 14 points otherwise and would have to register as a Republican.

Wait, hold on a minute. I'm an immigrant. Surely that counts for something.

[stevenleser]

21. Depends from where you are an immigrant

Immigrants with a white european background arent really regarded as immigrants at all in society. If you are a 12, then be happy. No need for anyone who scores high to be a Republican. For that you need to score high AND lack empathy.

[Ron Obvious]

30. But how do you define class and wealth?

I was fortunate enough to be able to retire as a relatively young man during the nineties because of stock options, but I come from a solidly middle-class family one generation from the land and never adopted a flashy lifestyle.

Class in America is a confusing thing to me. In some countries your accent places you into your class, no matter how wealthy you might be. In this country, it seems to be the quality of your teeth that places you into your class. People who think America is a classless society are deeply mistaken.

[stevenleser]

35. See my discussions above with Velveteen Ocelot in messages 12,17,25 but basically

If you can stop working before the age of 50 and be fine in terms of being able to meet the needs of yourself and any who depend on you, you are upper class in terms of wealth. You might be barely upper class if all you cant afford much in the way of luxury, but you are upper class.

I define poor as someone meeting the criteria for poverty for their area and middle class as anyone between being poor and upper class.

The definition of upper class above age 50 becomes muddied obviously as a result of how I have defined it.

[Lasher]

16. How does Jeremy Lin fit into your formula?

I doubt he would agree with your assessment.

[stevenleser]

18. Wouldn't he be a 13? Why do you think he would disagree?

Do you think he should be higher or lower?

[Zalatix]

19. Wealth should be rated a lot higher. More like 7 or 9 for Upper Class

[stevenleser]

23. Perhaps. But I am thinking gender needs to be edged up too. nt

[Zalatix]

63. Not really - working class men don't get much of an advantage anymore.

ESPECIALLY not during war. Guess who the rich send out to die?

Wealth is the big, big advantage-holder in that list.

Nobody's going to sexually harass Madonna.

[stevenleser]

67. Believe it or not, wealthy females still get sexually harassed, and they dont get taken as seriously

But I think the larger more important point that you are right about is that I need to increase the wealth factor again.

[stevenleser]

33. Fixed. nt

[Warren DeMontague]

27. I think it over simplifies and treats society as well as "privilege" as monolithic. They aren't.

Context matters as well as a host of other factors.

Certainly, if you were to average it all out, white, male, straight and christian probably confer the most advantages (as well as rich) ... so do other things, like having all your teeth.

But being a straight white christian male might not help you as much getting a job, say, in the Castro.

I think prejudice and discrimination ARE real, however they have improved over previous eras.

[guitar man]

38. I agree

I wouldn't dismiss the concept of these types of priveleges out of hand, but we are all individuals. Unless you're able to walk a mile in someone else's shoes you don't know where they've been and what they've been through .

While someone may posess the attributes of privelege , gender, skin color etc, whether or not they've ever gotten any mileage out of said privelege depends on a complex tapestry of circumstances over time ..... in other words, life.

[stevenleser]

55. See my #53 nt

[Nye Bevan]

29. YES! I beat Oprah Winfrey!

Only by 1 point, but a win's a win!

[stevenleser]

32. How about now after the update? nt

[stevenleser]

31. Updated the table/scale to increase wealth benefit for u/c, for males and add physical beauty nt

[Dreamer Tatum]

34. How many points for being able to spell? nt

[stevenleser]

36. 22 for being able to spell, -22 for those who can't. So, I'm done!

[Ohio Joe]

37. I think this is really close but perhaps a little off...

I get points for white (3), male (4) and straight (3) for a total of 10... I am not sure that represents things correctly for me. Yeah... things are tough right now but as the economy improves things gets progressively better. I did excellent in a good economy, meh in a bad economy and I fully expect to go into excellent again as the economy improves. Fully because, as a straight, white, male, I will not have impediments in my way that others will.

[unkachuck]

39. I got a 12....

....7 for being a white male and 5 for being a straight Christian....but that still leaves me ugly and poor; not exactly minor issues....

....but I applaud you effort at constructing a privilege-order for the 99%....I bet no one here is even close to the 1% (15-22)....

[stevenleser]

40. I need one more edit... hang on... nt

[stevenleser]

41. OK, I adjusted the definitions of each score to what I think is more appropriate.

Let me know what you think.

[unkachuck]

44. yes, I think that's better....but one more edit, Total Privilege, 19-22....n/t

[stevenleser]

42. p.s., no one is ugly.

Just not everyone's looks qualify as privilege

[themadstork]

69. That is so spot on.

Love how you worded that.

[antigone382]

43. Good, but what about individuals with disabilities?

Definitely some privilege issues going on there. There's also urban vs. rural, but I don't know exactly how to conceptualize that. Perhaps there should be two measures to address class: both wealth status, and family income growing up (or something like it).

Anyway, privilege is exceptionally hard to model. Yours is pretty comprehensive, I just thought I'd throw in a few wrenches...my apologies...

[stevenleser]

45. I've been wondering about that too. Have to think on it.

[Marrah_G]

46. I rated a 4

White, female, poor, Bisexual, Wiccan, not attractive by popular standards.

[stevenleser]

47. How does that square with your perception of privilege vs other people? Does it work?

p.s. just updated the tables again, probably my last update for the evening.

[Marrah_G]

49. I think it probably is pretty close

Although I will say that I think race, especially in the case of African Americans really changes things. I may be really low on the privilege scale, but I know I have it alot easier then a black woman who has exactly the same life as myself in every other way.

[stevenleser]

51. OK, that prompted me to adjust the privilege scales

This puts a person in your circumstance in a different category from a black woman in the same circumstance.

[Marrah_G]

54. I think thats fair :)

[Canuckistanian]

50. Oooo, lost big on the religion and beauty questions

I clearly have some issues.....

[stevenleser]

56. Yeah, but you live somewhere where you are guaranteed free great healthcare. That is +7!!!!!!!

j/k

[Canuckistanian]

73. Yes, there is that

So do I win?

[Odin2005]

52. 10

white
male
straight
poor
atheist
not particularly attractive

[lumberjack_jeff]

57. Paris Hilton rates a 14. My unemployed brother in law with MS rates a 15.

a) Your calculus of white privilege is understated, and it would have been worth mentioning other races.

b) Male privilege is comparatively nonexistent.

Disagree? Name three government programs or laws which will be rendered unconstitutional by passage of the ERA.

[stevenleser]

60. Privilege is only the calculus of the general challenges you face, not the ultimate outcome

Someone with the highest privilege can put all their money up their nose or up one of their veins, drive away all their families and friends and kill themselves. Someone with little privilege can invent something, become a movie or recording star, etc.

Sounds like your unemployed brother is white, male, abnormally attractive, straight and Christian. He has a lot going for him. Sure, he can screw it up and not take advantage of it, but he does have a lot going for him.

[themadstork]

72. And Hilton herself takes the brunt of some pretty nasty sexism.

I know, she can go cry into her trust fund or whatever. But if she were Paul Hilton instead she'd be the power-masturbation fantasy of GOPers everywhere. Slap a penis on her and a lot of that outrageous or stupid behavior gets glossed over as machismo and TOWERING MALE AUTHORITY. I mean look at Donald Trump. Guy's a clown, but he plays up the usual male power plays and thus commands an absurd amount of authority.

[stevenleser]

77. That's it in a nutshell.

There is a place that a Paris or Oprah or LGBT wealthy person like Elton John will never go because they lack certain privilege. That doesnt mean we should feel particularly sorry for them. Their lives are certainly easier than ours.

[lumberjack_jeff]

75. No he doesn't. He has NOTHING going for him.

NO ONE has his back.

He worked hard as a farmhand for 30 years until knee surgery forced his retirement. Shortly thereafter he developed MS.

There is no difference between what you just said and what Herman Cain said. "Don't blame Wall Street, don't blame the big banks. If you don't have a job and you are not rich, blame yourself!"

[stevenleser]

76. In terms of privilege, which as I said, is not the final word, he has a lot going for him.

He is not going to be turned down for a job because he is black, or a woman. He isnt going to be held back from promotion or higher pay for either of those reasons. He isnt going to be assaulted or bullied for being gay, we can go on.

Yes, I am planning on modifying the table to include a health/disability factor, but you are reading too much into this. Oprah rates pretty far down my list because she is a black woman. That hurts how much privilege she has. But unquestionably she has risen beyond that. It works both ways. A wealthy, white straight Christian male can still shoot all of his money into one of his veins or up his nose, alienate everyone and end up, broke, homeless and friendless. Someone who would start off at a 0 can do extremely well.

Its one suggestion of your general challenges.

[lumberjack_jeff]

83. Because of his gender, he was 50% less likely to go to college.

Because of his gender, he was vastly more likely to be injured on the job. Because of his gender, he's much less likely to survive into retirement. With a single MS medication costing $2500 per month and not covered by SSI, not to mention his insulin dependent diabetes, it's very likely that he'll fall into exactly that crack.

The implication that he must have got in this predicament because "he shot all his money into a vein or up his nose", because presumably they give all us white guys a trust fund with our birth certificates, is unspeakably offensive.

The gender privilege that is apparently so obvious and apparent to anyone to whom it doesn't apply doesn't have any meaningful payoff to most of us.

I am reading into it, exactly what you wrote, and nothing more.

But that is enough.

[stevenleser]

84. There is nothing to your response to me but misquotes and straw men. I stand on previous posts nt

[hughee99]

58. I'm not sure this is completely balanced.

Assuming that when Obama's daughters grow up they are straight and beautiful (for scoring purposes), they only get a "13". I guess my only real issue on the scale, though, is the "Wealth Status". The upper class have significant advantages regardless of their genetic attributes based on their ability to get the best education and meet "the right people". I think it should be weighed heavier.

[stevenleser]

61. I am going to mess with it some more tomorrow. I originally had wealth at 3 then 7, then...

I agree, wealth is the biggest determining factor of your challenges. Getting it just right is a bit tough.

[hughee99]

65. I think there's even a 4th category for wealth.

Being "upper class" is one thing, being in the top 1% might be worth 20 points. If Bill Gates had an ugly, gay, wiccan, adopted daughter from Bangladesh, she's still going to have advantages over a poor, straight, good looking, christian white guy.

Good luck though, it's an interesting thing to try to quantify.

[Kurska]

59. I'm a 13.

I expected more. White, Gay, male, upperclass and jew.

[stevenleser]

62. Yet, I am sure you will agree that being gay presents occasional challenges

and as a fellow Jew, I know that being Jewish does. I dont think a week goes by where I dont hear some sort of anti-semetism either around me or in the media or on a website I am visiting.

I do think I need to adjust upward the value for upperclass privilege to a 7 or 9.

[GobBluth]

64. You forgot one big thing. I am white, a christian woman, but am DEAF. Any "handicap" should be

a negative point, at least by "normal" society's standards.

[stevenleser]

66. Yep, Antigone mentioned that one upthread. Going to have to decide how much to give that one

I am thinking 2 pts for people without physical challenges, 0 points with.

[bart95]

80. just think how many people have looked at you and judged you as unfairly 'privilaged',

without knowing anything about you, or having taken a single step in your shoes, because of propaganda like this

[stevenleser]

82. First of all, anyone with an awareness of privilege wouldn't do that because she is a woman

Second, you are reading all kinds of things into this that are not there. Privilege is no more an indicator of outcome than intelligence, assuming that is even being properly measured. We all know extremely bright people who are poor and unhappy. And we all know the reverse as well.

These are indicators of general challenges, not the final word.

[bart95]

85. nice try, but no sale nt

[stevenleser]

87. Nothing to sell, it is what it is. nt

[bart95]

88. it most certainly is nt

[themadstork]

68. Either an 18 or 15,

depending on if you think I'm a pretty dude. And my atheism is my dinger on there, which has to be the weakest of all those.


I try not to kid myself about it - to be aware and non-assholeish without suffocating in angst. I get up each day and slog at the writing and feel like such a useless fuck at what I do that dwelling on my like privilege-to-accomplishment ratio would make me want to just die.

Lately I've become intensely aware of how easy it is to be a dick and pull privilege. To mansplain, etc. I feel like, I express most of myself either in my writing hours or when making love. Those things are pretty much what I am - my fiance and my work. In those things I don't hold back: I try to forget who I am and act madly, stupidly. Like Don Quixote! Quixote is my dude. In everything else I try to stay very humble and somewhat self-effacing. I'm so weak-willed and on so many psych meds that it's hard to forget the huge number of people responsible for my not being dead. For the same reason I feel too ashamed to talk politics with anyone anymore. I work stupidy hard on my writing, but at the matter of surviving life, of facing adversity and being tough in the way the people I admire seem to be tough, I just suck. And the whole American political spectrum values the never-say-die persevere-at-all-costs type of dude so highly that I feel hypocritical saying much of anything at all. I'm not that. When presented with great adversity and stress in my life my solution has consistently been: suicide. And were I not given the extensive support system someone as lucky as I am will have, I have no doubt I would have eventually pulled it off. My fiance too has been hospitalized with a heart thing for the past three years, and she also is very privileged, and I guess between the two of us it's been hard to avoid the fact of how contingent our lives are on the support of other people. And in both our cases on support available to a vanishingly tiny sliver of the world population.

[Johnny Rico]

70. Being an atheist gives me 0 points, but it's never been the slightest handicap in my life.

I realize others may well have different experiences, but the subject of religion almost never comes up in my social interactions...and when it does and I do tell someone that I'm an atheist, the typical reaction is just, "Huh...how about that".

[themadstork]

71. I agree with this

Maybe being a member of a stigmatized minority religon would be different. But atheism carries no social practices, no indicators. And really few enough people are so forward and demonstrative in their faith that an athiest's everyday behavior is no different than any average joe.

[LadyHawkAZ]

74. I got a 4

I would probably face significant challenges were it not for the Attitude scale, where I score a 25.

In all seriousness, the only things that ever held me back in life were my own occasional stupidity (not on the list) and the almighty Motherhood, (also not on the list). I've never felt hindered by my gender, orientation or beliefs.

[bart95]

78. I deserve guilt, shame and penalty

according to your thinly desguised bias against white christian straight (even if decades long commited to progressive causes) males

[stevenleser]

79. Where did I say that? I never said or even hinted any such thing in any way.

My scoring table is no justification to like or dislike anyone. It is simply a measurement of general privilege. Oprah outscores me as does Paris Hilton, Elton John, and Ricky Martin. It's not just wealthy white males that outscore me. That is no reason to dislike any of the above or anyone else.

[MrScorpio]

81. I'm a 7

[mainer]

86. I think Atheists should get more points.

Since they tend to be better educated, live in better neighborhoods and are higher earners.

p.s., I rate a 12 but I feel very privileged.

[ZombieHorde]

89. Cisgender versus transgender should probably be added.

I think the religion part should be modified. Being a Buddhist is probably more socially acceptable than being a Muslim or atheist.

Christian 3
Jew 2
Atheist, Muslim, small cult 0
All other 1