General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Yes, I am a Feminist. Deal. With. It. [View all]The point of using two legged v. one legged is because it is a simple example that pretty much everyone to understands: If you have two legs, life is easier than if you have one. If you have two legs you are privileged by virtue of that characteristic over those who don't.
And you are right - the real world advantage of having two legs isn't much if you have two legs which most people do. Thank you for taking the perspective most people with privilege do - that of competing against everyone else similarly situated
"check your privilege" asks you to look at it from the other side. If you have only one leg, the real world advantage (privilege) of having two legs is tremendous, because you - with your one leg - are also competing against all of those folks who ""By position of a characteristic {they were} born with, {they} have been helped, or at least not hurt, more than others without this characteristic".
Once you get the concept down, in the really simplistic example used to make a point - and you can also look at the nuances the author does quite well. Contrary to your assertion of skipping over the relative impacts of privileged, here is what she really said:
In other words - you may have been being helped (or at least not hurt) by being white and male. That doesn't go away just because you have other characteristics (like having only one leg) where your voice sharing how the lack of privilege associated with having two legs impacts you would be very useful to hear.
The one legged/two legged perspective actually is a very good match for my experience for much of the past year.
I have - all my life - been able bodied and take a whole lot of things for granted about how useful that characteristic I was just born with is. Out of the blue, I was hit with vertigo for 11 months. That experience - of learning how little able bodied people people (i.e. me just a few months earlier) pay attention to where their bodies are - resulted in panic attacks every time I went out in crowds because I could not trust those around me to understand that the bump that meant nothing to them (i.e. me a few months earlier) would now send me to the floor - or down an escalator. The outright scariest encounter when I was repeatedly jostled by someone behind me and at risk of falling from the shoving and I was simultaneously close enough to the floor I was heading to that I could not turn around and yell stop without risking falling and being crushed by everyone behind me - because it took concentration and the aid of a cane as the stairs folded beneath me to manage to transition from moving to stationary.
Now that I am again able bodied, I a grateful that I no longer panic at the thought of going out in a crowd, that I can balance on stones to cross the creek, and wear moderate heels. All parts of that privilege I took for granted in the past - ways I was helped by being able bodied. But I hope I don't lose the perspective that experience gave me of being made aware, in a very visceral way, of some of the ways I am helped by being able bodied - and of how I had been inadvertently making life more challenging for others simply because the experience of someone with vertigo when I gently bumped into them never crossed my mind because it was outside of my life experience.
That's all "check your privilege" is about. Listening (and asking others to listen) to how I (they ) are helped (or at least not hurt) by characteristics of groups they belong to. Although I was able to experience it first hand - and return to the privilege of being able bodied - most of us don't have that opportunity and walk through life oblivious to how others, in other skins, experience life as a result of being in those other skins - so we need to listen carefully to what they have to say without getting all defensive because it was just a harmful little bump.