Mervi’s Reviews > Undoing Privilege: Unearned Advantage in a Divided World > Status Update

”Able-bodied people need to reclaim their own physical vulnerability and understand how it relates to their responses to bodily difference. They need to study the pathology of non-disablement because it is so destructive to the lives of disabled people.”

“... because all men are socialised within patriarchy, they will all believe to some extent that they have a right to make normative claims upon women. (...) These claims include deferential treatment, unpaid domestic labour and childcare, sexual services and emotional support.”

”As most men’s beliefs about male superiority are experienced as being natural and normal and are institutionalised and culturally exalted, they generally do not notice their advantages. They may even express opposition to blatant forms of sexist discrimination but not see the relationship between sexism and male privilege.”

“Those of us who are professional workers need to understand how we have internalised class into our psyches and address the role that we play in reproducing class-based oppression.”

”... it is important to remember that class is not only about economics. It is internalised in our psyches and it shapes our subjectivity and identity. Class affects people on an emotional as well as an economic level.”

“... many white working-class men have been able to adjust to their subordination as workers by viewing themselves positively as heads of households and breadwinners. These identities have ensured the subordination of women and the exploitation of their unpaid domestic labour.”

“If one lives in a classless society, then class differences do not exist. Challenging exploitative class relations is often difficult because of the reluctance to acknowledge a class identity. Given this context, it is not surprising that there is so little anger and opposition to unearned class privilege.”

“Such a notion of homogeneity serves both blue-collar workers, because it takes the ‘sting’ out of the reality of the class structure for them, while easing the conscience of the upper-middle-class professionals, because it posits that their privileges are available to everyone. The view that everyone is middle class is a myth that continues in spite of the fact that class differences seem so obvious.”

“Thus to challenge Eurocentrism we will need to recognise the struggle of Indigenous people to affirm and validate their knowledge.”