Privilege: Why Blondes Have More Fun

By Adele English

From Then, To Now

My upbringing gave me no reason to believe that I could be an oppressor without intentionally inflicting harm on another person. My schooling did not teach me how the way I participate in the world affects those who I may not directly interact with. And my social sphere never taught me that the social norm was anything but right. Growing up in a white household in Portland, Oregon, I knew privilege as a series of advantages and benefits that would be granted to me upon earning them. Within my world as a young girl, I would earn privileges for being respectful, going above and beyond in my community and classroom, and following the rules. It was not until high school that I started thinking about privilege as something separate from my own will; something that I had without doing a thing; something that my parents gave me without trying.

Peggy McIntosh, says it best, “my skin color was an asset for any move I was educated to want to make.”^[1] I began to understand the ways in which the way I was perceived in the world altered the world for me. It wasn’t just my skin. My hair, my eye color, the way I dressed, the way my name sounds when I introduce myself and even the way I learned to introduce myself. All of these things that I had been conditioned to think were normal were quite the opposite. Like most parents, mine raised me to enter the world in a way that I may have the most opportunity. It just happened to be the case that they were teaching me a firm handshake, eye contact, and table manners rather than a new language and identity that varied from their own.

I entered the academic and social world as a sweet bright-eyed blonde girl. Sweet did not come from within, but it came from without. I did not choose my eye or hair color but I also did not choose to have my smile give me the essence of sweetness while the same smile on a brown boy in my class gave him the essence of mischievousness. It did not necessarily matter whether or not I smiled anyway because human behavior is predicted “from something as simple as the color of one’s skin or the shape of one’s eyes.”^[2] My smile, I would learn, is both a blessing and a curse. My smile has benefitted me and provided me with greater privilege and access to opportunity, but has also been an absolutely necessary means to achieving those opportunities. While a frown by a women in a mans world restricts our ability to move about the world at ease, a smile provides access. My smile is regulated by the social and oppresive constructs of patriarchy.

And how lucky I was to fit into the gender norms common to my generation. Notable gender theorist and philosopher Judith Butler defines gender performativity as “not as a singular or deliberate ‘act,’ but, rather, as the reiterative and citational practice by which discourse produces the effects that it names.”^[3] My identity was produced by my community and myself, but it felt anything but deliberate because it was comfortable. In that way, I am lucky. I have been privileged to fit the most basic norms of my perceived identity and feel comfortable within my own skin. Human nature can only explain so much about the identities we choose to adopt, the rest comes from the people around us, the objects we surround ourselves with, and the culture we immerse ourselves in. According to Kimmel, we only create our worlds and identities from that with which we interact externally like such materials in our culture.^[4] I was caught in a web of socialization that I did not even understand but I “didn’t need” to understand it because my existence never created friction against it. I lived in an impenetrable bubble where my norms were the norms and that is exactly how I became a perpetrator of descrimination.

In “Everyday Women’s and Gender Studies,” Devon Carbado reminds his audience that not only those who act intentionally to discriminate are perpetrators of discrimination, but “those of us who fail to acknowledge our victimless status with respect to racism, sexism, and homophobia – are also perpetrators of discrimination.”^[5] The difficulty is in discerning how far my privilege lies and how I can compensate for the uninentional harm it has, and continues to create.

CMC Experience

For me, it has been uncomfortable to learn how my white, blonde privilege falls above and beyond the privilege of my peers when we are engaged in even the most privileged of settings at Claremont McKenna College. Claremont McKenna has provided me with an extraordinary number of opportunities but the privilege of my upbringing and physical appearance is, to my understanding, what has allowed me to take full advantage of those opportunities. I will recount one story where even in the most privileged of places, surrounded by people who by most standards exercise and enjoy privileges far beyond my own, my physical and social privilege exceeded theirs.

Two weeks ago I was honored to be asked to attend the Claremont McKenna Board of Trustees Retreat as a student representative of the College. Twelve other students and myself engaged in several meetings to prepare for the retreat. The majority of the time we spent preparing was spent on conduct and expectations. Among other things, we were told frankly that the majority of the board consists of elderly white men from conservative backgrounds and deep pockets. We discussed potential moments of friction and were advised to pick our battles wisely as we candidly share our expereinces at CMC with the group. I couldn’t help but notice that the other students invited to the retreat were, by dominant standards, eloquent, well behaved, bright-eyed, and extraordinarily articulate. We were chosen because we all knew how to walk the walk and talk the talk.

The Ojai Valley Inn and Spa was absolute luxury, and past exposure and experiences, class, and my physical privilege above all else, equipped me with the ability to fit right in. A few years ago, a senior at school told me to read “The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Getting Ahead” to better achieve my business and other goals that may very well be diminished if I do not “walk the walk and talk the talk” as I said before. I took his advice and read the book, but I did not learn very much, for I had already adopted many of the habits and practices of the text growing up in a largely afluent community with two lawyer parents. On the retreat, when an eighty year old, conservative, white trustee would say something politically incorrent and naturally offensive, I would not butt in to correct him unless my interjection would achieve something positive. Whether that be a learning moment, a correction, or a clarification did not matter. What mattered was that I knew when to pick my battles with these men so that the greatest good would come out of the conversation. For example, when arguing about politics, if a man laughed at a Trump joke or made an aside about immigrants being dangerous, if their comments were not the subject of their discourse and interrupting would inhibit further conversation, learning, and opportunity I would not interject. This is a lesson that I had learned over time and in learning this lesson I was able to know when to interject to make the greatest impact. One could argue that I was working within the restrictive and oppresive system by which these men lived, and I would agree. But I would add that to work within the system to achieve the most sustainable progress in a situation such as the Board of Trustees Retreat is entirely appropriate. Though these men may not be socially cognizant of the changing time, they fund initiatives on campus that are.

Walking The Walk

During our free time on the second day, I went to the spa with three other students. Two were students of color, one was a young white boy who was wearing a slightly oversized suit from a morning meeting, and then there was me. We went to the spa to see if we could get student discounts on massages. When we arrived at the spa the we approached the counter all together. Then one woman said to me, “I’ll be right with you ma’am.” I turned to my peers and they looked back at me and said “we’ll just wait outside.” In that small interaction there was an implicit understanding that I would negotiate to see if we could get the student discount. What I did not think about was the way in which I approached the counter differently than my peers that provided for one of the four people at the front desk to address me and to address me as “ma’am.” The four of us stood across from three staff members, all of which were free, and the one nearest me and my peer to the right, a student of color, addressed me alone.

Why was it so easy for that woman to speak to me instead of another student? Because I looked the part. Why did my peers and I think the negotiation would be better if I did it alone? Because I spoke the part. Why was I so comfortable sliding into conversation with the staff members like I belonged there? Because I had learned the part. Despite being among students of equal or higher privilege to my own in terms of class and educational and professional expereince, one of whom was actually the nephew of a member of the Board of Trustees, the way I was perceived when I entered the room gave us the best shot of achieving our goal. The spa example is absolutely rittled with privilege but that is how the real world looks too. My peers and I will all enter the working world soon but in the interview for Goldman Sachs or McKinsey I am going to remind the interviewer of themselves when they were younger, or their wife or daughter. I am going to have a leg up because my smile will appear sweet and honest, rather than mischevous and over-eager, and my handshake will tell them that I am a strong young woman rather than a dainty young lady or a power hungry trouble maker.

            I have the double privilege of being a white, blonde girl from a supportive home who also has a mother who was first generation, who helped raise her siblings with her single immigrant mother, away from her abusive father, and who taught me how her past has made for my present. I call this double privelege because I am able to understand two communities and backgrounds. When I present myself I am perceived one way but I have the knowledge of two identities. Furhter, I acknowledge my “victimless status with respect to racism, sexism, and homophobia” so that I do not further perpetuate descrimination.^[6]Devon Carbado, Peggy McIntosh, and Judish Butler critically address the importance and infleunce of acknowledgement breaking down obtrusive and oppressive norms but is action by means of acknowledgement enough?

I do not think so, but I do not know how best to go from here.

About the author:

Adele is a senior at Claremont McKenna College in Southern California studying Philosophy and Public Affairs. She grew up in Portland, Oregon with her parents and three siblings. Upon graduation she will pursue a career in consulting before hopefully starting her own business in an industry and cause that she cares deeply about.

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^[1] Peggy McIntosh, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible White Knapsack,” 3.

^[2] Margo DeMello, “Racialized and Colonized Bodies,” 85.

^[3] Judith Butler, “Bodies That Matter,” 2.

^[4] Michael S. Kimmel, “Masculinity as Homophobia: Fear, Shame, and Silence in the Construction of Gender Identity,” 59.

^[5] Devon Carbado, “Everyday Women’s and Gender Studies,” 141.

^[6] Devon Carbado, “Everyday Women’s and Gender Studies,” 141.