Social privilege is a theory of special advantage or entitlement, which benefits one person, often to the detriment of others. Privileged groups can be advantaged based on
education
Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...
,
social class
A social class is a grouping of people into a set of Dominance hierarchy, hierarchical social categories, the most common being the Upper class, upper, Middle class, middle and Working class, lower classes. Membership in a social class can for ...
,
caste
Caste is a form of social stratification characterised by endogamy, hereditary transmission of a style of life which often includes an occupation, ritual status in a hierarchy, and customary social interaction and exclusion based on cultura ...
,
age
Age or AGE may refer to:
Time and its effects
* Age, the amount of time someone or something has been alive or has existed
** East Asian age reckoning, an Asian system of marking age starting at 1
* Ageing or aging, the process of becoming older ...
,
height
Height is measure of vertical distance, either vertical extent (how "tall" something or someone is) or vertical position (how "high" a point is).
For example, "The height of that building is 50 m" or "The height of an airplane in-flight is abou ...
, weight,
nationality
Nationality is a legal identification of a person in international law, establishing the person as a subject, a ''national'', of a sovereign state. It affords the state jurisdiction over the person and affords the person the protection of the ...
,
geographic location
In geography, location or place are used to denote a region (point, line, or area) on Earth's surface or elsewhere. The term ''location'' generally implies a higher degree of certainty than ''place'', the latter often indicating an entity with an ...
,
disability
Disability is the experience of any condition that makes it more difficult for a person to do certain activities or have equitable access within a given society. Disabilities may be Cognitive disability, cognitive, Developmental disability, dev ...
,
ethnic
An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...
or
racial
A race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. The term came into common usage during the 1500s, when it was used to refer to groups of variou ...
category,
gender
Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures u ...
,
gender identity
Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender. Gender identity can correlate with a person's assigned sex or can differ from it. In most individuals, the various biological determinants of sex are congruent, and consistent with the i ...
,
neurology
Neurology (from el, wikt:νεῦρον, νεῦρον (neûron), "string, nerve" and the suffix wikt:-logia, -logia, "study of") is the branch of specialty (medicine), medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of co ...
,
sexual orientation
Sexual orientation is an enduring pattern of romantic or sexual attraction (or a combination of these) to persons of the opposite sex or gender, the same sex or gender, or to both sexes or more than one gender. These attractions are generall ...
,
physical attractiveness
Physical attractiveness is the degree to which a person's physical features are considered aesthetically pleasing or beautiful. The term often implies sexual attractiveness or desirability, but can also be distinct from either. There are many ...
,
religion
Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...
, and other differentiating factors.
It is generally considered to be a theoretical concept used in a variety of subjects and often linked to social inequality.
Privilege is also linked to social and cultural forms of power.
It began as an academic concept, but has since been invoked more widely, outside of academia.
This subject is based on the interactions of different forms of privilege within certain situations.
Furthermore, it must be understood as the inverse of
social inequality
Social inequality occurs when resources in a given society are distributed unevenly, typically through norms of allocation, that engender specific patterns along lines of socially defined categories of persons. It posses and creates gender c ...
, in that it focuses on how power structures in society aid societally privileged people, as opposed to how those structures oppress others.
History
Writings of W. E. B. Du Bois
![Du Bois, W](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Du_Bois%2C_W._E._B..jpg)
Arguably, the history of privilege as a concept dates back to American
sociologist and
historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...
W. E. B. Du Bois's 1903 book ''
The Souls of Black Folk
''The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches'' is a 1903 work of American literature by W. E. B. Du Bois. It is a seminal work in the history of sociology and a cornerstone of African-American literature.
The book contains several essays on r ...
''. Here, he wrote that although
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
s were observant of
white Americans
White Americans are Americans who identify as and are perceived to be white people. This group constitutes the majority of the people in the United States. As of the 2020 Census, 61.6%, or 204,277,273 people, were white alone. This represented ...
and conscious of
racial discrimination
Racial discrimination is any discrimination against any individual on the basis of their skin color, race or ethnic origin.Individuals can discriminate by refusing to do business with, socialize with, or share resources with people of a certain g ...
, white Americans did not think much about African-Americans, nor about the effects of racial discrimination. In 1935, Du Bois wrote about what he called the "wages of whiteness" held by white Americans. He wrote that these included courtesy and deference, unimpeded admittance to all public functions, lenient treatment in court, and access to the best schools.
Codification of the concept
Early concepts that would lead to the term White Privilege were developed by the Weather Underground in the 1960s. In 1988, American
feminist
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
and anti-racism activist
Peggy McIntosh }
Peggy McIntosh (born November 7, 1934) is an American feminist, anti-racism activist, scholar, speaker, and Senior Research Scientist of the Wellesley Centers for Women. She is the founder of the National SEED Project on Inclusive Curriculum (Se ...
published "White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences through Work in Women’s Studies". Here, McIntosh documented forty-six privileges which she, as a white person, experienced in the United States. As an example, "I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help, my race will not work against me", and "I do not have to educate my children to be aware of
systemic racism
Institutional racism, also known as systemic racism, is a form of racism that is embedded in the laws and regulations of a society or an organization. It manifests as discrimination in areas such as criminal justice, employment, housing, healt ...
for their own daily physical protection". McIntosh described
white privilege
White privilege, or white skin privilege, is the societal privilege that benefits white people over non-white people in some societies, particularly if they are otherwise under the same social, political, or economic circumstances. With roots ...
as an "invisible package of unearned assets" which white people do not want to acknowledge, and which leads to them being confident, comfortable, and oblivious about racial issues, while non-white people become unconfident, uncomfortable, and alienated.
McIntosh's essay has been credited for stimulating academic interest in privilege, which has been extensively studied in the decades since.
Overview
Historically, academic study of social inequality focused mainly on the ways in which minority groups were discriminated against, and ignored the privileges accorded to dominant social groups. That changed in the late 1980s, when researchers began studying the concept of privilege.
Privilege, as understood and described by researchers, is a function of multiple variables of varying importance, such as
race
Race, RACE or "The Race" may refer to:
* Race (biology), an informal taxonomic classification within a species, generally within a sub-species
* Race (human categorization), classification of humans into groups based on physical traits, and/or s ...
,
age
Age or AGE may refer to:
Time and its effects
* Age, the amount of time someone or something has been alive or has existed
** East Asian age reckoning, an Asian system of marking age starting at 1
* Ageing or aging, the process of becoming older ...
,
gender
Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures u ...
,
sexual orientation
Sexual orientation is an enduring pattern of romantic or sexual attraction (or a combination of these) to persons of the opposite sex or gender, the same sex or gender, or to both sexes or more than one gender. These attractions are generall ...
,
gender identity
Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender. Gender identity can correlate with a person's assigned sex or can differ from it. In most individuals, the various biological determinants of sex are congruent, and consistent with the i ...
,
neurology
Neurology (from el, wikt:νεῦρον, νεῦρον (neûron), "string, nerve" and the suffix wikt:-logia, -logia, "study of") is the branch of specialty (medicine), medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of co ...
,
citizenship
Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection".
Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...
,
religion
Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...
,
physical ability, health,
level of education, and others. Race and gender tend to have the highest impacts given that one is born with these characteristics and they are immediately visible. However, religion, sexuality and physical ability are also highly relevant.
Some such as social class are relatively stable and others, such as age, wealth, religion and attractiveness, will or may change over time. Some attributes of privilege are at least partly determined by the individual, such as level of education, whereas others such as race or class background are entirely involuntary.
American sociologist
Michael S. Kimmel uses the metaphor of a wind to explain the concept. He explains that when you walk into the wind you have to struggle for each step that you take. When you walk with the wind, you don't feel the wind at all but you still move faster than you would otherwise. The wind is social privilege and if it flows with you, it simply propels you forward with little effort of your own.
In the context of the theory, privileged people are considered to be "the norm", and, as such, gain invisibility and ease in society, with others being cast as inferior variants.
Privileged people see themselves reflected throughout society both in mass media and face-to-face in their encounters with teachers, workplace managers and other authorities, which researchers argue leads to a sense of entitlement and the assumption that the privileged person will succeed in life, as well as protecting the privileged person from worry that they may face discrimination from people in positions of authority.
Awareness of privilege
Some academics, such as Peggy McIntosh, highlight a pattern where those who benefit from a type of privilege are unwilling to acknowledge it.
The argument may follow that such a denial constitutes a further injustice against those who do not benefit from the same form of privilege.
Derald Wing Sue
Derald Wing Sue is a professor of counseling psychology at Columbia University. has referred to such denial as a form of "
microaggression
Microaggression is a term used for commonplace daily verbal, behavioral or environmental slights, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative attitudes toward stigmatized or culturally marginalized group ...
" or microinvalidation that negates the experiences of people who don't have privilege and minimizes the impediments they face.
McIntosh wrote that most people are reluctant to acknowledge their privilege, and instead look for ways to justify or minimize the effects of privilege stating that their privilege was fully earned. They justify this by acknowledging the acts of individuals of unearned dominance, but deny that privilege is institutionalized as well as embedded throughout our society. She wrote that those who believe privilege is systemic may nonetheless deny having personally benefited from it, and may oppose efforts to dismantle it.
According to researchers, privileged individuals resist acknowledging their privileges because doing so would require them to acknowledge that whatever success they have achieved did not result solely through their own efforts. Instead it was partly due to a system that has developed to support them.
The concept of privilege calls into question the idea that society is a
meritocracy
Meritocracy (''merit'', from Latin , and ''-cracy'', from Ancient Greek 'strength, power') is the notion of a political system in which economic goods and/or political power are vested in individual people based on talent, effort, and achiev ...
, which researchers have argued is particularly unsettling for Americans for whom belief that they live in a meritocracy is a deeply held cultural value, and one that researchers commonly characterize as a
myth
Myth is a folklore genre consisting of Narrative, narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or Origin myth, origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not Objectivity (philosophy), ...
.
In ''The Gendered Society'', Michael Kimmel wrote that when people at all levels of privilege people do not feel personally powerful, arguments that they have benefited from unearned advantages seem unpersuasive.
Examples of forms of privilege
Educational racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...
is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to physical appearance and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. This can result in particular ethnic and cultural groups having privileged access to a multitude of resources and opportunities, including education and work positions.
Educational racism has been entrenched in American society since the creation of the United States of America. A system of laws in the 18th and 19th century known as the
Black Codes, criminalized the access to education for black people. Until the introduction of the
Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Thirteenth Amendment (Amendment XIII) to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. The amendment was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, by the House of Representative ...
, the
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fourteenth Amendment (Amendment XIV) to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. Often considered as one of the most consequential amendments, it addresses citizenship rights and ...
and the
Civil Rights Act of 1866
The Civil Rights Act of 1866 (, enacted April 9, 1866, reenacted 1870) was the first United States federal law to define citizenship and affirm that all citizens are equally protected by the law. It was mainly intended, in the wake of the Amer ...
, seeking out an education was punishable by the law for them. This thus served to keep African Americans illiterate and only value them as a workforce. However, even after these institutional and legal changes, African Americans were still targeted by educational racism in the form of
school segregation in the United States
A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes compulso ...
. In the 20th century the fight against educational racism reached its climax with the landmark Supreme Court case
Brown v. Board of Education
''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segrega ...
.
Educational racism also took other forms throughout history such as the creation of
Canadian Indian residential school system
In Canada, the Indian residential school system was a network of boarding schools for Indigenous peoples. The network was funded by the Canadian government's Department of Indian Affairs and administered by Christian churches. The school sy ...
in 1831, which forcefully integrated indigenous children into schools aimed at erasing their ethnic, linguistic and cultural specificities in order to assimilate them into a white settler society. Until the last residential school closed in 1996, Canada had an educational system which specifically harmed and targeted indigenous children. An estimated 6,000 children died under that system.
Nowadays the opportunity gap pinpoints how educational racism is present in societies. The term refers to "the ways in which race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, English proficiency, community wealth, familial situations, or other factors contribute to or perpetuate lower educational aspirations, achievement, and attainment for certain groups of students." In other words, it is "the disparity in access to quality schools and the resources needed for all children to be academically successful."
Concretely this can be seen in the United States by considering how, according to the Schott Foundation's Opportunity to Learn Index, "students from historically disadvantaged families have just a 51 percent Opportunity to Learn when compared to White, non-Latino students."
According to McKinley et al.
Students of color are pushed toward academic failure and continued social disenfranchisement. Racist policies and beliefs, in part, explain why children and young adults from racially marginalized groups fail to achieve academically at the same rate as their White peers.
Heterosexual privilege
Heterosexual privilege
Heterosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction or sexual behavior between people of the opposite sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, heterosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to ...
can be defined as "the rights and unearned advantages bestowed on heterosexuals in society".
There are both institutional and cultural forces encouraging heterosexuality in society.
Sexual orientation
Sexual orientation is an enduring pattern of romantic or sexual attraction (or a combination of these) to persons of the opposite sex or gender, the same sex or gender, or to both sexes or more than one gender. These attractions are generall ...
is a repeated romantic, sexual or emotional attraction to one or multiple genders. There are a variety of categories including
heterosexual
Heterosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction or sexual behavior between people of the opposite sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, heterosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to ...
,
gay
''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'.
While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...
,
lesbian
A lesbian is a Homosexuality, homosexual woman.Zimmerman, p. 453. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate n ...
, and
bisexual
Bisexuality is a romantic or sexual attraction or behavior toward both males and females, or to more than one gender. It may also be defined to include romantic or sexual attraction to people regardless of their sex or gender identity, whi ...
. Heterosexual is considered the normative form of sexual orientation.
Heterosexual privilege is based in the existence of
homophobia
Homophobia encompasses a range of negative attitude (psychology), attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who are identified or perceived as being lesbian, gay or bisexual. It has been defined as contempt, prejudice, aversion, h ...
in society, particularly at the individual level. Between 2014 and 2018, 849 sexual orientation related hate crimes were committed in
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
. Despite the fact that
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
legalized
same sex marriage
Same-sex marriage, also known as gay marriage, is the marriage of two people of the same sex or gender. marriage between same-sex couples is legally performed and recognized in 33 countries, with the most recent being Mexico, constituting ...
in 2005 and has enshrined the protection of the human rights of all people of all sexual orientations, there is still societal bias against those who do not conform to
heterosexuality
Heterosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction or sexual behavior between people of the opposite sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, heterosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to ...
.
Beyond this, institutions such as marriage stop homosexual partners from accessing each other's health insurance, tax benefits or adopting a child together.
Same sex marriage is legal in only 27 countries, mostly in the northern hemisphere. This results in an inability for non-heterosexual couples to benefit from the institutional structures that are based on heterosexuality, resulting in privilege for those who are heterosexual.
Intersectionality
Privilege theory argues that each individual is embedded in a matrix of categories and contexts, and will be in some ways privileged and other ways disadvantaged, with privileged attributes lessening disadvantage and membership in a disadvantaged group lessening the benefits of privilege.
This can be further supported by the idea of
intersectionality
Intersectionality is an analytical framework for understanding how aspects of a person's social and political identities combine to create different modes of discrimination and privilege. Intersectionality identifies multiple factors of adva ...
, which was coined by Kimberle Crenshaw in 1989. When applying intersectionality to the concept of social privilege, it can be understood as the way one form of privilege can be mitigated by other areas in which a person lacks privilege, for example, a black man who has
male privilege
Male privilege is the system of advantages or rights that are available to men solely on the basis of their sex. A man's access to these benefits may vary depending on how closely they match their society's ideal masculine norm.
Academic studi ...
but no white privilege.
It is also argued that members of privileged social identity groups often don’t recognize their advantages.
Intersections of forms of identity can either enhance privilege or decrease its effects. Psychological analysis has found that people tend to frame their lives on different elements of their identity and therefore frame their lives through the privilege they do or do not have.
However, this analysis also found that this framing was stronger amongst certain nationalities, suggesting that identity and privilege may be more central in certain countries.
Often people construct themselves in relation to the majority, so ties to identity and therefore degrees of privilege can be stronger for more marginalized groups.
It is important to note that forms of privilege one might have can actually be decreased by the presence of other factors. For example, the feminization of a gay man may reduce his male privilege in addition to already lacking heterosexual privilege.
When acknowledging privilege, multifaceted situations must be understood individually. Privilege is a nuanced notion and an intersectional understanding helps bridge gaps in the original analysis.
Criticism
The concept of privilege has been criticized for ignoring relative differences among groups. For example, Lawrence Blum argued that in American culture there are status differences among
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
,
Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
,
Indians,
Koreans
Koreans ( South Korean: , , North Korean: , ; see names of Korea) are an East Asian ethnic group native to the Korean Peninsula.
Koreans mainly live in the two Korean nation states: North Korea and South Korea (collectively and simply refe ...
, and
Cambodians
The Khmer people ( km, ជនជាតិខ្មែរ, ) are a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Cambodia. They comprise over 90% of Cambodia's population of 17 million. , and among
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
s, black immigrants from the
Caribbean
The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...
, and black immigrants from
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
.
Blum agreed that privilege exists and is systemic yet nonetheless criticized the label itself, saying that the word "privilege" implies luxuries rather than rights, and arguing that some benefits of privilege such as unimpeded access to
education
Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...
and
housing
Housing, or more generally, living spaces, refers to the construction and assigned usage of houses or buildings individually or collectively, for the purpose of shelter. Housing ensures that members of society have a place to live, whether it ...
would be better understood as rights; Blum suggested that privilege theory should distinguish between "spared injustice" and "unjust enrichment" as some effects of being privileged are the former and others the latter. Blum also argued that privilege can end up homogenising both privileged and non-privileged groups when in fact it needs to take account the role of interacting effects and an individual's multiple group identities.
"White privilege", Michael Monahan argued, would be more accurately described as the advantages gained by whites through historical disenfranchisement of non-whites rather than something that gives whites privilege above and beyond normal human status.
Psychologist Erin Cooley reported in a study published in 2019 that reading about white privilege decreased social liberals' sympathy for poor whites and increased their will to punish/blame but did not increase their sympathy for poor blacks.
See also
*
Ableism
Ableism (; also known as ablism, disablism (British English), anapirophobia, anapirism, and disability discrimination) is discrimination and social prejudice against people with Disability, disabilities or who are perceived to be disabled. Ableis ...
*
Body privilege
Body privilege or pretty privilege is a concept used to examine the economic, social, and political advantages or benefits that are made to both men and women solely based on their physical appearance. A common example of the "ideal" body type set ...
*
Caste
Caste is a form of social stratification characterised by endogamy, hereditary transmission of a style of life which often includes an occupation, ritual status in a hierarchy, and customary social interaction and exclusion based on cultura ...
*
Christian privilege
Christian privilege is a perceived social advantage that is bestowed upon Christians in any historically Christian society. This arises out of the presumption that Christianity, Christian belief is a social norm, that leads to the marginalization ...
*
First World privilege
First World privilege is any advantages accrued by an individual by virtue of being a national of a First World country.
Overview
First-World privilege is often explicitly maintained by legal means such as immigration laws and trade barriers. F ...
*
Horizontal inequality
Horizontal inequality is the inequality—economical, social or other—that does not follow from a difference in an inherent quality such as intelligence, attractiveness or skills for people or profitability for corporations. In sociology, this i ...
*
Ingroups and outgroups
In sociology and social psychology, an in-group is a social group to which a person psychologically identifies as being a member. By contrast, an out-group is a social group with which an individual does not identify. People may for example ide ...
*
Male privilege
Male privilege is the system of advantages or rights that are available to men solely on the basis of their sex. A man's access to these benefits may vary depending on how closely they match their society's ideal masculine norm.
Academic studi ...
*
Nobility
Nobility is a social class found in many societies that have an aristocracy (class), aristocracy. It is normally ranked immediately below Royal family, royalty. Nobility has often been an Estates of the realm, estate of the realm with many e ...
*
Social justice
Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has often referred to the process of ensuring that individuals fu ...
Further reading
*
*
References
{{Authority control
Critical theory
Feminist terminology
Feminist theory
Gender equality
Identity politics
Post-structuralism
Social justice terminology
Majority–minority relations