Sociologist Michael Kimmel equates having privilege to running with wind at your back in that it enables you to move forward effortlessly without ever realizing it is there. Only when facing the wind, or lacking privilege, does the force of this oppressive wind become apparent. Coming from an economically impoverished inner city, ideas of privilege, particularly male privilege, were foreign to me. I was too consumed with the ways that I was economically oppressed to consider

Now that we’ve explained the not-so-basic concept of privilege, it’s time for us to delve into specific kinds of privilege. Today, we’re talking about one of the most pervasive types of privilege that impacts everything from how much money a person makes to their safety as they move through life: male privilege. As with other types of privilege, male privilege means that men belong to a dominant social group that has greater privilege over other groups. Examples of male priv

If you’ve spent any amount of time online, particularly reading about issues related to inequality, you’ve likely heard the term “privilege.” This word is commonly used to describe a group of people whose day to day lives are made more just or safe simply because they belong to a particular social group. These “dominant” groups can include race, class, gender, sexual orientation, ability, and religion. A dominant group is defined as a social group that controls the value s