Invisible Knapsack Summary

After reading the articles assigned to us, my assumptions of feminism and feminists were questioned tremendously. I had assumed feminism was the superiority of women over men and I thought feminists were bitter women who hated men; however, I discovered feminism is simply the notion that genders should be treated equally. The three ideas of sexism, racism, and classism intersect because they were all ideas created in order to build a system of hierarchy. Historically, sexism and racism can correlate back to early America when woman were second to men and African Americans were second to women simply because of their color. From this, we can see that women of color were and still are underprivileged, which can mean fewer opportunities throughout life. Finally, taking class into account, women generally receive lower salaries than men who do similar

While controversial, I strongly believe feminism is one of the multiple different problems of America today. Saying this will probably spark reactions such as “misogynist” and such, however, I believe in this because I really do believe in equality between the two sexes. Feminism is a movement that today is only creating advantages for women while claiming to be benefiting both sexes. In fact, a study conducted in the United States by The Fawcett Society and Kaiser Family Foundation (2016) showed fewer than 1 in 5 women describe themselves as a “feminist” even though over 85% of them believe in equality between the sexes, why? Because it is clear that feminism has become something different now. It has little to do with equality and moreso hating on men by making laws where women have the upperhand such as almost always getting the child in a divorce unless the man can prove the woman is not suited for the child, or inventing terms such as “manspreading” which is the act of a male spreading his legs in a public area to showcase “dominance”. These faults explain why women happen to be abandoning it by the millions. In the United Kingdom the numbers were even worse, just 7% of women describe themselves as a feminist despite just about 92% believing in equality between the sexes (The Fawcett Society, 2016). This shows people see a difference between the two words “feminism” and “equality”. It spreads false information such as the supposed “wage gap” and tries to constantly position women as the victims.

In “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” Peggy McIntosh argues that racism can be found imbedded into the culture of society; conferring and denying certain privileges on some rather than all. This is a dangerous cultivation; endowing a strong expectation that white privileges are naturally deserving. Furthermore, making the cornerstone of McIntosh’s main argument; that white privilege is just a less aggressive synonym for dominance. When you receive privileges for looking a certain type of way, the recipient becomes immune; often not being able to acknowledge their advantages. As a result, this creates a cultural divide, between racial groups.

Some see gender as being “Black and White” and it is, literally. With numerous gender ideologies, not only is there division between the Black (African Americans) and the White (fair skinned Europeans), but between men and women as well. Generally, white men and white men only hold most of the power in the world that there is to possess and it has consciously been set up for them to do so. The technical name for this global concept is hegemonic masculinity. This highly sexist and blatantly racist model has been implemented by bigoted western agendas to then be culturally and systematically carried out for centuries; sometimes without question. In her novel “Black Sexual Politics”, Patricia Hill Collins masterfully highlights just how much hegemonic masculinity altered the once blissful power structure, not just in the western world but specifically within the homes of the Black community. She also confers the several quintessential benchmarks within hegemonic masculinity that the Black man must uphold in order for him to unambiguously maintain his “dominant” status.

Throughout the history of this country especially beginning in the 1800s with the women's suffrage movement, women have fought for equality. It is no secret that the role of men versus women have change immensely over the last century however some things have not changed. As a result of the unchanging or slowly evolution of equality feminism has arise.

Women began to climb the ladder and finally became equal to men, well almost. Women’s rights include, but is not limited to positions that any man can hold, promotions that were not allowed beforehand last but not least socially and legal equality. As women, we can’t continue to yell inequality when we are not on the same playing field as men. We, women, have more leverage than the men. Aspiring to be like men would require us to also go the same extra mile that the male has to also. Women’s right is not for us to be equal while also being held on a pedestal at the same time. Equality goes both ways, it is for us, as well as men.

Through the use of his rhetoric, syntax, diction, and other tools, Deutsch successfully compiles a numbered list of privileges that evokes strong emotions and introduces new ideas of sexism. By mimicking Peggy McIntosh in style, the checklist is straightforward and easy to understand; therefore, he is able to reach a larger audience without overcomplicating the subject. His introduction is clear-cut and adequately describes his reasoning behind writing “The Male Privilege Checklist.” He attends to comments made by his readers, specifically addressing men that have claimed their hardships being equivalent to women’s. His tone is sarcastic yet thoughtful, and he maintains the good-natured yet serious voice throughout the piece.

In “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”, Peggy McIntosh discusses how she, as a white person, had been taught that racism is “something that puts others at a disadvantage”, rather than something that gives her an advantage. She then lists some consequences of her white privilege, which she calls “unpacking [an] invisible knapsack of white privilege”. Among the items on this list are “I can turn on the television or open the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented” and “I can be pretty sure that if I asked to talk to ‘the person in charge’, I will be facing a person of my race”. These are advantages that white people take for granted and rarely – if ever – think about. Almost everyone has their own so-called invisible knapsack of privilege, though the effects of one’s privilege might not relate to their race, but instead to class, gender, religion, sexuality, geographical location, education or other aspects of social location. In this paper, I will begin to unpack my own invisible knapsack of privilege, focusing on race, class, religion and geographical location.

According to Connell, masculinity is closely connected to gender relations and these patterns among masculinities are “hegemonic”, by which he means it’s ‘subordinate’ and ‘dominant’. The description of “hegemonic masculinity” is the currently accepted and culturally dominant successful form by the public. Drawing on Webster, “hegemonic masculinity is defined as the current configuration of practice that legitimizes men's dominant position in society and justifies the subordination of women, and other marginalized ways of being a man.” Consequentially,

Feminism in the 1960’s-1980’s is a very different concept than Feminism in the 21st century. Back in the 60’s, feminism meant to fight for equal rights. Now, modern feminism means women-dominance. While the dictionary definition of feminism is “a range of political movements, ideologies and social movements that share a common goal: to define, establish, and achieve equal political, economic, cultural, personal, and social rights for women”, many modern feminists take this to the point of fighting for the “right” for women to dominate men. Many modern feminists support female superiority, rudeness, and demonizing men.

A New York Times poll displays that the amount of Americans who identify themselves as feminist has dropped to 18% (cite nytimes). Many rightfully view modern feminism as irrelevant. Informed individuals see that women have many privileges over men. In addition, modern feminist views are mildly oppressive to men and do not wish to form equal opportunities, but to add advantages to women over men. Feminism as a movement originated in the 1960s, and it continues to be a movement to this day, even though women in our country are equals. The movement is complete and is now being morphed into a corrupt and morally depraved movement that should be scrapped entirely in its third wave.

The idea of feminism is being thrown around a lot in today 's society, but what is feminism and why does this word invoke such a negative connotation? “The costs of inequality: For women, progress until they get near power,” is an article written by Clea Simon on the interpretation and dissection of gender inequality today and how this gap can be resolved. The soaring popularity of feminism and the idea that genders can one day be equal is important for fixing a male dominated America; to do this typical gender roles have to be analyzed, as well as gender biases addressed. Analysis alone will not fix this deep-rooted issue, to change society America must be ready to be proactive and tolerant of changes in tradition.

As this essay has focused on male privilege and its’ individual effect on women and men themselves separately, a notably alarming matter of male privilege is the fact that it is normalized in society which has become damaging to how our society and social structures work. In the article The Context of Workplace Sex Discrimination, Stainback and other contributing authors state that: “Organizations, and workplaces in particular, are fundamental to the allocation of societal rewards and stratification among social groups” (Stainback 1165). Thus, the ways in which these social structures work show how society really functions and which groups of society are privileged in opportunities and achievements than others. When you take a look at many

Gender Inequality is when men and women are separated by the belief that one gender is superior to the other in forms that deny full participation or restrictions to one’s ability to live an equal life. Ever since the dawn of time there has been one gender superior to the other and to this day there are still gender differences in the political, economical and physical life of a male versus a female. Charlotte Perkins Gilman is one theorist that I chose to help explain this trend of males having power over women. Gilman was an evolutionist theorist; her point of view helps me explain how gender inequality came about and how women are viewed during the late

All societies have cultural accounts of gender, but not all have the concept of ‘masculinity’. Within popular culture, the media have also come across the perceived crisis of masculinity- newspapers, documentaries and talk shows have increasingly pondered over the changing meaning of manhood in our modern age. Research and critical studies into men and asculinity has originated as one of the most emerging areas of sociological investigation. Masculinity is an area of sociology that has, since the mid- 1950s, drawn on many theories, including structural functionalism, Marxism, psychoanalysis, critical structuralism,andmost recently,