Do People Understand Their Own Privileges?

Do People Understand Their Own Privileges?

Systems and Models Action Project 2 Winter Term 2019 GCE Lab School

By MDS

Blom, Andrew “Resources on Power and Privilege” (2016)

Research Question Do people accurately understand their own level of privilege?

Are there certain groups that are better or worse at it?

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Research In the news and from person-to-person, there has seemingly been a recent trend of the phrase ‘check your privilege.’ People have started to realize where privilege comes from and where their privilege lies.

Privilege, however, is not a new trend. Since the beginning of time, and in most species, there have been differences in power among individuals. Whether these differences are based on gender, sex, age, race, ethnicity, sexuality, religion, or anything else, they certainly exist but can be hard to recognize. As Wildman (1995) states, “Rather than describing privilege as something bestowed upon us specially, privilege appears as the fabric of life, as the way things are.”

“The fact of inequality is almost surely as old as the human species. No known society has ever had a completely egalitarian social system.” (Lenski, 2013) One of the greatest examples of how privilege has changed over time is in Medieval Europe. Though there were, of course, differences in privilege based on sex and race, the main differences in power rested in class differences. With a monarchical or oligarchical system, there existed a majority lower class, people who worked for the noble classes, a minuscule portion of the population. All of the political power rested in the hands of those who were born wealthy and in the noble class. We can still see the remnants of this system in our modern-day culture, though the birth and rise of the middle class has greatly reduced the political power given to the upper economic classes. Though there is not much evidence in writing of people’s awareness of privilege from this time, we can find the evidence in historical events such as the American and French Revolutions. As lower classes started to recognize their economic oppression, there tended to be an upheaval of power (or at least an attempt at one). We have seen this time and time again throughout history for many different reasons, though perhaps the most common were for religious, cultural and economic equality, which still continue to be some of the most common political issues today.

One of the basic facts of the wide majority of societies has been that men have more power than women.

Whether this is prevalent in social privileges, such as the privilege to walk to work alone without fear, or in economic privileges, such as making an average of twenty percent more per hour, we can find evidence of these privileges throughout history and across the world. The wage gap has been a topic of debate for many years, with it becoming public knowledge in the 1960s during the Women’s Liberation Movement in the United States and Britain. According to Semega, Fontenot, and Kollar (2018), “If the pace of change in the annual earnings ratio continues at the same rate as it has since 1960, it will take another 41 years, until 2059, for men and women to reach parity.” There are many reasons for this wage gap, but much of it stems from antiquated ideas that women are somehow weaker or less smart workers than men. Another reason for the wage gap is women having children. A study found that with each child, a woman will lose about 7% of income over her life, while the opposite is true with men. When men have children, they will gain about 4% income over his career.

Women, of course, also have to deal with disparities in privilege in social situations. A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that one in six women will be the victim of a rape or attempted rape in her life, while about one in 71 men will be victims. Many men seem to find this a problem, however, they refuse to acknowledge their privilege in this sense. As Peggy McIntosh (3) says, “...I have often noticed men's unwillingness to grant that they are overprivileged, even though they may grant that women are disadvantaged. They may say they will work to women's [status], in the society, the university, or the curriculum, but they can't or won't support the idea of lessening men's.” The truth of the

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matter is that underprivilege cannot exist without overprivilege.

One of the most prevalent issues in privilege in the United States right now is white privilege. Some people still refuse to accept that there is white privilege, though it has been proven over and over in many studies. In a 2018 study by the Institute for Women's Policy Research, researchers found that “After years of steady improvement, the racial wage gap has widened again since 2008 due to the economic crisis; in 2010 blacks earned 62% of white income and Latinos earned 68% of white income.” This privilege extends to almost all aspects of life. Whether it is handing in a resume for a job or application for school, being pulled over by law enforcement, or the incarceration rates, white people have a clear advantage when it comes to everyday life in the United States. And, according to Fitzgerald (24), “White privilege tends to be unacknowledged by its participants.” Though it exists in all aspects of life, it can be very rare for people to acknowledge their own racial privilege.

As humans have attempted to understand where our privileges come from throughout history, we have tried many different methods. One of the most recent and accurate ways that has risen in popularity has been the privilege test. A privilege test is meant to objectively score individuals on their level of privilege.

Though there have been many versions of this test, one of the most popular has been the ​Privilege Aptitude Test​ which was designed by The National Civil Rights Museum in 2010. There have also been countless tests that do not quantify privilege results but are merely used as thought exercises, such as the White Privilege Checklist by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, an influential Civil Rights writer. Most versions will ask personal questions about categories and identities that have historical and persistent oppression related to them, either societally or lawfully. These identities tend to be race, ethnicity, education levels, income, gender, sexuality, immigration status, disability, language, mental and physical health, parent’s marital status, and sex. Though these are not the only identities that can have weight on one’s privilege, they are some of the most common and easily identifiable within someone’s life.

Justification for Experiment Privilege exists in its own way in all forms of identity but is perhaps most quantifiable within gender and race. One of the most important things to remember is that everyone has privilege in some part of their life and that not all forms of privilege are quantifiable. It has been a recent trend to tell people to ‘check their privilege’, but what does that actually mean? We have talked about privilege in society in general for years, but I wanted to see how the idea of privilege affects the individual. Each person has privilege in many parts in life and is lacking of privilege in others, but I felt that there has not been enough research into people’s perceptions of their own privilege, which is why I wanted to complete this experience. I believe that when people understand where they have privilege, it makes them much more likely to understand where others do not have those privileges, and it can lead to people supporting each other.

Hypothesis Younger people will be better at guessing their privilege level. Also, best overall will be those with less privilege. If one goes through life with less privilege, one is more likely to understand that they have less than if they have more.

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Materials The Privilege Test Google Form 48 people, ages 12 to 60

Procedure 1.

I first recruited people through various platforms, including email, Instagram and Snapchat: a. I sent out an email to 60 people, aged, 14 to 60 years old, containing the embedded Google Form​ and this message: “Hello, I am conducting an experiment for my class about privilege and people’s perceptions of their own privileges. If you would like to participate, please fill out this Google Form. The form should take about 10 to 15 minutes to complete, and any submissions are very helpful! Thank you, MDS.” (Figure C) b. Next, I posted this message on my Instagram Story: “Hey! If you want to help me with an experiment for my class, please fill out the form linked in my bio! Thank you so much! It should take about 10-15 minutes to fill out.” (Figure A) Because Instagram does not allow people to attach links directly to Instagram Story posts, I included the link in my bio, which is on the homepage of my account. c. I posted this message on my Snapchat Story, “Hey! If you want to help me with an experiment for my class, please fill out this form! Thank you so much! (It should take about 10-15 minutes) Swipe Up!”, (Figure B) with an attached link to the Google Form.

2. After waiting five days to collect results, I started to input the data from the Google Form into this Spreadsheet​.

Figure C

Figure A

Figure B

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Data and Analysis If you would like to look at all of the individual data, you can visit this ​spreadsheet​. In my data analysis, I have mostly used combined boxplots as they can easily showcase how responses are spread out by category and can also show the median responses, which is very useful when looking at my different identities, as I am. In this data, all of the responses are of the difference between the projected and the tested privileges, as I am not testing people’s privilege levels, but, rather, how accurate they are in guessing their privilege. When there is a negative response, that means that someone has overestimated their privilege, and a positive number shows someone underestimating their privilege.

Figure 1, MDS. I Math As (2019) This boxplot shows the relationship between the difference between projected and tested privilege and gender. Here, there are three different categories for gender: Cis Male (someone who is born male and still identifies as male), Cis Female (someone who is born female and still identifies as female, and Other.

This last category includes people who responded as nonbinary, genderfluid, queer, transgender male, transgender female and ‘honestly I don’t know.” As you can see, the people who were, on average, most accurate in guessing their privilege were Cis Women. Next accurate was Cis Men, then the ‘Other’ category. However, Cis Female responses spanned from -48 to 23, a large distance between all of the responders. The Other category had the smallest distance between responses, meaning their responses were most similar to each other.

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Figure 2, MDS. I Maths As (2019).

This boxplot shows the relationship between the difference between projected and tested privilege and people’s self-identified ethnicities. As you can see by the median of -1, Black responders were most accurate in guessing their privileges, with Mixed Race responders next with a median of -17. Least accurate were, in order, Middle Eastern/Asian responders with a median of -29, then White Responders with a median of -24, then Hispanic/Latino responders with a median of -20.

Figure 3, MDS. I Maths As (2019).

This boxplot shows the relationship between the difference between projected and tested privilege and people’s self-identified religions. The ‘Other’ category includes responders who identified as Muslim, Spiritual, Buddhist, and Hindu. These responders were the most accurate at guessing their privilege, with a median of -11, meaning most overestimated their privilege by about 11 points. Next accurate was Jewish responders, with a median of -19, then Christians with a median of -23, and lastly Pagan/Wiccan, with a median of -42.5.

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Figure 4, MDS. I Maths As (2019).

This boxplot shows the relationship between the difference between projected and tested privilege and people’s ages. This data set shows that the ages that are best are guessing their privilege levels are people from 18 to 25, with a median of -3, meaning people in this category tend to be overestimating their privilege by just 3 points. Next are people from 12 to 17 years old, with a median of -17, and lastly are people 25 and older, with a median of -25.

Figure 5, MDS. I Maths As (2019).

Overall, people were not as accurate as I thought they would be in estimating their privilege levels. The vast majority of responders overestimated their privilege, with the median overall at -20.5, meaning people tended to believe that they were more privileged than they actually are. There is an overall range of 71 points, showing that, even though it might seem like a large range, it is actually relatively small, considering the largest range could be 200 points.

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Figure 6, MDS. I Maths As (2019).

This scatterplot shows every response, both the projected privileges and the tested privileges, and here you can clearly see people’s trend of overestimating their privilege levels. I believe this stems from a want to be seen as politically and culturally aware. You can see this in most of the data sets, where those who are most privileged are also the least accurate when guessing their privilege. This could also be from a sense of ignorance. When you are underprivileged, you tend to run into issues relating to one’s privilege every day, whether it is being sexually harassed on a bus as a woman, or being pulled over by police officers as a black person. When you are privileged, however, you tend to not have to think about it as much, which could lead to the inaccuracy that we can see in this data. This diverges in the gender data set, as the ‘Other’ category, which includes all transgender or questioning people have the least accuracy.

However, in the religion category and the race category, you can see this trend.

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Conclusion I was correct in my hypothesis that those with less privilege would be most accurate in estimating their privilege levels. This is especially evident in the race category, as, out of any category that I tested, Black and African American responders were most accurate, with a median difference of just -1. If I were to do this experiment again, I might want to ask people in person, as it would be very interesting to be able to see people’s reactions. I do think this might change the results, however, and, as a follow-up, I think it could be valuable to see how this affects the results.

This experiment was fairly easy to conduct, as it was all online, and it made it easier to collect data, but I think it would be interesting to be able to get a wider field of participants. All of the participants were people that I knew, and though I know a wide array of people of different races, genders, and religions, I think it could be valuable to be able to collect data from different countries and languages if possible, as all but two participants were from Chicago.

To make sure to have the most accurate and consistent data possible, I used the exact same form for every participant. I wrote the questions as unbiased as possible so as to not influence anyone’s response, and I formatted the form with plain text and colors. I also sent the survey out online, so that the conditions in which people were taking it were all different, which I hope evened out any differences that the spaces in which people were taking it may have caused. There have been multiple studies that have shown that people will respond differently when being asked questions in front of other people, rather than alone, so I asked participants to take the quiz alone, or at least, not where others could see their responses. This is another reason that I sent out the quiz online. I was worried that if I conducted the study in person that I might have unintentionally affected the results, so I thought it best to remove myself entirely from the experiment.

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Works Cited

Black, M.C., et al.​ “The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS): 2010 Summary Report.” ​National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2011.

Fitzgerald, Kathleen J. “​Recognizing Race and Ethnicity: Power, Privilege, and Inequality.​ ” 2nd ed., Westview, 2017, Google Books.

Fontenot, Kayla R, et al. “​The Gender Wage Gap: 2017; Earnings Differences by Gender, Race, and Ethnicity​.” IWPR, Institute for Women's Policy Research, 13 Oct. 2018.

“Get Statistics.” NSVRC, National Sexual Violence Resource Center, Lenski, Gerhard. “​Power and Privilege: A Theory of Social Stratification​.” ​UNC Press Books, 2013, Google Books.

McIntosh, Peggy. “​White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.”​ Excerpt from "​White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming To See Correspondences through Work in Women's Studies.​" Wellesley College, 1988.

“Privilege Aptitude Test.” ​NCRM,​ National Civil Rights Museum, 2010.