someTimes i can ’ T keep my head TogeTher - Peighton Young

acknowledging that what societal tier you’re at, how it differs from others, and where this difference may give you an advantage. It’s also taking this understanding and using it to stop undermining people who are oppressed. The first and most difficult step, as I found, is realizing that one is, in fact, privileged. We’re not taught to see our privilege and it takes something like getting arrested to slap us in the face and say, “This is other people’s reality! You have it really good!”

I knew after I got out that I was changed. I knew, if only temporarily, what it was to be trapped and powerless. I knew also that it was a privilege to have lived my life before that turning point feeling oppressed.

My action in March 2012, in an effort to keep abortion legal, ended in a very different way than it started. I began the day very sure of myself, but by that night I was completely dehumanized. While the experience was awful and I don’t credit the power that put me there, I do feel like I’m a more complete person because of my arrest. I realize that there’s more to action than me and my struggle. I think about the struggles of different women and different people every day, and I no longer shoo my privilege. I’m not immune to justice and as a feminist, I recognize the many people who are victims of so much deep-seeded inequity and discrimination in this country