Privilege within Group Dynamics
Privilege, power, and culture are all terms that can be used in different ways and can, therefore, be confusing to people. One of the easiest ways to start a discussion about these issues is to look at how society has been divided into what Beverly Tatum (1997) describes as "agent" and "target" groups.
The people who are in the agent group are those who have been systematically advantaged by society because of certain attributes they possess. Conversely, those who are in target groups have been systematically disadvantaged. Tatum (1997) also discusses seven categories of otherness that have historically been used to place people in a target group:
- Race or ethnicity
- Gender
- Religion
- Sexual orientation
- Socioeconomic status
- Age
- Physical or mental ability (p.18)
When it comes to power and privilege, sometimes it is not easy to see how the two are interrelated. Peggy McIntosh (1989) writes about the concept of privilege in her essay Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack. While she primarily discusses white privilege, this concept can be extrapolated to other areas of "otherness" as well.
These groups, based on identifiable markers, find themselves in a constant interplay of dominance (agency) and subordination (target). In addition to this, members of a dominant group are set up as the norm of society and those in the subordinate or target group are then 'deficient' or 'substandard.' Those in the target group often feel oppressed and at times internalize that oppression, and may even come to believe the stereotype to some degree.
While oppression is part of the interplay between groups, it is important to remember that there is no hierarchy of oppression as many of us a both dominant and subordinate, depending on the context.
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