Intersectionality and privilege

I believe this website was created to show how various factors intersect and either increase or decrease someone’s privilege. Though I like the idea of sliders, I still believe it is hard to calculate a score based on only 13 indicators. Additionally, I think culture has a lot to do with the indicators of why one is more or less privileged. In my opinion, given the greater gender equality within the Netherlands, identifying as a woman as opposed to a man should impact the score less in the Netherlands, as compared to the United States. Additionally, since many services in the Netherlands are publicly funded (i.e. healthcare and education), being rich in the Netherlands seems to be less of a relative privilege in my opinion, compared to being rich in the United States of America. As Bryan Stevenson explained eloquently, the opposite of justice is poverty. In a country where that is much more the case, I believe it is more of a relative privilege to be rich in the US, since wealth buys education and healthcare among many other services, whereas that is not necessarily the case in the Netherlands.

When I calculated my score on the US version of the website, I got a higher score, indicating that I am less privileged in the US than I am in the Netherlands, because I was born outside the US and because English is my second language. Though I can imagine that either of those factors could lead to someone being less privileged, that is not my case, since I am privileged to be bilingual and to come from a wealthy Western European nation. For this reason, I believe it is hard to capture a score with so few indicators, as I do not think that this website seems to be taking into consideration post-colonialism. 

It was interesting to read the comments on the website. Many of the people responding seem to believe this website is satire. However, those same people are responding that white privilege does not exist, and that this “is pure racism towards white Europeans,” which is obviously not true. Though I definitely think that this intersectionality meter is incomplete and could include more factors, I do think it can start to explain intersectionality and privilege, helping people recognize their privilege.

1 Comment

  1. one-earth-multiple-worlds

    Thanks for taking the time to try both versions. That brings an interesting angle into identity and place and connecting your privilege to where you are, and who is with you. This will be important next week when we flesh out individual and collective/community action and how we may behavior differently in different places.

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