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Discrimination Based on Race and Discrimination Based on Gender

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Discrimination Based on Race and Discrimination Based on Gender. Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide. An abstract is required. When we talk of asymmetric relation between genders, we are usually referring to unstated rules, implicit privileges and unfair advantages that one gender holds over the other.&nbsp. Since our societies have been patriarchal since the beginning of recorded history the privileges and advantages were all held by men over women. One of the scholars who popularized this asymmetry was Peggy McIntosh, who introduced the ‘invisible knapsack’ of privileges that men enjoy over women. This synthesis led her to extend the theory to race relations. The result is the list of forty-odd privileges, also termed the ‘invisible knapsack’ of privileges, that are enjoyed by white Americans but not by blacks and other racial minorities. In other words, McIntosh tries to distinguish between the two variants of racism: black oppression and white privilege. In contemporary socio-political discourse, the term racism is synonymous with the first variety. The second variety is hardly ever recognized, let alone being discussed and rectified. This, in essence, is McIntosh's contention about White Privilege. What makes her thesis more robust is the list of forty-odd manifestations of this privilege that McIntosh provides. Most of these instances of white privilege are noticeable in common, everyday social interactions.

Going through the list of privileges that the white people in the United States enjoy over their colored compatriots, a case is to be made of the unfairness created by this situation. Since white-skinned individuals are so oblivious to the advantages they hold over other racial minorities, it does not induce them to act and rectify this imbalance. A majority of white people remain unaware of their continued subjugation of people of other races. When we talk of subjugation of people, notions such as slavery, indentured labor and colonialism come to mind. What we don't realize is the hundreds of subtler and smaller points of subjugation that happen all the time, but nevertheless add up to seriously undermine equality between the different racial groups.