The Invisible Knapsack and Theories of Gender and Race

Mcintosh's article, "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack," delivers an interesting perspective. The article examines racism as a parallel to gender and left me with the feeling that the dichotomies between genders exist for the same reason privileged race does. Much of the things that Mcintosh said about racism seemed to be able to be applied to any type of categorical privileges/prejudices as well. Many of the points that Mcintosh brings up illustrates how qualities that society uses to judge others by, like gender and race, are actually quite related.

Mcintosh brings up an interesting point in that racism, in putting others at a disadvantage must place others into an advantageous position. The author portrays white privilege in a very provocative manner that is so simplistic but is a concept that I had never really given much thought to. It makes sense that to be in a advantaged position, someone must always be in a disadvantaged position and that the privileged individual is, in some way or another, dominant over the "unprivileged." Mcintosh makes a compelling point that in order to truly be rid of white and male privileges, acknowledging their existence is not enough and that the systems in place must be changed. In my eyes, the only way for a disadvantaged individual to level the playing field is if the individuals with the advantages give up their privileges. The article overall makes many points that made me rethink how to handle racism and sexism.

I also found the issue regarding bandage color to be quite interesting since I never even thought of bandages in that way. It is interesting to see how something like this is so easily overlooked until it is pointed out. It is just another example of how we have become accustomed to so many aspects of society and just the significance of perspective.

Londa Schiebinger's article, "Theories of Gender and Race" gives some insight into how scientists of the nineteenth century treated the differences in race and gender. Many examples of the idea of males being superior to females were exposed in the article. For example, Buffon assumed that all subjects he was studying were male unless they were specifically labeled as female. European males were what was considered "normal" at the time and what European females and every one else was compared to.

In addition, the article consistently points out how scientists took scientific data and were able to misrepresent this data to justify the social status of different races and genders. The bone structure of pelvis of African women was seen as "beastial" compared to the European female, and shockingly was used as justification for letting them do hard labor. I was surprised by this since it seemed so widely accepted by scientists at the time, or else the ideas would have never become popularized. Of course, science today still grapples with bias as we've seen in the past classes. Schiebinger's article gives a glimpse out how atrocious some of the "scientist" were 2oo years ago. Fortunately, as pointed out in class, new individuals must have brought about new views. Both Schiebinger's and Mcintosh's articles suggest that racism and sexism are both societal dilemmas created in the same vein as the other.