At the recent Fatherhood Training in Denver we discussed the issue of minorities and “white privilege” as it pertains to fatherhood. During the discussion I postulated that the fatherless epidemic had more to do with how much money you made than the color of your skin. That it boiled down to more of a matter of class than race. Well, I now believe I was wrong.

What if the notion of privilege really had more to do with the cultural stories we tell and the way these messages affect our view of ourselves and our place in the world than it does with how rich your great grandpa was? It wasn’t until just recently that I figured this out – that the proverbial light bulb came on so to speak. It happened when I stumbled across a video lecture by Michael Kimmel, sociologist, author, and pro-feminist.

In Kimmel’s DVD lecture “Mars, Venus or Planet Earth? Women & Men in a New Millennium” he shares a story about a group of feminist scholars that he once networked with. As they were discussing issues of feminism, a white female colleague proclaimed that “All women have the same experience as women. All women are similarly situated in Patriarchy.” In response a black woman from the group asked “When you wake up in the morning and look in the mirror, what do you see?” The white woman responded, “I see a woman”. The black woman then replied, “You see, I don’t see a woman, I see a black woman”. Kimmel continues to explain how he then had the realization as the only white male in the group that when he looks in the mirror every morning, that he doesn’t see a white man or even just a man, but more generically a person.

So perhaps this is where the notion of privilege in our society lies – in our definition of personhood itself. When I look in the mirror every morning I do see just a person. But when I asked my wife about this she said she sees a woman. She explained to me that in many situations everyday she is aware of how her “womanhood” supersedes her “personhood” and how she is treated in various situations because of her status as a woman. And to think I had blindly assumed all these years that everyone just thought of themselves as “people”. That’s exactly how it works as Kimmel explains, “Privilege is invisible to those who have it”.

For those of us who work within the human services field, be it within the arena of fatherhood or else where it is important that we not only challenge the status quo but that from time to time we turn our attention inward and reflect on how our personal experiences have shaped our own perceptions, attitudes, beliefs and prejudices. Watch the clip from Michael Kimmel’s lecture on YouTube by following this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgaOK74HqiA.