What is Privilege?

When taking some time to really think about it, I began wondering what is privilege?

I came up with several different ideas of privilege, but I narrowed it down to fit into different categories of life. Everyone has privileges over other people and everyone is less privileged than others in certain aspects of life.

It seems to me that everyone, no matter race, gender or anything else, feels that others hold privilege over them at times. Many people take it personally that people have certain privileges over them. Of course, there are times where it cannot be helped what kind of privilege you hold as an individual. The times we are helpless are probably the times that as individuals, we get most frustrated.

As a female who wishes to go into the world of sports broadcasting, I have already discovered that men hold privilege over me. This does not mean that men have a better opinion, but in general, my opinion won’t even be listened to when it comes to sports. I applied to be a sports reporter for the Daily my freshmen year and I received an email thanking me for my interest and then saying there are no sports positions we could find for you to fill, but to try talking to the Arts and Entertainment editor. I took extreme offense to this! Arts and Entertainment, why because I am a blonde girl from California? Does that mean that I don’t know about sports? Little did the editor know, I have done nothing but sports my entire life, I am my Daddy’s little boy who constantly gets into debates with boys about different sporting topics. In the world of sports males most certainly hold an automatic privilege.

There are also times that females have privileges over men. Just like there are times when certain races have privileges over other races.

Is there something we can do to change the privileges of the world?

To me there is an extent to which things can be changed, but at the same time, I do not foresee a day when people are going to go to women for sports advice, simply because in general women are not obsessed with sports like men are.

The idea of privilege can also be tied to financial situations. Financial privilege is something that can be changed, especially in the United States. This day in age there is no reason a normal person cannot go to college, there is so much financial help available, if education holds enough importance than anyone can make it happen.

Overall privileges exist all around us, everyone has some.