Check your privileges – and use them correctly!

According to Duden, the term "privilege" denotes a prerogative, that is, a right reserved for a group or an individual. The conversation about privileges only really arrived in my bubble in the last 1–2 years. And that's a tricky thing. If you're not aware of them, you don't understand why others are making such a fuss. There's no problem at all, surely. However, once you're made aware of them, it becomes uncomfortable to engage with them. Like so often, it's a topic that is at least as difficult as it is important, and one that you should become conscious of.

My engagement with social issues is not motivated by noble intentions. I didn't even begin to engage with social issues for social reasons. Rather, I've engaged with them for entirely self-centred reasons, ever since it was brought home to me that my life is not 100% – albeit really extremely – privileged. As a white, slim, cis woman without disability, I have the fortune that I initially only have to engage with sexism. When I encountered it repeatedly, I began to engage with feminism. White feminism, at first.

But the more I read, the more I realised that that wasn't right. I slipped into a spiral in which I noticed that there are so many structural forms of discrimination that I wasn't aware of, and certainly not all of them yet. Racism, classism, ableism, transphobia, queer-phobia, fat-phobia. The list goes on. That overwhelmed me, and out of that overwhelm, the thought shot into my head: "One thing at a time". After all, I can't engage with everything. A privilege, to be able to believe that thought myself.

But the catch with patriarchy is that you can't simply separate it like that. One form of structural discrimination supports the other, and so they keep each other alive. But how do you behave correctly? It's logical that no one can have complete knowledge of every problem area in the world. You specialise your own knowledge and engage individually with some topics more than others. Nevertheless, it's not enough to engage only with topics that disadvantage you yourself. Solidarity from all of us is called for. A system that structurally disadvantages people is a broken and an unjust system. Only by understanding that many forms of oppression interact with one another can we begin to dismantle this net. Making ourselves aware of our privileges is so important precisely because every privilege comes with the disadvantage of others. After all, you can only have a prerogative if it is denied to others. Otherwise it would just be a right.

I still have much to learn. I've only just become aware that I am part of an oppressive system that I keep running through my thought patterns and actions. By not questioning certain privileges. I don't know which ones, but I very much hope that more and more of these privileges will be made aware to me through books, social media or personal exchange. And that I manage to make them aware to myself. At least a start has been made for that. And I hope that my feminism continues to become more colourful and that even the last white, colourless spots disappear. I'm working on it.

This also includes becoming aware of your own privileges and finding the right way to deal with them. Not everyone has the fortune of not having to engage with issues like politics, racism and structural discrimination. For many people, these forms of oppression are real dangers that manifest themselves in the form of physical and psychological violence. Whilst this danger in my case is sexism (and you can believe me: that's enough!), many other people are affected by multiple forms of structural discrimination that interact with one another. So if I actively decide not to engage with racism, homophobia and transphobia, fat-phobia, classism and ableism, then I'm claiming a privilege that is generally called ignorance.

But that's not the right way to deal with it. Because it's simply not enough to say: "I'm not interested in all that! After all, it doesn't affect me!" White feminism is not enough. It's not enough to say: "I have gay friends, I can't be homophobic". It's a privilege to be able to say these sentences. And it's also a privilege to be able to think twice about whether to address the problem behind these sentences. It's a privilege if you can decide whether to accept the confrontation, because you yourself won't be marginalised by it. It's a freedom with which you actively seal the unfreedom of others.

These topics are tough, uncomfortable and drain your nerves. Realising that oppression in our society lurks subtly or openly at every corner is frustrating. And everyone has only limited capacity available, which changes from time to time and is more or less present. Working sustainably on society and oneself therefore means managing one's own resources. It is okay not to engage with all these topics all the time. After all, if one wants to set the patriarchy on fire, one must not burn out beforehand.

It is okay not to take on every confrontation out of exhaustion. But it is not okay to avoid a confrontation simply because it does not affect you personally. If you have the capacity, you should always stand against oppression. Your own privileges can be used in solidarity and they should be. And it is clear that not everyone can engage in activism. But everyone can question their own thought patterns and reflect on the extent to which you maintain the oppression of others through your own behaviour. Society is ultimately us. That means we must start with ourselves if we want to change it.