White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack

Political revolutions occurred on almost every continent in 1989. Oppressive policies and practices gave way to even more democratic ways of managing governance and change. From the fall of the Berlin Wall, to Tiananmen Square, to the end of Apartheid, to democratic elections in Brazil and Chile, sociopolitical ideologies shifted from oligarchy and tyranny toward a broader awareness of human rights.

The work of American political activists followed similar patterns. McIntosh draws an analogy between sexism and racism, arguing that while male privilege is relatively well understood, white privilege remains unacknowledged even among feminists. Through this comparison, she sets out to bring two social movements back into association with each other because, she argues, antiracism and feminism in America began as two sides of the same democratic coin.

McIntosh argues that women’s suffrage in the United States grew out of the abolitionist movement. The debate over the 15th Amendment, granting suffrage to Black males, split the movement roughly along the lines of race and sex. Gradually, “feminism” came to focus on issues affecting only white, educated, upper-class women. This historical rift was never healed. McIntosh’s essay is a call for renewed unity.