# Intersectionality and the Oppression Pyramid **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 7, 2025, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intersectionality-and-the-oppression-pyramid/1018016 "2025-05-07T16:38:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2025, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intersectionality-and-the-oppression-pyramid/1018016/141 "2025-05-11T21:55:34Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > @puzzlegal, what I am usually told in these discussions is that while Malia Obama can have more privilege than the drug-addicted, homeless white veteran, the drug-addicted, homeless white veteran still has more privilege than a drug-addicted, homeless black veteran. No ifs, ands, or caveats. As an undergraduate, I remember learning about certain theories and using those as a lens through which I could view the world. It’s been almost 20 years since I got my undergraduate degree, and I still can’t look at a map without finding the core areas and the peripheries. Thank you, [World-systems theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World-systems_theory). As I wrote earlier, I do find privilege and intersectionality to be useful ways to examine social interactions, but I can’t help but think sometimes people who wears those lenses can’t see the forest for the trees. A friend of mine seriously argued her white son was more privileged than the Obama children. Her son who had joined the military largely because it seemed like his best route for college. Sure, maybe he’s less likely to be pulled over while driving or have someone follow him in store fearing his a shoplifter, but the Obama children have so many more opportunities than her son is ever likely to have simple because of who their parents are. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2025, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intersectionality-and-the-oppression-pyramid/1018016/142 "2025-05-11T23:33:15Z")
I have a friend, let’s call him “Brian”, who questioned his gender. He started wearing skirts and carried a cute handbag and put his hair in ponytails. We all thought he was going to tell us he was a trans woman. He even told us what name he’d use. But after a lot of therapy, he decided to identify as a gender-non-conforming man. He still wears dresses and carries a cute handbag. And when men see him in the public restroom, they often say, “i think you are in the wrong place”, and he turns, looks them in the face with his 5 o’clock shadow, and says sadly, “I’m afraid there isn’t really a right place for me”. I spent a lot of time with him as he was struggling with his choices. And one thing he said stuck with me. “I can’t decide whether i want to identify as make or female. I want both. I want all the privileges.” Of course there are situations when women have more privilege. When my gay friend couldn’t check into the hotel room his partner had booked, _I_ talked the staff into letting him in. Because i look like a wealthy middle aged white woman, so i look both respectable and unthreatening. Overall, on average, men are more privileged. And honestly, i often leverage my own gender non-conformity to get some little bit of male privilege. I have many fewer problems with plumbers, mechanics, doctors, etc., than most of my female friends. Oh, sometimes they treat me “like a woman”, but sometimes they don’t. And it’s a really obvious difference. But i can also play up the female privilege. I try to use it for good , not evil. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2025, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intersectionality-and-the-oppression-pyramid/1018016/143 "2025-05-12T00:57:12Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > If instead I said “I don’t believe white people are more privileged than black people”\*, what sort of responses would I be likely to get? I’ll answer but I don’t think it makes any point at all: from me it would get a bit longwinded. First I’d be curious if you understood the concept of privilege. And then once I understood where the difficulty in understanding was respond accordingly. > [@DemonTree](#): > > basis of antisemitism could be considered a misuse of left-wing ideas, It has zero to do with left wing ideas. > [@DemonTree](#): > > My observation is that historically, antisemitism from right-wingers (typically white) has been taken very seriously, while antisemitism from Muslims and other POC has been minimised To be clear: antisemitism from the Right is sternly said is bad by the Left and ignored by the Right; antisemitism from the Left is discussed by (and used by) the Right and minimized by the Left. My opinion is that neither gives a shit in reality. Yes on the Left there are some who hide their Jew hate inside protesting Israel. And others who lump Jews as synonymous with Israel and dismiss antisemitism because they see Israel as the oppressor so Jews are therefore the bad side. The last part is maybe part of the fetishizing of victimhood with the bigger victim getting the centerfold. There are those who try to collect victim identities. On the Left and the Right. That overlaps with the concepts in this thread but are not them. I did not mean to and do not want to make this an Israel or antisemitism thread. It was just an illustration of how I can acknowledge that my identity is at less serious risk right now than many others and still care that my identity is hated by many on both sides. I also want to highlight @puzzlegal’s comment: contexts and goals matter as to whether an identity adds or subtracts privilege. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2025, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intersectionality-and-the-oppression-pyramid/1018016/144 "2025-05-12T02:30:06Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > A privilege walk is a teaching tool. You line up your students and have them step forward if they’re (white, cis, straight, had both parents through childhood, etc) and backwards if they’re (black, gay, trans, had divorced or dead parents, etc) to demonstrate that different people start the race of life from different points. > > It’s absolutely not something DemonTree made up; my wife did these at least a half dozen times throughout her higher education en route to being a teacher, and done it herself with leadership groups and similar she taught. > > It’s hardly obscure or unusual. I never heard of that one. The closest thing I can recall to that was something my brother told me about once, where a teacher in college told the class at the start that all whites and all males in the class would be marked down a grade no matter how well they did, and all white males two grades. Presumably to “teach them a lesson”, but the main lesson it taught was “left wing teachers are bigoted jerks”. Ironically my brother is pretty left wing politically, but he’d never _call_ himself that because of such experiences. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2025, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intersectionality-and-the-oppression-pyramid/1018016/145 "2025-05-12T07:14:52Z")
I think any exercise designed to make people feel guilty for something that they, personally, didn’t do, is going to backfire. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2025, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intersectionality-and-the-oppression-pyramid/1018016/146 "2025-05-12T11:35:18Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > the main lesson it taught was “left wing teachers are bigoted jerks”. Yeah, that’s the lesson i would have taken away from that “exercise”. I also would have dropped the course and not gotten any grade in it. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2025, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intersectionality-and-the-oppression-pyramid/1018016/147 "2025-05-12T11:54:25Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > And today I learned _that_ exercise has _that_ specific name. Ignorance fought. And some relief to see others here, too, were unfamiliar with it or at least with the name. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2025, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intersectionality-and-the-oppression-pyramid/1018016/148 "2025-05-12T12:30:34Z")
I also had never heard of such an idiotic intrusive and counterproductive thing. Privileged or underprivileged I do not want to be _forced_ to share my family origin story and intersectional identities in a public venue. Who needs conservative bloggers when the Left does their messaging for them? ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2025, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intersectionality-and-the-oppression-pyramid/1018016/149 "2025-05-12T13:40:58Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Privileged or underprivileged I do not want to be _forced_ to share my family origin story and intersectional identities in a public venue. Who needs conservative bloggers when the Left does their messaging for them? This did indeed come up a bunch a few years ago when “CRT” was the big topic of discussion. Critical Race Theory is a pedagogical tool, so kids don’t “learn it in school”; but (slightly) more nuanced Conservative takes would point out that CRT is used to create certain lessons that _are_ used in schools - like the Privilege Walk. Here’s a case where it came up on the board in 2021: > [@Virginia election-talk me down off the ledge](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/virginia-election-talk-me-down-off-the-ledge/953496/234): > > From the Atlantic article cited above: The idea that critical race theory is an academic concept that is taught only at colleges or law schools might be technically accurate, but the reality on the ground is a good deal more complicated. Few middle or high schoolers are poring over academic articles written by [Richard Delgado](https://www.law.ua.edu/directory/People/view/Richard_Delgado) or [Kimberlé Crenshaw](https://www.law.columbia.edu/faculty/kimberle-w-crenshaw). But across the nation, [many teachers](https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/54150/teaching-6-year-olds-about-privilege-and-power) have, over the past years, begun to adopt a pedagogical program that owes its inspiration to ideas that are ver… Now… I don’t think it’s quite as bad as you guys are making it out to be. When done _right_, it’s actually a good tool for explaining the basic idea of equity vs equality (you can demonstrate that if the kids were lining up for a race, some of them would have a huge advantage and could win by walking over the finish line, while others have basically no chance). And it’s also (again, when done well) a way to show that you can be advantaged or disadvantaged by things _other than_ your “identities”, like race, religion, sex, and orientation. Individual family history events can be included, or things like your parents having a car when you were growing up, etc. I’ve defended the basic concept before, and I still do, in situations where it’s relevant (I don’t think it would be good if every random teacher decides to do it because it’s “trendy” regardless of the class’ topic; but in a leadership elective, for example, it’s entirely appropriate). That said, it can _also_ be handled inappropriately, which is where a lot of the outrage over these probably comes from. If done properly, most of the prompts are life events, not “identities”. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2025, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intersectionality-and-the-oppression-pyramid/1018016/150 "2025-05-12T14:40:47Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > That said, it can _also_ be handled inappropriately, which is where a lot of the outrage over these probably comes from. If done properly, most of the prompts are life events, not “identities”. Yes, i can see it being used constructively. I can also see a third grade teacher using it in a destructive way. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2025, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intersectionality-and-the-oppression-pyramid/1018016/151 "2025-05-12T14:53:49Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > Of course there are situations when women have more privilege. When my gay friend couldn’t check into the hotel room his partner had booked, _I_ talked the staff into letting him in. Because i look like a wealthy middle aged white woman, so i look both respectable and unthreatening. Now you’re making my argument for me. But like @Spice_Weasel , you’re making it in a way that’s far more effective, in a way I _can’t_ do: with handy personal anecdotes, and from a position safely inside the group in question, rather than as an outsider. > [@puzzlegal](#): > > Overall, on average, men are more privileged. Thank you. This is all I was referring to, nothing sinister. > [@puzzlegal](#): > > And honestly, i often leverage my own gender non-conformity to get some little bit of male privilege. I have many fewer problems with plumbers, mechanics, doctors, etc., than most of my female friends. Oh, sometimes they treat me “like a woman”, but sometimes they don’t. And it’s a really obvious difference. But i can also play up the female privilege. I try to use it for good , not evil. What do you mean here exactly? They mistake you for a man (presumably on the phone) and therefore treat you as one? Or they treat you differently because you don’t act like the average woman? ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2025, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intersectionality-and-the-oppression-pyramid/1018016/152 "2025-05-12T15:58:33Z")
I’ve been watching this thread from the sidelines because as a straight, white, male I have no business debating where anybody who isn’t me deserves to be placed on any level of oppression. But as the husband of an Asian-American woman I’ve had a close-up view of a lot of people use their own oppression as a weapon to discredit others. To many white people her darker skin and epicanthic fold disqualified her from being “white” while many Blacks dismissed her because (here in the Midwest) issues of race are too often simply broken down to white vs. Black, and the viewpoints of Asians, Latinos, and other minorities simply aren’t considered. She was too middle-class to count as poor, despite having grown up in strained circumstances. And her family losing everything and being in a Japanese-American internment camp during World War II was frequently dismissed with “we all had to make sacrifices during World War II.” Of course, once she turned 50, she became completely invisible, as most of us who aren’t C-level executives often find ourselves. However useful the ranking of oppression or prejudice may be to sociologists, IMHO in the real world it’s used far too often as a weapon. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2025, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intersectionality-and-the-oppression-pyramid/1018016/153 "2025-05-12T16:06:31Z")
That might be true if that was all there was to it…but it never is. To take advantage of a position due to something someone else wrongly did in the past is the problem that is usually handwaved away. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2025, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intersectionality-and-the-oppression-pyramid/1018016/154 "2025-05-12T17:15:35Z")
And I think that handwaving is often accompanied by that sort of defensive focus on some remark or emphasis being allegedly “designed to make people feel guilty” about something that “they personally didn’t do”. In my experience, almost all acknowledgements of past oppression are not actually designed or intended to make people feel guilty about something that they personally didn’t do. The Holocaust Museum, for example, isn’t designed to make today’s non-Jews feel guilty about the Holocaust. Saying that acknowledgement of somebody else’s oppression is “designed to make me feel guilty” (generic “me”) is, all too often, a way for discomforted people to re-center the discussion on themselves and their feelings rather than on the experiences of the oppressed people in question. I think it’s a bit snowflakey to indulge that. If somebody says to me something like “How DARE you sit there eating soup when your ancestors helped enslave and oppress mine! Shame shame on you!”, then I know that yes, they are trying to make me feel guilty about something that I personally didn’t do. But if all they’re saying is something like “This is a memorial of a historical incident in which these people, including some of your ancestors, enslaved and oppressed these other people, including some of my ancestors”, then I think it would be a tad oversensitive and egocentric of me to try to make that about me, and whether or not I personally feel guilty about the incident, and whether I think my guilt feelings are something I should blame you for trying to induce. Oh yes, absolutely, let’s talk about my feelings some more here. 🙄 ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2025, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intersectionality-and-the-oppression-pyramid/1018016/155 "2025-05-12T17:18:25Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > If somebody says to me something like “How DARE you sit there eating soup when your ancestors helped enslave and oppress mine! Shame shame on you!”, then I know that yes, they are trying to make me feel guilty about something that I personally didn’t do. > > But if all they’re saying is something like “This is a memorial of a historical incident in which these people, including some of your ancestors, enslaved and oppressed these other people, including some of my ancestors”, then I think it would be a tad oversensitive and egocentric of me to try to make that about me, and whether or not I personally feel guilty about the incident, and whether I think my guilt feelings are something I should blame you for trying to induce. Oh yes, absolutely, let’s talk about my feelings some more here. And what if, considering the actual topic of this thread, they’re saying “I don’t value your opinion because your ancestors oppressed mine and you benefitted from that oppression while I was harmed by it”? ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2025, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intersectionality-and-the-oppression-pyramid/1018016/156 "2025-05-12T17:43:53Z")
On your range between “how dare you eat soup?!” and discussing history, where do you place automatically downgrading all white male students two letter grades to teach them something? Where do you place that public “privilege walk” as a required exercise? Getting people to understand how history has left a legacy of systemic, institutional, and implicit barriers as a living thing, not only a something that was, but something that _is_, despite our individual honest best intentions is a great goal. Telling people they as individuals are guilty because of those things, dismissing anything they have accomplished as unearned because they, without awareness, benefited from certain privileges, IMHO pushes people away as allies. It strengthens those who interpret change that addresses historic oppression as change that punishes them for what people who looked like them generations ago did. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2025, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intersectionality-and-the-oppression-pyramid/1018016/157 "2025-05-12T17:48:23Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Telling people they as individuals are guilty because of those things, dismissing anything they have accomplished as unearned because they, without awareness, benefited from certain privileges, IMHO pushes people away as allies. It strengthens those who interpret change that addresses historic oppression as change that punishes them for what people who looked like them generations ago did. Hmm. You know, if you explain that you’re downgrading someone two letter grades because of what others did, and that you’re doing it regardless of whether that person achingly strives to make things better for others or shrugs and smugly reaps the benefits of acting like a privileged dick, then: what’s their incentive, at that point? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2025, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intersectionality-and-the-oppression-pyramid/1018016/158 "2025-05-12T17:52:18Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > On your range between “how dare you eat soup?!” and discussing history, where do you place automatically downgrading all white male students two letter grades to teach them something? I think it’s a terrible idea pedagogically, being canonically and unjustifiably unfair, and a counterproductive distraction from the actual acknowledgement of past oppression. But I’m not convinced it’s designed to make the students in question personally feel guilty about something they didn’t do. At most, it seems to me like a very ham-handed way of trying to get across the idea “what would it actually feel like to be seriously disadvantaged and discriminated against, simply because of arbitrary facts about your race and gender that you have no control over?” > [@DSeid](#): > > Telling people they as individuals are guilty because of those things, dismissing anything they have accomplished as unearned because they, without awareness, benefited from certain privileges But I’ve seen no indication that that’s what the students in question were being told when they got hit with the “white male penalty” on their course grades. It may be how they interpreted the downgrading, but as I noted, that’s not the same thing. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2025, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intersectionality-and-the-oppression-pyramid/1018016/159 "2025-05-12T17:55:15Z")
I’m pretty sure you’re not permitted to allow race to affect grades anyway. That’s just a form of discrimination. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2025, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intersectionality-and-the-oppression-pyramid/1018016/160 "2025-05-12T19:20:29Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > My opinion is that neither gives a shit in reality. You believe the left doesn’t care about antisemitism except as a way to attack the right? That’s actually _more_ cynical than my opinion of them. > [@Kimstu](#): > > At most, it seems to me like a very ham-handed way of trying to get across the idea “what would it actually feel like to be seriously disadvantaged and discriminated against, simply because of arbitrary facts about your race and gender that you have no control over?” This, in fact: > [@DemonTree](#): > > The idea that it’s salutary or a good learning experience for members of privileged groups to experience prejudice, eg for men to experience sexism or white people to experience racism, so that they can better understand the experience of the more oppressed groups. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intersectionality-and-the-oppression-pyramid/1018016.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intersectionality-and-the-oppression-pyramid/1018016.md?page=9)