Recommended
More Related Content
More from National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education
More from National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education (20)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
The false binaries of Western privilege
- 1. The false binaries of Western privilege Privilege White Male “Australian” Heterosexual Monogamous Adult Able “White” collar Wealthy Employed Educated “Other” People of colour Female/intersex/trans* “Immigrants”/Indigenous peoples/tourists Gay/lesbian/bisexual/asexual Single/Polyamorous Child/elderly Disabled/differently abled “Blue” collar/”pink” collar Poor/non-capitalist Unemployed/unpaid worker Uneducated/unrecognised expertise CC BY-NC-SA, Dr Cathy Cupitt, Curtin University, 2010. Email c.cupitt@curtin.edu.au
Editor's Notes
- These binaries are “false” for two reasons. First, many of them are not actually direct opposites, they are just presented that way in Western narratives which tend to reduce everything to binaries reflecting privilege. “Child” for instance is not a true opposite to “adult”. A child is on the age continuum which leads to adulthood. A child is the same person as the adult, but with less access to power. Second, they are false binaries because there are usually many identities in each category which have been erased and reduced in order to create just two positions – the privileged category is produced as a normalised monomyth, and all Othered possibilities are mashed together into the “opposite” position. In reality, the Other is a complex web of possible identities, rather than a single opposite identity. Even a category most people assume is a biologically fixed binary, like sex/gender, is not limited to two options in nature, with people who are naturally intersex, such as XXY, in addition to women and men. That’s not even taking into account the alternative gender presentations expressed through culture, such as transgender people, or the understanding that not all cultures define gender via a strict binary.