Advocates speak for equality

Privilege series continues, focuses on males

Jill Russell

mast news reporter

As women and men from across campus filled a small corner of the UC, they were instantly struck by images of gender stereotypes projected on a screen. These images displayed common societal norms and sayings such as “you throw like a girl” and pictures of letters addressed to “Mr. and Mrs. John Doe.” The audience gathered for the last installment of the Diversity Center’s Privilege Series, “Got male privilege” Nov. 27.

Dressed in his pink ”Got privilege?” shirt, Diversity Advocate and PLU junior Troy Moore, not only planned the series, but also acted as orchestrator and host of the events. Similar to the last two sessions, “Got male privilege” provided a panel made of hand-picked speakers including: Joanna Gregson, dean of the Sociology Department, Isaiah Johnson, PLU alum, Jonathan Grove, Men against Violence project coordinator, and Erin Dana, Academic Advising counselor. These panelists shared their personal experiences with topics ranging from male privilege, to feminism, to the current presidential race.

Panelist Erin Dana explained how she first discovered male privilege as a child. She explained when she and a male friend were running through sprinklers in the front lawn of her house, she proceeded to mimic her friend and take off her shirt to play.

“My mom came out and told me to put my shirt back on,” Dana said. “She told me ‘what happens when you become president some day and people find out that you ran around without a shirt.’”
Dana explained that even though she was raised in a fairly liberal household, by fairly liberal parents, because of societal gender norms, she was made to feel ashamed of her body in a way that her male friend was not.

Other panelists explained much more recent epiphanies through tasks like car shopping with their partners. It was suggested to many of the panelists that the more masculine person was the authority and knew more about cars. The more feminine person was often left out of the conversation or not taken seriously by the car salesperson.

For panelist Isaiah Johnson, the dynamics of privilege were harder to recognize because of racial factors. Being a black male, Johnson explains that he doesn’t always feel the “perks” of male privilege because he feels he constantly has to prove his masculinity to the mainstream male population.

“I feel like I am always proving myself,” Johnson says. “I have always felt like I had to prove myself 10 [times] harder than my white, male counterparts.”

Students who attended the event thought having conversations like this could be beneficial to the PLU community.

“I enjoyed the panelists,” said senior Kelsey McGovern after the event. “I really enjoyed the questions from the audience.”