{"id":24061,"date":"2014-11-17T00:43:05","date_gmt":"2014-11-17T04:43:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?p=24061"},"modified":"2014-11-17T00:43:05","modified_gmt":"2014-11-17T04:43:05","slug":"on-race-gender-and-being-unbiased","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2014\/11\/on-race-gender-and-being-unbiased.html","title":{"rendered":"On Race, Gender, and Being “Unbiased”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Rachel Held Evans recently\u00a0posted this on her facebook page<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Observation: It seems like a lot of young theologians assume that being male makes them unbiased about gender, that being straight makes them unbiased about sexuality, that being privileged makes them unbiased about oppression, that being white makes them unbiased about race, that that being relatively wealthy makes them unbiased about poverty\/economic issues, and that being highly educated makes them unbiased (and uniquely qualified) to engage in theological discourse. Therefore, perspectives from women, the poor, the marginalized, the less educated, and the oppressed are discounted as \u201ctoo emotional\u201d or \u201ctoo personal.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One\u00a0of her followers\u00a0responded to a critical comment on her post with\u00a0this:<\/p>\n

I think the point is that EVERYONE is \u201cbiased,\u201d because we all come from a particular perspective. But because whiteness, maleness, not-poor-ness have been accepted as the \u201cdefault\u201d perspective in Western culture for so long (and not just in theology, but in medicine, politics, academia, etc.) that perspective starts to be mistaken for the absence of perspective.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I found this very on point. As Rachel Held Evans notes,\u00a0is often an assumption that women are \u201cbiased\u201d when it comes to gender issues, or that people of color are \u201cbiased\u201d when it comes to race issues. It is men, and white people, who are (supposedly) able to maintain calm, rational distance\u2014and who are therefore unbiased. Except of course that this is not true.<\/p>\n

Male people have male experiences, and white people have white experiences. These experiences are often treated as a sort of default, but they do not make the people living them unbiased or neutral on issues of gender or race\u2014and they are not unemotional or uninvested either.<\/p>\n

There is a lot to be said\u00a0about\u00a0the problems with discounting those who are \u201cemotional\u201d and treating \u201cemotional\u201d as mutually exclusive from \u201chas a point.\u201d But there\u2019s another point to be made, too. Men are not in fact unemotional or uninvested in discussions of gender, and white people are not unemotional or uninvested in discussions of race. Here is an excerpt from\u00a0an article about what is referred to as \u201cprivilege distress\u201d<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Once you grasp the concept of privileged distress, you\u2019ll see it everywhere: the rich feel\u00a0<\/span>\u201cpunished\u201d by taxes<\/a>;\u00a0<\/span>whites believe they are the real victims of racism<\/a>; employers\u2019\u00a0<\/span>religious freedom is threatened<\/a>\u00a0when they can\u2019t deny contraception to their employees;\u00a0<\/span>English-speakers resent bilingualism<\/a>\u2014it goes on and on.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So am I saying that men and women have equal insight on gender, and that white people and people of color have equal insight on race? Not quite. When we discuss gender, we generally discuss what are\u00a0often\u00a0called \u201cwomen\u2019s issues.\u201d Women have lived experience when it comes to these topics\u2014lived experience men don\u2019t have. To understand issues that affect women, men need to listen to women. Similarly, when we discuss race, we generally discuss issues pertaining primarily to people of color. People of color have lived experience when it comes to these topics\u2014lived experience white people don\u2019t have. To understand issues that affect people of color, white people need to listen to people of color. The same is\u00a0true when it comes to class and poverty.<\/p>\n

We need to lay aside this common idea that men are somehow neutral\u00a0or\u00a0unbiased on gender issues, or that white people are somehow neutral on race,\u00a0and so forth. It\u2019s simply not true. In fact, not only are they not neutral and unbiased\u2014and not unemotional or uninvested\u2014they also have less lived experience when it comes to issues that affect women or people of color\u2014and let\u2019s face it, those are usually the things we mean when we refer to gender issues and race. We badly need to change this conversation.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We need to lay aside this common idea that men are somehow neutral or unbiased on gender issues, or that white people are somehow neutral on race, and so forth. It’s simply not true. In fact, not only are they not neutral and unbiased—and not unemotional or uninvested—they also have less lived experience when it comes to issues that affect women or people of color—and let’s face it, those are usually the things we mean when we refer to gender issues and race. We badly need to change this conversation. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,112],"tags":[208],"class_list":["post-24061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-feminism","category-social-justice","tag-race"],"yoast_head":"\nOn Race, Gender, and Being "Unbiased"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We need to lay aside this common idea that men are somehow neutral or unbiased on gender issues, or that white people are somehow neutral on race, and so forth. It's simply not true. In fact, not only are they not neutral and unbiased---and not unemotional or uninvested---they also have less lived experience when it comes to issues that affect women or people of color---and let's face it, those are usually the things we mean when we refer to gender issues and race. 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