Straight Out Of The Closet: Men, Feminism, And Male Heterosexual Privilege.

KM
Straight Out Of The Closet: Men, Feminism, And Male Heterosexual Privilege.
Devon Carbado
Black Men On Race, Gender, And Sexuality: A Critical Reader (1999).
The section begins by positing the notion that men should recognize their privileged
status by examining their daily life and understanding that they do not have to deal with
issues that women do regularly deal with.
“A male feminist project should include a commitment to expose and contest these
privileges.”
A list of examples follows which outlines some issues concerning women, racial
minorities, nonheterosexuals, and combinations thereof.
The author points out that typically people see males as authority figures, but quickly
distinguish between white and black males thus implicating race.
Classism is an issue to consider because one's class is a determinative factor in one's
worldview.
“In constructing a list of male privilege, then, one has to be careful not to universalize
‘‘man,’’ present him as a ‘‘cohesive identity’’ in ways that deny, obscure, or threaten the
recognition of male multiplicity.”
The author continues by stating that recognition of male multiplicity involves numerous
other factors.
Men must do more than recognize male privilege, but also realize how they actively
perpetuate their privilege interpersonally and institutionally.
“Men must come to recognize their own complicity in the normalization of male
hegemony.”
UNPACKING HETEROSEXUAL PRIVILEGE
This section begins by asserting the heterosexual men might be reluctant to call into
question their sexual orientation through recognition of male heterosexual privilege.
The argument goes that if male heterosexual privilege is challenged it calls into question
certain gender roles that could potentially feminize males and destabilize gender roles.
A list of male heterosexual privileges follow which outline things that male heterosexuals
do not generally deal with them every day life because they are not issues for the average
male heterosexual.
CONCLUSION: RESISTING PRIVILEGES
The author begins by asserting that "identity privilege" are legitimized through everyday
choices that we all make which operate to facilitate discriminatory practices.
The argument is that our everyday choices are not just personal but political.
“These choices are not just personal, they are political as well. And the cumulative effect
of these micropolitical choices is the entrenchment of the very social practices—racism,
sexism, classism, and homophobia—we profess to abhor.”
A purpose in offering the "identity privilege" lists is to suggest that it should be self
referentially contested because one must reform themselves before they can reform
institutions.
In order to change institutionalized political commitments one must localize their politics.
The assertion then follows that the value of conceptualizing privilege at a "grassroots
level" personalizes the issue and makes us aware of how we are "unjustly enriched"
because of aspects of our identity.

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Straight Out Of The Closet: Men, Feminism, And Male Heterosexual Privilege.
KM
“If we observe and come to terms with the ‘‘unjustly enriched’’ aspects of our personal
lives, we are more likely to take notice of the ways in which unjust enrichment operates
systemically.”
The final point of material cost in rejecting personal privileges is presented with the
assertion that people would feel uneasy with themselves and therefore there is very little
incentive to recognize the "unjust enrichment" since the remedy is disgorgement.
“This essay does not explore [some] hard issues. I leave to others the task of theorizing
about the various forms that critical resistance to identity privileges might take.”

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