fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3736 ]

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In what ways have you won the social/economic/privilege lottery?

And in what ways have you totally lost it?

Thinking of it as "winning the lottery" is not productive / useful imo

Anyway, regardless, I am super privileged

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(Anonymous) - 2017-03-27 22:43 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2017-03-27 23:45 (UTC) - Expand

I was born as a white woman in a country where women are treated as people. That's a massive jackpot right there.

I look at my skin and it's so fucking weird that a genetic mutation that lead to pale skin thousands of years ago somehow translates to being "better". I mean, I get it, racism is the result of oppressive politics and power struggle, but we the people are just so fucking strange about the stuff we decide to be snooty about.

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(Anonymous) - 2017-03-28 00:04 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2017-03-28 00:10 (UTC) - Expand

I am white and reasonably intelligent/educated.

However I am also poor, queer, and a woman, and I have physical and mental issues.

Could be worse?

I'm born in Norway, I'm in Higher Education* and am white, only one missing is man and I would have pretty much hit the jackpot.

I grew up with a mentally unstable mother resulting in me ending up in foster care so that wasn't fun, oh and it is the not straight thing, but that isn't a huge issue tbh.

All in all I am very grateful that I live where I live and look the way I do.

*got like 50.000$ in student loans thanks to that one, but in a year I will have my MA degree so worth it.

I'm white, American, educated, and come from a family that could consistently provide for my needs. So, I'm a lucky bastard. I'm also a gay lady who is not ablebodied so ya know. Ya take the good and the bad.

Edited 2017-03-27 23:31 (UTC)

I'm a white cis girl whose mother has connections to all the important and interesting people in the city (and beyond the city) gratis some old money heritage and social know-how. We lost the money part a while back, though.

I'm physically able and in okay shape, but my brain isn't as cooperative as my body. It's part mental illness (anxiety and depression dating back to childhood) and part hormones misbehaving, which birth control only partly addresses.

I got a college education and graduated with a very small amount of debt, though I didn't get a degree in a career-driven field so my wages are paltry and I live with my mom rent-free. I work part-time for the city government and finding it difficult to move up.

I'm not oppressed and dehumanized every day for having a uterus--I have affordable birth control gratis Planned Parenthood--but my state's governor has something against reproductive health so we're fighting for that particular right as I type.

I'm very pretty, which isn't quite a privilege in the way that, say, whiteness or able-bodiedness is, but it's an advantage in some ways.

I'm bi, which in my community is a nonissue.

My financial situation is such that I can pay my bills, buy some nice things for myself, and go out for coffee with friends to bitch about our predicaments--though, like I said, I live rent-free.

It could definitely be worse.

I'm able bodied, educated, cis, living in the US, and (lower) middle class.

I'm mentally ill, gay, female, not white, and an abuse survivor.

So like, mixed bag, like most people I imagine

Won:I'm white enough and had the opportunity to study.

Lost: I'm the daughter of immigrants, i'm fat and mentally ill. Also it seems I might not be capable of holding a job.

Edited 2017-03-27 23:15 (UTC)

I was born to older parents who were extremely financially stable. I've gotten to travel all over the world, and I have no student debt, even after grad school. They were good parents who supported me, told me to chase my dreams, and have never ever pressured me for grandkids even though I'm in my thirties.

On the other hand, female. I was strongly pushed out of math, science, and tech fields even though I have a lot of talent in each, and took a little too well to lady socialization about not being aggressive to do anything about it. I guess finance is math-y, but not in any way I get excited about...

I'm white, cis, intelligent, straight and relatively physically healthy.
I'm female, mentally ill and really ugly. and poor.

I was listening to a piece about the eugenics movement in the US and how they used to send any "undesirables" to the sanitarium, and one of the most often sent cases were "epileptics" (though often unproven, it was an easy thing to say someone was to get them sent away. that and "feebleminded"). And I just got to thinking, I am so damn lucky to have been born in the time and place where something like epilepsy was not an automatic trip to the asylum and treated with shock therapy or forced sterilization or anything along those lines. I didn't have a great time with the seizures, but at least I was treated medically and able to go to school and live my life.

I am also white, grew up with both my parents and extended family. While we were poor, I never went hungry and always had a roof over my head and clothes on my back.

I suppose the "lost it" part would be the medical conditions, physical and mental disabilities, and being queer and poor.

I'm white.

And I'm female, queer, disabled, and poor.

But being white is the ultimate privilege. The things I lose in other categories matter a lot less because I'm white.