Privilege is designed to be invisible, it’s designed to seem natural, and it’s one of the major challenges that anyone trying to end inequality has to face. It is the way societies reward the dominant group, just because they are dominant. It’s an exclusive club with all the best toys.

I was confronted by the invisibility of it all at work a bit ago. I work at a call center for a web-hosting company helping people maintain their sites and dealing with any problems they have with our servers. One of the major rules we have is no adult content, which basically means no sexualized nudity…otherwise known as ‘porn.’ When we find some on the servers, we give them 24 hours to remove it or find a new host. This happened today when I received a call from a woman angry because we had shut her down for hosting a pornographic chat site. Throughout the call I pepper in the phrase “naked men and women,” which sets her off. For some reason she got upset, and shouted “what the hell are you talking about, there are no naked men online.” I told you this to make you think about it. The internet is full of porn, and almost all of it is of college-age girls. There are other markets of course, but this is the main one. It’s just an element of male privilege to know that your fetish is there for you to find, no matter what.

Porn is a touchy subject in feminism. It’s something that has created a great debate and neither side can seem to come to an agreement. I personally came to the conclusion that I needed to remove it from my life, but I avoid criticizing others for not doing the same. I realized that while I don’t have a problem with pornographic materials in and of themselves I have a problem with the submissive and objectified nature of most of it. Even supposed ‘positive porn’ such as the Naughty America series (which claims to be a female positive company.) In almost all of the porn I have ever seen, the woman was nothing more than a cum dumpster or sex doll whose sole purpose was to get the male star off. There is no concern for the woman and she is just there to do the servicing. It just helps reinforce the idea that a woman gets fucked and that her value is that of a sexual object, not a sexual partner. This is just something I don’t wish to consume anymore, out of respect for my beliefs and for the women that I know. It’s a part of the privilege system and I think most of us can agree that is a problem.

In order to get away from this system you have to acknowledge your role and try to get past it. Here are a few examples that I have put together from my list of my privilege:

* If I lost my job, there would likely be another. If it took me a while to find one and I had to partake in government assistance, I wouldn't be considered a stereotype of my race or gender.

* I can go almost where ever I want, as long as I can afford it, with little fear for my safety and with no one questioning my right to be there.

* I am almost guaranteed a fair trial in almost everything but custody cases.

* If I look through a history book, it's completely filled with examples of people that look like me acting bravely and selflessly.

* If I were to be profiled it would almost always be in my favor.

* Someone who looks like me, with my genitalia, is almost always in charge.

So please make your list; it helps, I promise. Together we can work on unpacking our privilege and overcoming inequality.

I think I can trace my feminism back to my mother and father, both staunch conservatives while I was growing up. My father was in the military and my mother was very open to being dominated; she would do what ever he wanted, almost without question. Even at eight years old, something about that didn’t seem right. I felt bad for my mom, like she was getting a raw deal. I don’t want to give off the impression that my father was abusive or that he demanded that sort of treatment, but it just seemed to be how it was. At one point, my dad went overseas for a year and my mom took a nose-dive right to the couch, barely moving from her comfort zone. Without my father around she didn’t know what to do; it was during that year that I came to the conclusion, without a doubt, that things shouldn’t be that way. No one person, man or woman, should be so dependent on another person that they cannot live their life without them. Now, I know that what happened to my mother was not simply a function of her devotion to my father, but also as a part of a series of mental conditions she later became diagnosed with, but the impression was still there. Some things never leave you.

My family wasn’t the only formative element in my development, throughout the years, I became friends with many different women. I don’t mean that I made female friends in an effort to have sex with them, although I am ashamed to admit that was something I did in my younger years. But no one is perfect. As I formed these friendships I began to notice the kind of things that other men my age were doing and saying about the women I knew and didn’t know. Women to most of them were nothing more than objects of desire, things to be had and used until they were done with them. Had they taken the time to get to know the girls that they were talking about, they could have realized how much more they had to offer than “ass, titties, and blow jobs.” I began to hear stories from more of my friends than I ever thought possible. These were about guys who would force themselves into a position in which my friends felt that they had to sleep with them. It was rape through emotional force as far as I saw, and it made me sick. I can’t tell you how many girls I knew that would go out on dates with young soldiers–fresh out of basic, full of testosterone, and a sense of entitlement–who would come back and cry to me about being raped. They were all too scared to say anything, because on post (like everywhere) it was always assumed that she had been willing to have sex or she wouldn’t have been in the guys barracks. If she was lucky, the guy would be charged with statutory rape and maybe get kicked out of the Army. At least half of the women I have dated throughout the years have confided in me that their fathers, uncles, brothers, or neighbors had molested them. One in particular had been molested at (roughly) six years old; she still has nightmares to this day about those terrible events. I am thankful everyday that the woman I love more than I have ever loved has never had to deal with that. I hope to someday leave a world where no one else will. Some things never leave you.

In high school I discovered radical politics. At some point most people toy with ideas like socialism and anarchism, or their polar opposites (although I’ve never known anyone to seriously espouse the virtues of fascism.) I read about populist movements, workers rights, and class warfare. I read Noam Chomsky, Rigoberta Menchu, Karl Marx, and Emma Goldman. I came to the conclusion early on that equality and egalitarianism meant everyone and not only a certain type of people. I have marched in LGBT rallies, seen inflammatory political speeches given by some of the most intelligent people I have ever met, and I have sat through class after class designed to teach me the importance of history (all of which were led by women who I could never imagine being superior to simply because they had a vagina). My studies of history have shown me how far we’ve come and how much more work we as a society need to do. Women are still underrepresented in our history books. They were rich and vibrant characters, not just fashion accessories.

I am not the best candidate for becoming a feminist, but here I am. I grew up in a Southern, conservative, military family and spent much of my time in southern conservative, military towns. I am American, white, and male, which makes me part of the most privileged group of people to ever walk this earth, but here I am. I have learned lessons that most men will never learn, because some things will never leave you.