Aside from my ethnicity, I also have less privilege as a result of being female in a society with a male preference. Being female may be a disadvantage for many people, but I do not believe it has affected my life much. Sexism is seen abundantly in the workplace, and with my career choice being nursing, I haven’t gotten the short end of the stick at any time. In fact, I think I may have more privilege than the male nursing students in the program because females are seen as better fitting to the nursing profession and face less ridicule than men. Maybe, choosing nursing over medical school didn’t raise any red flags, but I do feel at times that I am seen as taking the expected route for females amongst males and females alike.
With all this unequal distribution of power and privilege, one might begin to think that it’s the individual people’s fault but that is not the case. Privilege and power are part of a social system that people build their lives around but that doesn’t make them to blame, they are simply following the rules of the game. If people go against the grain instead of following the “path of least resistance that shapes their choice,” (Johnson p. 81) they are likely to be made uncomfortable by the society and forced to change paths. More often than not, people who are aware of the alternate routes will choose to follow the path of least resistance because they’re afraid of the outcome. However, individualistic thinking “makes us blind to the very existence of privilege” (p. 77) because it “assumes that everything has only to do with individuals and nothing to do with social categories, leaving no room to see, much less consider, the role of privilege” (p. 77). The individuals do not determine privilege and power, the bulk of society creates systems in which certain individuals benefit from the preferences and others do not.