cover image Invisible Privilege

Invisible Privilege

Paula S. Rothenberg. University Press of Kansas, $35 (230pp) ISBN 978-0-7006-1004-4

Philosopher Rothenberg became a bogeywoman in the early 1990s PC wars when her textbook, Race, Class and Gender in the United States, was attacked by conservatives. Now, in an episodic memoir, she aims to ""reflect in a more personal way on what it means to be a privileged white woman coming to terms with that privilege and acquiring some deeper understanding of the ways in which race, class, and gender difference is constructed."" Gender was her first frontier: in addition to growing up in a patriarchal family and enduring sexist taunts during adolescence, she faced discomfiting teachers at the University of Chicago and was sexually assaulted by a member of her dissertation committee. Later, anti-Vietnam War activism and a leftist study group awakened her to a broader critique of America's social structure. In 1980, she began co-teaching classes on racism and sexism at William Paterson University in New Jersey. Despite some academic jargon, Rothenberg writes with refreshing candor: in one vignette, for example, she acknowledges that her family ties gave her the financial wherewithal to buy a home. She argues convincingly that a decision to ""teach tolerance"" in response to the sometimes hostile relations between college students ignores ""the real differences in power and opportunity"" that originally caused the divisions. And her criticism of the ways well-intentioned liberals ""jealously guard"" privilege for their own children is often potent, though her account of racism in New Jersey's educational ""tracking"" system leaves lingering questions about how and when such liberals should best make their sacrifice. (Mar.)