Invisible Privilege
A Memoir About Race, Class, and Gender
Paula Rothenberg
New in paperback: September 2004
x, 230 pages, 5-1/2 x 8-1/2
Paper ISBN 978-0-7006-1362-5, $17.95
 Life began for Paula Rothenberg in a privileged home in
New York City, but it took her to the battlefields of the culture
wars on behalf of the underprivileged. Now this veteran of that
cultural clash examines the subtle and complex ways in which issues
of race, class, and gender impact people's lives.
A prominent figure in the creation of women's studies and
multicultural studies as academic disciplines, Rothenberg is
perhaps best known for her textbook Race, Class and Gender
in the United States, which was widely attacked by conservatives
defending traditional curricula. Now she shows how higher education
upholds race, class, and gender bias, and, more generally, analyzes
the ways in which many white people's unwavering belief in their
own good intentions leaves them blind to their societal privilege
and their role in perpetuating class difference.
In this candid look at social and academic realities, Rothenberg
shares incidents from her own life and the lives of family and
friends to show how privilege is constructed and to reveal the
forces that make us unaware of it. Through recollections of her
childhood in an upper middle class Jewish family and her college
years in the early sixties, she tells how she discovered that
the world one takes for granted as "everyday life"
is in fact riddled with privilege of which we are unaware.
Reviewing the social upheaval of the seventies that challenged
fundamental assumptions about gender roles, race relations, and
even the nature of the family, Rothenberg tells how she gained
a new understanding of what it meant to be an educator and activist.
In sharing events surrounding the publication of Race, Class
and Gender, she offers an inside look at the culture wars
and brings her story into the '90s with a cogent discussion of
hate speech and the "political correctness" controversy.
Rothenberg recalls the early mobilization against sexual harassment
and recounts what it was like to create one of the first feminist
philosophy courses. She also offers a hard-hitting critique of
current teaching practices and a response to critics of multi-culturalism
and feminism--as well as a look at how de facto segregation continues
in American education in the form of tracking.
Both deeply personal and broadly social, this finely crafted
memoir will capture the interest of anyone who cares about the
future of education, race relations, feminism, and social justice.
“Rothenberg tells about growing up female in New York City
in the 50s and 60s, years when racial and sexual prejudice were
the norm. . . . The stories—especially concerning her parents—are
moving.”—Washington Post Book World
“Rothenberg unflinchingly uses her own life to teach about
the personal, political dangers of accepting the role of exception.”—The
Women’s Review of Books
"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. . . . 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. . . "--Publishers
Weekly
"Paula Rothenberg is one courageous woman! First, her
pioneering anthology integrated multiple levels of inequality.
Now, Invisible Privilege illustrates how the personal
is political in its most profound sense--intimately theorized,
scrupulously honest, autobiographical without becoming solipsistically
self-absorbed. A work both moving and mobilizing."--Michael
Kimmel, author of Manhood in America
"An unusual and amazingly useful analysis of the profound
effects of 'invisible' privilege in a country with deep, complex,
and often unacknowledged histories of gender, race, and class
division. A powerful, insightful, and courageous memoir."--Chandra
Talpade Mohanty, coeditor of Feminist Genealogies, Colonial
Legacies, Democratic Futures
"This compelling memoir is an important contribution
to the emerging field of whiteness studies. Like George Lipsitz's
The Possessive Investment in Whiteness, Rothenberg's autobiographical
account illuminates and analyzes the ways in which white privilege
has functioned in her own life and how readers might begin to
understand the concept of the construction of 'whiteness' more
broadly."--Beverly Guy-Sheftall, editor of Words
of Fire: An Anthology of African American Feminist Thought
"This engaging memoir unflinchingly conveys the ambiguity
and paradox that are inescapable when someone who has led a life
of privilege devotes her life to the critique of race, class,
and gender privilege. Rothenberg draws the reader into her story
and allows us to experience firsthand the excitement of political
and intellectual struggles that have transformed the academic
landscape. The result is a memoir that is as important for its
theoretical insights as for the window it provides into history."--Tom
Digby, editor of Men Doing Feminism
"Rothenberg reflectively describes her process of coming
to see how dynamics of power and privilege have shaped key experiences
of her life. The chapter on living in Montclair, New Jersey particularly
shows how accumulated subtle inequities for some relate to substantial
unearned advantage for others. A rare combination of self-reflection
and systematic analysis."--Peggy McIntosh, Wellesley
College Center for Research on Women
PAULA ROTHENBERG is a professor of philosophy and women's
studies at The William Paterson University of New Jersey and
director of the New Jersey Project on Inclusive Scholarship,
Curriculum, and Teaching. In addition to her widely used texts
in feminist and multicultural studies, she is also coeditor of
Feminist Frameworks, Philosophy Now, and Ethics
in Perspective.
|
