Owning your privilege. By someone actually very privileged.

A few weeks ago, Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust sent out some daily challenges as part of Race Equality Week. There were 5 Challenges in total, and one of them involved thinking about privilege.

There were some golden nuggets in this, including the fact that...

“Privilege isn’t something we can control, but we can choose how we use it.”

And this got me thinking.

The first thing, was to reflect on my own place of privilege.

Sylvia Duckworth's Wheel of Privilege is a well established tool. It outlines the factors that make someone more likely to have power, and those which make someone more likely to be marginalised.

And, so I reflected. And it was a pretty potent reminder that I am one lucky chap. In no domain at all, am I marginalised. Which is great. For me.

But rubbish if you’re not sitting slap bang in the middle of the wheel.

As I did more thinking about this, I discovered a selection of variations around this, each with various combinations of additional “add-ons”. These include do you drive? Relationships? Age? Employment?  Just1voice had some honourable mentions for others that feature, but don’t There’s loads when you think about it. Number of children, type of children, dominant hand, incarceration.

A couple of weeks ago, I was speaking at a research conference – primarily for Resident Doctors in the Southwest, who are #anaesthetists. Let’s face it, it’s a pretty niche crowd but there was a great turnout and fantastic to be able to share my insights and experiences and learn from those in the room. One of my conclusions, was that research is really hard, and you need to incrementally build a research career. Start small, collaborate and show progression.

There is also the challenge of working in a “non-academic” institution – the credibility of the institution you work in matters. This in turn, limits adoption and drives aspirational researchers towards a small pool of organisations, which in turn concentrates the funding and the wealth generation. Which seems far from fair.

And frankly, it is no different in adoption of #innovation, #healthtech and #medtech. There are a handful of NHS Trusts and providers who are constantly trying to demonstrate how much they are early adopters – which is awesome. But it leaves others in their wake, and means there is a risk that that certain parts of the country are being left behind.

If you think about the great leaps forward in science, engineering and technology, some have been based upon gradual, slow, iterative processes. But this is the exception rather than the rule and based upon a lot of good fortune and good timing rather than the quality of the idea or hypothesis being tested.

If we focus on the academic world, the UK Research Integrity Office (UKRIO) developed the "academic wheel of privilege". It highlights these challenges – and more. I am not in a position to single-handedly change the research landscape in the UK. Nor am I in a position to fund early-stage researchers who want to answer a brilliant question but are new to research, or work in the “wrong place”, or aren’t working with the “right people”.

But wouldn’t it be awful, if your chances of answering these questions, or even living your life was impacted by any of these 20-odd characteristics of which you can do very little about.

I am going to take the example of language and whether English is your first language. I have read plenty of research grant applications, and I know – and this is slightly uncomfortable to acknowledge and even more so to write, that if there are grammatical and spelling errors I will instinctively see these as a lack of attention to detail and the sign of a poor application.

Just like the Harvard Implicit Association Test (IAT), it can be pretty galling to see that you might have hidden bias in the way you think and act. #Disability, #Race, #Age, #Gender, #Sexuality – the big ones are there. But also more subtle ones like Weight, Skin-tone and Transgender. If you haven’t done it, give it a try. Take a Test

If we go back to the many, many challenges associated with privilege – one of the real challenges is that a lot of these characteristics are things that one has relatively little control over. For example, English as a first language. This is based on where I grew up. I had no input there. Even the fact that I have higher degrees. I did well enough at school not just because I worked hard as I got older, but because my parents spent time with me talking about my school work, supporting me with exams, supporting and encouraging a work ethic, and even earlier than that, practising reading about Bif and Chip and whichever reading book characters were in front of me.

The other day, I heard some slightly troubling comments about someone who had been nicknamed “the Professor”. The person in question is blazing a trail in terms of promotion and self-development. But they have very few academic qualifications and only a handful of GCSEs. And this clearly bothers people. And this bothered me. Because they didn’t necessarily have the step-ups and nudges in the right direction early on in life, and if they did, they might have made some bad decisions when they were 15 or 16 years old. I might be unique, but I know for a fact that I made some terrible decisions when I was 15 or 16. I had a safety net that supported my despite these, and as a result, these didn’t go on to define me.

That day in question, I spent some time talking with the staff who were making the comments, and explained how unfair my situation was compared to so many others. We don’t live in a meritocracy, or an effort-ocracy. And undoubtedly, feathers can sometimes be ruffled by the way things are achieved, rather than who is doing the achieving. But let’s not pick on people for situations out of their control, and decisions made several decades ago.

So what to do about my privilege? What to do about your privilege? Reading this, you probably speak good English, have access to half-decent internet connection, and probably have half-decent career opportunities.

Andee Chua 🏳️🌈 talks about this very eloquently, and the need to move away from the negative connotations and instead use it as a chance to adopt an empathetic approach.

One of the key things he suggests, is to avoid feeling guilty about the privilege you have – or blaming people for what you don’t have. So much is systemic. Instead support people to feel empowered.

This support of others, includes owning it. But owning it for the good. Having privilege enables you to have a voice promoting equality, equity and justice, and being a force for positive change. Similarly, you can raise awareness about the challenges on both sides of the fence.

In a similar vein, Vinay Mehta has suggested we are unapologetic, in his brilliant post The Unapologetic Guide to Owning Your Privilege (sorry about the paywall). So we can acknowledge it, learn from it, and use it for good. Not to be ashamed or feel guilty about it, but feel grateful and use it advocate for social change.

I like this. And with International Women’s Day just behind us, I think it's a great reminder for those who are lucky enough, to face up and own their privilege and try and use it as a force for good. And even if you don't, just being slightly grateful is never a bad thing to do.

Thank you for reading. I love feedback, so please feel free to let me know what you think.