"Waking Up to Privilege Systems: The Surprising Journey"

Dr. Peggy McIntosh is Associate Director of the Wellesley Centers for Women 
at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. She is Founder and Co-director of 
the United States S.E.E.D. Project on Inclusive Curriculum (Seeking 
Educational Equity and Diversity). She consults widely in the United 
States and throughout the world with college and school faculty who are 
creating more gender-fair and multicultural curricula.

In 1988, she 
published the ground-breaking article, “White Privilege and Male 
Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences through 
Work on Women’s Studies.” This analysis and its shorter form, “White 
Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” 1989, have been 
instrumental in putting the dimension of privilege into discussions of 
gender, race, and sexuality in the United States.

Dr. McIntosh has taught at 
the Brearley School, Harvard University, Trinity College (Washington, 
D.C.), the University of Denver, the University of Durham (England), and 
Wellesley College. She is co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Women’s 
Institute and has been consulting editor the Sage: A Scholarly Journal 
on Black Women. She has consulted with women on 22 Asian campuses on the 
development of Women’s Studies, and programs to bring materials from 
Women’s Studies into the main curriculum. She has consulted frequently 
in China and Korea. In addition to having two honorary degrees, she is 
the recipient of the Klingenstein Award for Distinguished Educational 
Leadership from Columbia Teachers College.

On Thursday, October 30th at 7:00PM in Council Chamber , Dr. McIntosh will present her research on the obvious and not-so obvious nuances of white privilege and privilege systems. Her lecture is titled, “Waking Up to Privilege Systems: The Surprising Journey.” Dr. McIntosh’s presentation corresponds to an article, “White 
Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” where she states, "I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group." Further, her interactive lecture will draw on her experiences and research on the daily effects of white privilege and the discourse surrounding earned strength and unearned power. This event is free and open to the public.

For more information please contact Program Coordinator, Rosie Ayala via email at rocio@lclark.edu.