Taking a Step Back

As a Fairfield University student, one often neglects to see the amount of place privilege we fall victim to each day. It is vital to combat this potentially harmful aspect of ourselves and face it head on.

Millions of girls around the world are suffering at the hands of false stigmas surrounding menstruation and a lack of provision of care by not only their own society, but our’s as well. In consequence, they are deprived of a full education and the opportunity to formulate their own intellectual identity amongst the world.

Let’s take a step back and begin with the simple question of: how does such an immense issue, severely impacting a multitude of the human race, fall under the radar of billions of people?

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Before taking the Rhetorics of Resistance course at Fairfield University, I would not have known the answer to this question. In fact, the question would never have even crossed my mind as I too fell victim to the underlying predator - being place privilege.

Place privilege enhances Fairfield University students’ and faculty’s ignorance and immerses us into the wide scale dismissal of menstrual hygiene activism and its immense positive impact on girls’ access to education. Further examining our place privilege as Fairfield students allows us to expand our individual empathy towards such individuals.

It is with ease that we believe we know all there is to know about the world we live in. Just think, we have some of the most brilliant minds in the country as our professors, we hear and partake in charity as part of our Jesuit mission, we are immersed into a community formulated of students from all over the world, and many of us are actively engaged in activist projects. We hear of Black Lives Matter, the LGBTQ+ community, feminist movements, the #MeToo movement, and a plethora of others dominating our physical and social media world.

It is with no uncertain doubt that these causes are all of immense importance, but what’s the common thread here? They all are connected with us as a student body. We ourselves come face-to-face as a community of individuals of different racial backgrounds and gender. We react to these movements and organizations because they affect us either directly or through the people we know.

This is our place privilege seeping through, as our lives are still overwhelmingly sheltered from issues that do not engage directly with our current quality of life.

As students of a dominantly White, private Jesuit university, our place privilege restricts many of us from delving deeper into the issues surrounding the lack of menstrual hygiene in third-world countries. Receiving a high-up education and having easy access to menstrual products diminishes our intellectual capacities to look beyond our own reality. In other words, we are not affected directly to the same extent as the girls being deprived of an education in third world countries; thus, it is seemingly more challenging to ignite our empathetic capabilities and feel compelled enough to learn more about the cause.

Failure to examine one’s own place privilege is common amongst Fairfield University students, as we stay encompassed in our own veiled bubble. The majority of the Fairfield University community is White and, although the university is inclusive of all cultures, our community still lacks diversity in many ways. Even as a first-year, my experience so far has involved meeting White, wealthy peers all of whom are either from Massachusetts, New Jersey, or Connecticut. This is not to say that all of the Fairfield University community falls into this category, however the overwhelming majority does and makes it feel safe for me to say that as a community overall, we are still very unaware of just how deep our privilege goes.

As seen on this website, I have even gone as far as to create a short video, where I ask a group of my peers what they know about menstrual activism? All of the responses I received were not only those of which they had no idea of what was being asked, but also those of which that were said lightheartedly. Some of whom even laughed when I explained to them what the cause was, further highlighting the sadness of place privilege.

This being said, the lack of education on this notion of our existence yearns to be fulfilled through a gaining of knowledge and ability to help. If Fairfield students want to truly impact girls represented and supported by Malala Fund, they must recognize and accept their place privilege, not allowing it to further distort the truth and veil this global injustice. They must touch into their empathy and strive to comprehend just what these young girls are going through. We can’t truly impact Malala Fund’s cause without first taking a step back and acknowledging our own ignorance, thus serving as our fuel.

One mechanism for which we may start to further examine and unravel our own place privilege is to spend an allocated amount of time researching the ideologies that fall in support of the term. Place privilege is a broad concept with an immense amount of meaning. There are multiple mediums and genres available through scholarly articles, Ted Talks, social media posts, as well as several others that can provide knowledge and widen our understanding of how this falls into our own lives.

We might choose to read Karma R. Chávez’s article where place privilege is defined, as well as exemplified through the concern with migrant caravans. We might also choose to read through Malala Fund’s website, serving as our own research agents, comparing our realities to their’s.

As exclaimed by Chávez, we “comment from where we were born, raised, and live.” It surely is at the hands of our own place privilege that we neglect the menstrual hygiene activist movement through the lense of Malala Fund. By benefiting from our environment, we subconsciously dismiss the struggles of other human beings around us, specifically the young girls struggling to receive a well-rounded education.

We make a choice, whether aware of it or not, to remain blind sighted to these individuals’ cries for help. By not immersing ourselves into our own research, raising conversations with others, and acknowledging there are prominent issues existent beyond our own manmade scope, we harm others through our negligence.

Although unavoidable by touch, there is power to be found in fighting back against place privilege. Become educated and put yourselves into the shoes of these girls. Allow empathy to uphold you and your efforts towards gaining justice for others in need.

Do not dismiss the needs of these young girls, merely because you yourself can refrain from visualizing their pain and struggle. It is not our choice where we are born or the amount of privilege that comes along with it and no one deserves to be subjected to wide scale negligence. It is time to take action, share what you have learned, delve deeper into the issue yourself, and ignite your inner activist!