Talk:Peggy McIntosh

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The following Wikipedia contributor has declared a personal or professional connection to the subject of this article. Relevant policies and guidelines may include conflict of interest, autobiography, and neutral point of view.

PeggyMcIntosh (talk · contribs) This user has declared a connection. (COI declared here.)

Archives

Archive 1 (2006 comments)

2007

More post-modernist rubbish if you ask me. Jmm6f488 03:31, 4 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This article is post-modernist? It looks like an ordinary stubby article to me. If you're commenting on McIntosh or her work, this really isn't the forum. --lquilter 20:15, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Article in The New Yorker

Very interesting article in The New Yorker, but as I hadn't heard of McIntosh before, I don't know wheter it's useful here: The Woman Who Coined the Term “White Privilege”

Mirrors of Privilege film

A large section of this page on the Mirrors of Privilege film was removed by Fuebar on 28 October 2014 due to numerous quality problems, with a consensus of editors.

I removed the section that seemed to only serve as an advertisement for that film she is claimed to have been a part of. Its only reference was the webpage where the film itself could be found, four or so times. — Fuebar (talk) 20:59, 16 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

POV Check

this article seems very biased and written like it is trying to convey that all of McIntosh's beliefs are somehow proven facts. there is an entire section that is all about how adhesive bandages are proof of white privilege because they are slightly more light colored as opposed to dark colored. there is absolutely no counter points presented whatsoever. this is bordering on the absurd. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.139.48.22 (talk) 23:47, 10 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Are you trying to argue whether white privilege exists? If so, this is not a valid reason for POV check. Yanping Nora Soong (talk) 07:44, 19 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Oddly, I find that the second paragraph is hardly neutral but in the opposite direction from the comment above, Most the the paragraph reads as either original criticism, or as unattributed rephrasing of a criticism as if it was fact. I get the feel that somebody is grinding their own axe, rather than presenting a neutral POV. This could be fixed by moving the contents to a lower "criticism" section, and specifically quoting/attributing assertions about what McIntosh is assuming etc. Or one could paraphrase but within the context "A prominent critic has claimed that McIntosh assumes ...." with reference. Just repeating the criticism as if it was factual is inappropriate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.36.130.98 (talk) 03:50, 12 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't even read the whole article yet, and am sure there are many POV issues in this article. What I felt immediately obliged to comment on, is that the opening section seems to be written by a skeptic/critic of her work, using phrases like McIntosh "assumes". I really appreciate these critical insights, but critique seems inappropriate for an introduction, which should be a summary. That's my two cents, at least. Sondra.kinsey (talk) 01:16, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I tend to agree here. For most philosopher and scholars we would expect to see their introduction written in very neutral tone, giving a very quick overview of what their work is. Only in very specific cases where a scholars work is either overtly deceptive or absolutely discredited would we expect to see "X asserts..." and "X has been criticised for..." in their summary. We would expect to see criticisms come later, in the main body of the text along side the specific works that this criticism relates to, and the specific claims involved. As the above author points out, we have a weird reversal here, where the summary seems keen to inform the reader about criticisms of McIntosh, while the descriptions of her work themselves seem to imply that there is/was no criticism of those works. I think regardless of one's position on McIntosh, we can all agree that criticism of her ideas should be presented alongside her ideas.81.100.137.118 (talk) 14:48, 14 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Complete Works

This article used to contain a poorly formatted list of the complete works of Peggy McIntosh. It was removed (properly, I think), but may be of use to future editors. You can find it here. Sondra.kinsey (talk) 01:50, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Miscellaneous citations

I began doing some more research to improve this article and don't have time to finish right now. These are some notes for myself or future editors. Sondra.kinsey (talk) 23:51, 19 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

More citations for "sometimes called unpacking"

Biographies

Further sources on McIntosh's views and work

http://www.tolerance.org/magazine/number-46-spring-2014/feature/peggy-mcintosh-beyond-knapsack

reaction to unpacking the knapsack

critique of privilege theory

http://thefederalist.com/2015/03/10/privilege-theory-destroys-the-american-ideal-of-equality/

Note from Peggy

Dear all,

I did not orignate this wikipedia entry and decided to revise it today to better reflect my work. I have also updated some of the citations.

Thank you, PeggyMcIntosh (talk) 20:26, 16 March 2017 (UTC)Peggy McIntosh[reply]

White privilege or family privilege

I just wanted to include this link to a recent article in Quillete that discusses McIntosh's family background, and argues that it's her economic advantages that gave her a leg-up than the color of her skin. If nothing else, editing her page to discuss her family background would help flesh it out, as well as provide a counter-argument to her paper: https://quillette.com/2018/08/29/unpacking-peggy-mcintoshs-knapsack/ Bpeschel (talk) 15:33, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Evaluation

The lead section is generally well written. It provides a good, concise overview of the most important things to know about the article's subject. The introductory sentence thoroughly describes who Peggy McIntosh primarily is. However, one critique I would like to make about the lead is that there is a sentence that doesn't seem to maintain a neutral tone. The claim that her article on white privilege "pioneered putting the dimension of privilege into discussions of power, gender, race . . ." stands without a citation. "Pioneered" is a strong word and could come off as opinionated, so I would advise to use a different word or find a reliable source that supports the use of that word.

There are some other parts of the article that also look like they need a citation. In the first paragraph of "Education and teaching career," the sentence with the quoted "all-female curriculum" does not have a citation. Two more quotations without citations follow in the same paragraph: "radical teaching methods in English, American Studies, and Women's Studies" and "money and a room of one's own." Who is calling McIntosh's teaching methods radical? There needs to be a link to an outside source to show whose opinion this is, and there also needs to be citation links for the two other quotations to show where whose words they were.

There is another problem spot regarding neutral tone in the "Invisible knapsack" section. The paragraph that starts with "Many of these observations set in a different country could lead to a different conclusion" needs to be clear about whose ideas they are. Is this something Peggy McIntosh said in her paper? If so, the sentences need to be edited to clarify that so the author of this article doesn't seem to be sharing their own commentary.

The "SEED Project" section is also completely lacking in any citations. The source of this information about the SEED Project should be provided at the ends of sentences in this section. As of right now, the section feels untrustworthy because the author of the article has not included citations and it seems like the author of the article got the information all on their own.

Other than issues with sourcing information, I would like to comment on the good organization of this article. The sections are broken down into important parts of Peggy McIntosh's work and life which serve to communicate the main points of what readers would need to know about her. Cat-N-Cactus (talk) 03:41, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Margaret" or "Elisabeth" Vance Means

The article currently says she was born "Margaret Vance Means". Other places online have said she was born "Elisabeth Vance Means". Is there a reliable cite for her actual birth name? 208.59.185.238 (talk) 18:07, 10 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]