[Vision2020] Allan Johnson to visit WSU

[Melynda Huskey]

Allan G. Johnson, author of *Privilege, Power, and Difference* and *The 
Gender Knot,* will be speaking at WSU on October 21 and 22.

21 October, 7:00 p.m., CUE 203, "Male Privilege and Violence Against Women."
22 October, 9:00 a.m., FSHN T101, An Interview with Scott Fedale
22 October, 12 noon, CUB Cascade Rooms, "White Privilege and Racism."

Johnson, a professor of sociology at the University of Hartford, writes 
about his work:

"We are all living deep inside an oppressive legacy of social life 
organized around privilege, power, and difference.  On some level, for 
example, most people know that gender is tied to a great deal of suffering 
and injustice, from discrimination and exclusion to violence and harassment 
to conflict between work and family roles. Millions of women are weary from 
the struggle simply to hang onto what's been gained; and many 
well-intentioned men do nothing because they can't see how to acknowledge 
what's going on without inviting guilt and blame simply for being male. The 
result is a knotted tangle of fear, anger, blame, defensiveness, guilt, 
pain, denial, ambivalence, and confusion. The more we pull at it, the 
tighter it gets.

"Unraveling the knot of privilege begins with getting clear about what 
privilege really is, about what it's got to do with each of us, and about 
how everyone can see themselves as part of the process of change toward 
something better. Based on more than twenty years of work, I try to chart a 
course organized around three questions:

"What are we participating in and how are we choosing to participate in it?
"How do typical ways of thinking about privilege blind us to what's going on?
"What can we do to make a difference?

"My most recent books, The Gender Knot (1997) and Privilege, Power, and 
Difference (2001) are written from a deeply held commitment to the belief 
that oppression is not an inevitable feature of human life and that the 
choices each of us make matter more than we can ever know. They offer a 
practical, compassionate, and readable guide to understanding what we're 
stuck in and how to search for a way out. "

All of Johnson's presentations are free and open to the public.

Sponsored by the YWCA of WSU and the Office of Human Relations and Diversity.