Does a NUDE White Woman Have Privilege?

Does a 40ish year old, relatively thin nude white woman have Privilege? Well, it’s both: TMI (“too much information”) and quite unclear why it would even be an issue.

I was locking my bicycle outside our local Target Store around 5:00 p.m. yesterday, when I suddenly heard and saw an incident which troubled me and troubles me 24+ hours later.

Private security staff — in their “military uniforms” — were yelling at a woman! “I will tase you immediately if you try to come back into the store. You will be tased if you ever return again.”

As the woman’s body started to come into view, I thought that she might not have her breasts covered at all. Her yelling back at three or four of them sounded like she was angry, though I couldn’t understand her words.

Relatively quickly she was running away from them and they stopped. I then was shocked to see that she was totally nude! I could clearly see her breasts and her vaginal hair. Though she was now perhaps 35–40 yards from me, I could clearly sense her agitation.

The Security Men were laughing and speaking of her using “the B word” and similar. I briefly said, “I hope that you will have pity for her” and went inside the store, shaken.

A part of me wanted to go back towards her and ask her if there was something I could do to help her. I quickly felt that that was not a helpful response — as a white man — related to her as a woman.