Introduction: Who Am I? Every person in the world has come to be where they are in a different way. Each possesses different traits and characteristics that influence how their lives will carry out. These different characteristics make up an individual’s social location. To be aware of one’s own social location will bring forth an understanding of one’s privilege and/or oppression in society. Social location includes certain identity traits such as age, gender, race, and sexuality. I am a nineteen-year-old Caucasian female. I am a heterosexual, able-bodied, Catholic, and was raised in a small town in Ontario, Canada. I am from a middle class family, and currently attend university. Each of these pieces of my identity make up who I am, and no one in the world has the same identity as I do, meaning that everyone’s way of living is different in some way. This paper will discuss how my social location has impacted my life, followed by the judgements and opinions I have, and finally how I expect my life to be in the future. How My Social Location Impacts My Life Although I stated that every individual has a different identity, they could have very similar social locations. Certain social …show more content…
Growing up I always believed that hard work and dedicate were the keys to success, yet I was unaware that social location played any part in advantages or disadvantages that people had. I think that part of this is because I grew up in a family of fairly privileged people. Perhaps if I were a different race or ethnicity or even sexuality I would have experienced oppression more closely, but because I was from a privileged group, I was ignorant to what was going on around me. Learning more about oppression has helped me see my own privilege as well as the oppression that others face every day. This has shown me how truly lucky I