Olivia Legaspi’s article, “What Working at McDonald’s Taught Me About Privilege,” illuminated for me some of the theoretical discourses and disconnects on the meaning of self-care and its intersections with privilege. When I think of self-care, I think of my own ongoing battles with mental illness, as well as the writings and well-known quotation from Black Feminist Lesbian poet Audre Lorde: “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” This sentence is from Lorde’s A Burst of Light: Essays (1988).
In A Burst of Light, Lorde recounts her personal experiences with liver cancer and her indefatigable determination to survive on her own terms—not those of any doctor or medical practitioner. In this sense, Lorde’s self-care constitutes not only a determination to maintain the health of her body, but to maintain its autonomy and integrity by retaining her ability to make decisions about her body. Caring for herself entails survival in physicality and in independence from oppressive external structures, which in her battle with liver cancer took the form of American doctors who insisted they knew exactly what was best for her. Instead of undergoing surgery as she was told, she sought out alternative treatments which allowed her to maintain her quality of life. Lorde also recognizes the value of seeking help from others, and throughout her collection of essays she refers to the collective spirit of the black women around her and spends time with activist communities such as Sisters in Support of Sisters in South Africa (SISSA). She drew from the energy of the communities around her and the revolutionary political work she engaged in, and in doing so strengthened herself and her commitment to survival.
Caring for oneself is necessary for survival. But what exactly does self-care mean? Some have interpreted self-care to mean roughing it out on one’s one and not seeking the help of others. Yet throughout her collection of essays, particularly in A Burst of Light: Living with Cancer, Lorde seeks help from friends, communities, lovers, family, healers, clinics, and doctors. You can take care of yourself by finding yourself the resources you need to survive. Self-care does not mean rejecting the help of others; in most cases, it necessitates the help of others. Most chronic illnesses and disabilities require the assistance of some external resource if the warrior is to survive. It is called self-care because the self is responsible for seeking out and attaining those resources, whether they take the form of trusted friend or a doctor or an institution. The self is responsible for making the conscious decision to seek help and for subsequently attaining that help.
This is one point at which privilege and power enter the conversation. We do not all have access to the same resources. Some of us have access to higher quality resources than others. This is not coincidental; it is often a result of class, which is often linked to race, gender, disability, and sexuality, among other things.
The power of self-care, though, lies within its emphasis on individuality. Lorde was determined not only to maintain her health, but to preserve her autonomy over her body while doing so. She preserved her bodily autonomy because she, as a unique individual, understood her own needs better than anyone else could. And so she was the only person qualified to craft a regimen of self-care and survival that fitted her needs.
The individuality inherent in self-care seems to be lost in most contemporary discussions thereof. Everyone seems to have an idea in their mind of what self-care is: taking a bath, treating yourself, doing yoga, or whatever you may think it is. Legaspi speaks of self-care “in its current definition,” but the problem here is that she assumes there is one definition of self-care. She refers to the suggestions of her Customs folk and peers at Haverford, where students “are taught to ask for help when we feel we need it, speak up when we feel uncomfortable, and prioritize our own well being over most other things.” This is one definition of self-care, but it is not the only one. I agree that in many situations at Haverford, these are reasonable measures to take to maintain one’s one well-being. That is because Haverford is a highly privileged community; it’s a private liberal arts college on the Main Line. It is a space where you probably won’t be kicked out of school for speaking up for yourself and talking about your feelings. Not all environments provide this kind of safety, but they should. It is certainly true that we learn from difficult experiences, as is proven by Legaspi’s account of her time at McDonald’s, but does that mean we should all be forced to learn in this way? Survivors of abuse, addiction, homelessness, and unspeakable tragedies have all grown and developed through their struggles. But does that mean we should all undergo these kinds of struggles in order to grow?
This is the main point at which I diverge from Legaspi’s analysis. I appreciate her willingness to put forth her own experiences and emphasize some of the ways that a lack of privilege can inhibit one’s access to conventional diatribes of self-care. But I am profoundly troubled by her conclusions. She states, “McDonald’s was not a ‘safe space’ for me, and that was how it should be; I was a small part of a big picture, and my feelings had no business influencing said big picture.” I agree; McDonald’s was definitely not a safe space. But for me, this does not lend itself to a critique of safe spaces; rather, it lends itself to a critique of the harsh emotional labor required of working class Americans and various other disturbing aspects of working conditions in major corporations.
But in another light, Legaspi’s time working at McDonald’s could be seen as her own form of self-care. She states: “It taught me how better to handle my anxiety and how to put myself last in the name of efficiency and a common goal. McDonald’s strengthened my character, my work ethic, and expanded my capacity for resilience, valuable lessons which could not be learned in the ‘safe spaces’ of Haverford’s campus.” In this way, her time at McDonald’s strengthened her will to survive in the future and gave her the resources to better cope with anxiety. The way she learned from her experiences at McDonald’s reminds me of exposure therapy, in which patients with severe phobias, anxiety, or OCD are gradually exposed to whatever it is that triggers them, and subsequently learn to cope with exposure to it. Ideally, everyone would have access to this kind of therapy. But in reality, only a privileged few have the health insurance and the finances to pay for these behavioral healthcare services that are often only partially covered and incredibly expensive. According to her description of her experiences, it seems like she came away from McDonald’s with some of the coping skills one is expected to gain from exposure therapy. Her alternative approach to her own mental health is not a negation of self-care; rather, its uniqueness and her ability to work around oppressive societal structures signifies the inherent individuality of self-care. A lack of privilege limited her access to certain options for self-care, yet she still took care of herself. That is the essence of Lorde’s self-care.
When I think of my own self-care, I think of taking my medication every day and night, seeing my therapist every week, meeting with my psychiatrist, getting eight hours of sleep, setting aside time to be alone, taking breaks from studying when I feel an anxiety attack coming on, and cutting ties with abusive or toxic people. Some of these involve the use of external resources, like my medications and other mental healthcare treatments. This emphasizes that self-care does not mean a reliance only on the self, but a responsibility on the self to enlist the help of others. It also points to the ways privilege impacts my regimen of self-care. I am only able to receive the mental healthcare services I get because my parents are able to pay for them. The vast majority of those suffering with mental illnesses are unable to afford the care that is often necessary for their survival. This does mean that I should feel guilty about my ability to afford mental healthcare; it means that I should be actively working to make sure that everyone has the right—not the privilege—to receive the healthcare they need.
Legaspi, on the other hand, asserts: “We must remember that putting oneself first is the essence of privilege, and that, in order to grow, we must leave this selfish mindset behind.” Self-care in my case is the essence of privilege. I’m incredibly grateful for that, and it is not something I should leave behind. It is not a selfish mindset; rather, it is the only mindset with which I can survive. Legaspi’s conception of privilege is troubling to me because it seems to imply that we should dismantle anything that is an “essence of privilege.” Other indicators of privilege include access to housing, education, a well-paying job, and food. If we follow Legaspi’s logic, then we must leave these things behind in order to grow. She uses the word “privilege” as a pejorative, thus suggesting that anything that comes from privilege shouldn’t exist at all.
I contend that this is precisely the wrong way to look at privilege. In thinking about this, I’m reminded of a comical scene from the film I’m Not Racist…Am I? in which teenagers from a variety of backgrounds in New York City do a privilege walk together. As the facilitator listed privileges, the teens took a step farther for every privilege they held. At the end, one of the teens who had advanced all the way across the room said he felt bad. A teen who had only taken a few steps responded, “Don’t feel bad that you’re given something. Feel bad that others aren’t given it.” The point here is that feeling guilty about living out the “essence of privilege” is unproductive and unnecessary. Privilege is not an evil to be abolished. It is a theoretical construct through which we can see who has access to certain things and who doesn’t. The ultimate purpose of using this theory, I would argue, is to ensure that everyone gain access to these privileges. For instance, my solution to homophobia is not to make everyone experience it because I think their heterosexual lives are privileged; my solution is to reduce homophobia so that fewer people have to experience it.
My dedication to survive means that I will do everything in my power to sustain myself, and that I will not sacrifice my health for things such as academics or social standing. Self-care is about prioritizing yourself so that at the end of the day, as the best self you can be, you’re actually able to contribute to the world and help others. If you don’t take care of yourself, you won’t be of much use to anyone else. And if we don’t take care of ourselves, how will we have the strength to dismantle the power structures that deny so many people access to the rights and privileges we all deserve?