In the past decade or so, liberals and progressives have evolved a new language to talk about social inequality. This new rhetoric — which is, notably, rejected by many on the left — differs from the rhetoric that defined President Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" liberal social welfare policies in the 1960s, which were characterized by an emphasis on universal social programs and equality of access. Rather, the new rhetoric of many contemporary liberals involves a fixation on privilege, generally framed within the lens of race, class, or gender.
Politically speaking, the "privilege" framework for understanding (and rectifying) social ills has its pros and cons. Clearly, privilege is undeniably real and self-evident: there is no other explanation for why those of different gender and racial categories would have different experiences of discrimination (say, women being statistically more likely to be harassed), and different life outcomes (say, the racial wage gap).
