I think you have valid concerns about bringing a privileged white male into the world. I don't mean that you should value your baby boy less--as you say, you have the opportunity to raise a real, 21st-century, feminist man, and our world needs him as much as we need empowered, feminist daughters. But I was having a discussion this weekend with my friend (white, Christian) and her husband (a Filipino Jew) about the blindness of white male (straight, Christian) privilege and how it seems it's almost impossible for someone born into that to understand what it means to belong to an underprivileged group. Notably, my male Filipino friend strongly agreed with me; my white female friend, somewhat but less so.
As an educated white woman, I benefit from a great deal of privilege myself, but my experience of femaleness in this society gives me at least a modicum of insight into what it means to be on the flip side of privilege. In dating SWMs, by contrast, I've found that most of them have a near-total lack of personal context to understand the challenges faced by marginalized groups, which is of course part of the way privilege operates: they don't have to think about it. (The exceptions are either unusually empathic or long-time members of diverse social groups--continuing education by exposure, which is my other saving grace. Or not full exceptions after all because they belong to an "invisible" minority.) This manifests as a noticeable handicap in discussing race, gender, orientation, culture, and the general importance of protecting the rights of minority groups. They have no visceral understanding of what's at stake and what the obstacles are--even when they're trying, they often miss the point. So there's a great challenge inherent in raising a WM who can understand, more so than in raising awareness in a girl-child. (Although there are plenty of women in my generation and younger who are missing that awareness, to their detriment.)
I use the words "handicap" and "blindness" intentionally--the patriarchal mindset truly cripples/delays its seeming beneficiaries' experience of culture and community. Part of privilege is not seeing one's own privilege. And if they cannot perceive the problem, they are unable to fix it; they cannot be healers without the ability to see the wounds.
I think you and Adam can raise your boy to be a non-patriarchal, privilege-aware, vagina-respecting penis owner. :-) But it's good to know what you're up against, to know that you'll be swimming upstream in teaching him those values.
(Note: this is not to say that belonging to any minority will prevent anyone from being unaware of their privileged outlook. It just helps in sensitization.)
Sorry to be long...I'm still working some of this out for myself
As an educated white woman, I benefit from a great deal of privilege myself, but my experience of femaleness in this society gives me at least a modicum of insight into what it means to be on the flip side of privilege. In dating SWMs, by contrast, I've found that most of them have a near-total lack of personal context to understand the challenges faced by marginalized groups, which is of course part of the way privilege operates: they don't have to think about it. (The exceptions are either unusually empathic or long-time members of diverse social groups--continuing education by exposure, which is my other saving grace. Or not full exceptions after all because they belong to an "invisible" minority.) This manifests as a noticeable handicap in discussing race, gender, orientation, culture, and the general importance of protecting the rights of minority groups. They have no visceral understanding of what's at stake and what the obstacles are--even when they're trying, they often miss the point. So there's a great challenge inherent in raising a WM who can understand, more so than in raising awareness in a girl-child. (Although there are plenty of women in my generation and younger who are missing that awareness, to their detriment.)
I use the words "handicap" and "blindness" intentionally--the patriarchal mindset truly cripples/delays its seeming beneficiaries' experience of culture and community. Part of privilege is not seeing one's own privilege. And if they cannot perceive the problem, they are unable to fix it; they cannot be healers without the ability to see the wounds.
I think you and Adam can raise your boy to be a non-patriarchal, privilege-aware, vagina-respecting penis owner. :-) But it's good to know what you're up against, to know that you'll be swimming upstream in teaching him those values.
(Note: this is not to say that belonging to any minority will prevent anyone from being unaware of their privileged outlook. It just helps in sensitization.)