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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Let's Talk about White Feminism

342 replies

MagnificentDelurker · 27/02/2018 21:40

This is going to take a bit long but please bear with me. I feel like an intruder as I have actively been avoiding feminism and specially the white kind all my life. Kinda like putting my hand in my ears and saying la la ... So I feel a bit of an imposter to come and talk about white feminism with some supposed sagacity but here it goes:

First a bit of background: I am an immigrant to UK from a deeply religious and Muslim country. I have been as gender non conforming as you could get in country with mandatory hijab laws. I have argued for women's right as much as I could but still I would never call myself feminist. So it was a delight to discover mumsnet and read writing of so many fiercely intelligent women.

So seeing so many of my sisters getting attacked for supposedly white feminism I had to rant somewhere. I have met many feminist who have been overtly/ inadvertantly racist. Probably not more so than general population but again that is not the point.

Feminism is a women's right movement. Feminist cannot be expected to fight everyone's battle for them. Feminists are humans like most, we (humans) are capable of detailed analysis of situations that are close to our own experience but generally would fill the rest with background noise or stereotypes. We might know in detail how subtle but effective sexism works but at the same time completely black out the experience of being working class man. This is just human.

However, this does not invalidate the experience of a white middle class woman. The suppression is real and she has every right to fight for herself. Her fight has also benefitted me as a muslim women growing up in a different era and a different country. Because women fought for vote, it meant that I did not have to. We were given the right to vote because it became a norm in most countries. I did not have to fight for right to education either. I was automatically educated, again it became the norm. I was albeit begrudgingly admitted to university, was even allowed to choose typically male subject (engineering). In fact, the ratio of women to men in my university (predominately a STEM university) was no different to say US (where I travelled for post graduate studies ) . I am happy that I did not have to fight these battles and I thank (white) feminists for it, even if some were racists. We have our own battles, from fighting mandatory hijab to street harassment, to unfair divorce laws. I am mightily glad that we do not have to fight from square one.

Yes there are times that what is called as white feminism can transgress. But those are not the times when white women are fighting for rights that might only affect a subset of women they belong to in short term. They transgress when they advocate to invade my birth country to free the women. They transgress (in my opinion and I understand that many disagree) when they advocate for banning hijab and hence taking agency away from muslim women. They transgress when they they simplify the experiences of my life as a muslim woman to just being a victim.

None of the above applies in this fight for women's spaces. And I feel very included that these women fight not for banning of my hijab but for spaces that I can feel comfortable taking my hijab (not me specifically as I don't wear hijab but you get my point).

Finally, among marginalised people sometimes those with more power are the only ones with a voice and that does not mean they should not use it.

It is a bit incoherent but just wanted to say you go girl to all of you (and rant a bit)

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Cooroo · 27/02/2018 22:09

I enjoyed your rant, thanks for sharing.