Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminism: chat

Original poster

Is "being an ally" really all that women can do if they don't also belong to another at risk group?

56 replies

TinselTwins · 24/01/2017 21:27

It seems to be according to the comments on every viral post about politics on twitter and facebook over the last couple of days..

Women who aren't trans or gay or non-white……. are they not still a supressed group in their own right ? Seems the popular consensus is that role is either "ally" or "part of the problem". That's it?

I get that "just" being a woman provides far less hurdles in life than being a woman AND non-white, ore being a woman & disabled, or being a woman & queer, but it still makes you more at risk than you would be if you weren't a woman. Am I guaging the tone of social media correctly that most involved in acivism at the moment believe that woman who are not any of the above should not push "their agenda" and should only get involved as a ally?

I mean, feminism is not done yet? Did I miss something?

OP posts:
New posts on this thread. Refresh page
CantReach · 25/01/2017 21:25

I do wonder how much it has to do with the fact that most of us live our lives so connected to men that it is hard for many to feel solidarity with women ahead of that. I can't express it properly, but I can't think of an oppressed group who live outside of their own group, with their oppressors to compare it to.

Original poster
TinselTwins · 25/01/2017 20:56

no, I mean take environmental activism. There's no aggression towards environmental activists assuming they never show up for anything else.

There's the understanding that basic environmentalism helps everyone else, so is worthwhile in itself

However basic traditional feminism helps everything/everyone else too.. but if that's "all you do" (and even if it's not, there's a lot of assumptions made about the white cis feminists being shamed, they may do a lot of other things..) it's not only not good enough/valid as a thing to direct you energy to.. it's become a slur. It always was a slur, but from the otherside, not from within.

OP posts:
CantReach · 25/01/2017 20:49

Is anyone a member of an activist or campaigning group outside of feminism? I am and haven't felt any kind of pressure to be 'intersectional' within this, yet within feminism it is such a big thing currently. I'd be interested to hear if any other groups experience this.

I sort of suspect that the nature of sexual oppression is that it's easier to identify first, not as a woman, but as part of the many other groups we fit into. In the same way that nationalism often trumps class solidarity.

BBCNewsRave · 25/01/2017 20:23

If you are disabled and white woman, you are in a worser position in society compared to a white woman without any form of disability. If a disabled white woman complains, they are probably talking about being in small group that most people might never even care they exist let alone being a woman.
Dose her problem only apply to disable people or should it be a feminist issue if it affects groups of women who are disabled?

Surely it's only specifically a feminist issue if it's something that disproportionately affects women? Which does cover an awful lot, actually...

Saw a completely infuriating post on fb from a mansplainer saying that the real issues in the world were about class/financial inequality and racism ... oh yes, obviously, because these thing affect men too! Hmm So white middle class women can't possibly object to anything for themselves, as women, because that particular struggle doesn't matter in it's own right. Apparently.

HelenDenver · 25/01/2017 19:09

Ever the Charming Man, cadno.

cadnowyllt · 25/01/2017 12:34

MagicalRealist

Hope you do, so far you're one of the few making any sense.

SaskiaRembrandtWasFramed · 25/01/2017 12:31

I think it's very much the same as the way educated working class people in the labour movement were a threat to the establishment, so it made sense to portray them as class traitors who were only promoting their own interests.

TheCountessofFitzdotterel · 25/01/2017 10:44

Remember the more privileged we are, the easier it is for us to threaten their privileged position, so they (men I mean) have to attack us.
I totally agree about divide and conquer. I think it is worse on the Internet than in rl, heightened by the fact that you don't always know if the person criticising you is male or white themselves. Imo the solution is rl activism because generally people aren't such arses irl as online.

MagicalRealist · 25/01/2017 10:37

Sorry, no idea what happened there Blush
I'll come back later.

MagicalRealist · 25/01/2017 10:36

Oh god! Posted too soon. I was still typing.

Original poster
TinselTwins · 25/01/2017 10:34

I agree saskia.

There were so many groups that had never combined before at the march. Not just white cis women who had never protested anything before.

There will have been women of colour who never protested for gay rights there
There will have been LGBT people who never protested for people of colour there
There will be women of colour who never went to a black lives matter march or a feminist protest
Gay people who never marched for other LGBT people before
Straight white men who never protested before

But only cis white women are being attacked for showing up this time! (some for their first protest, others will be seasoned protesters who have shown up for all of the above before)

Not only that, they're also being told they shouldn't be there in their own right, and should only be there as a ally to other groups.

And you know what really gets me? Yes, ask us if we'll keep showing up whenever any oppressed people need us to.. but the scapegoating of white cis women on groups about the march has completely overshadowed any discussion about the point of the march! - womens rights & anti trump & his cabinet.

OP posts:
YetAnotherSpartacus · 25/01/2017 10:34

I've been called a white, middle-class feminist by a trans individual who presented wholly as male and who was whiter and more middle-class than I am. Beyond this, I've heard many liberal and socialist men mouth off about 'white, middle-class feminism' whilst being totally oblivious to the fact that they are also white and middle-class.

The irony. It burns.

SaskiaRembrandtWasFramed · 25/01/2017 10:21

It's classic divide and conquer. There are billions of women, if we all banded together we would be extremely formidable. To help negate the threat of us doing that we are divided up into groups and pitted against each other. White women against black women, Middle class women against working class women, straight women against gay women, and so on. We're much more manageable when we only identify with small groups and fight against other small groups instead of banding together and fighting for the right to be treated as equal and valuable human beings.

Original poster
TinselTwins · 25/01/2017 01:44

I'm not denying the concept of white privilege. I'm not one of those people who joke's about "all my white privilege" sarcastically when I'm broke, because I get that being broke and white is shit, and doesn't feel very privileged, but it's still a position of privilege compaired to being broke and a woman of colour.

I'm not questioning that. FYI.

However, this is not the context in which "check your privilege" is being chucked about over the last few days.

OP posts:
Original poster
TinselTwins · 25/01/2017 01:12

Are these people only only men or where you referring to your mentioned groups of black women, gay, trans and all the other groups out there that you think seem to have more privilege than you?

None of your post makes sense. At all. I can't even answer your first questions because I don't know what they mean.

as for the above quote. White people have more privilidge than non white people. Men have more privilidge than women. Being born a woman still depleates some privilidges from out atuomatically, but if you don't belong to some other groups you retain some other privilidges

A white woman has privilidges compaired to a black man, a white woman also has challenges a black man doesn't have, and vica versa.

EVERYONE who marched had some privilidge by the virtue of being able to march. The march was made up of a whole spectrum of profiles, it wasn't just a big army of white women who refuse to mobilise for any other cause.

OP posts:
quencher · 25/01/2017 01:06

Just to clarify. A lot of those men might truly believe in the cause. However, that does not take away what I said about rebellion. I said so, because they are the few groups of men who have decided to think differently.

Op, then why are you engaging with them? If they are not the sort of men who attended the matches then they are the type of men with the belief you are fighting against. Which means you would be the target of abuse and criticism.

Are these people only only men or where you referring to your mentioned groups of black women, gay, trans and all the other groups out there that you think seem to have more privilege than you?

Original poster
TinselTwins · 25/01/2017 01:02

white male marchers:
"he gets it"
"need more allies like you dude"

White women marchers:
not an ally, only there for selfish reasons. Couldn't possibly be marching on behalf of women less privilidged than herself.

OP posts:
Original poster
TinselTwins · 25/01/2017 00:59

Those who are patting themselves on the back see themselves as rebellious and breaking away from the system while women and other groups are trying to break in.

to be fair to the white men whose pics are going viral, they're not the ones patting themselves on the back

It's the people who are using these as examples of good allies, while in the same breath shaming white women for only being there for selfish reasons (because they can read minds).. and then stating that it's about privilege when the ones that they're shaming have less privilidges than the men that they're saying they should be more like

OP posts:
quencher · 25/01/2017 00:53

I don't think any woman should be sitting down and shutting up. Ever! It's the women who sit down and shut up, I see as the problem a together with men. I call them the enablers whether they knowingly do it or not.

First and fucking formost, if we're talking privilidge here, ask the flippin white MEN to keep showing up as allies! If there's anyone to ask "hey where where you when maybe, because everyone else is at their Marcy! Those who are patting themselves on the back see themselves as rebellious and breaking away from the system while women and other groups are trying to break in.

Original poster
TinselTwins · 25/01/2017 00:53

I'm not really saying we should go after the (many thousands of) white men who were there, I'm just calling it mysogyny where if there's going to be shaming going on for showing up to this particular march.. it skips down to the women.

OP posts:
Original poster
TinselTwins · 25/01/2017 00:48

First and fucking formost, if we're talking privilidge here, ask the flippin white MEN to keep showing up as allies! If there's anyone to ask "hey where where you when…" surely, that's who! but they're universally being held up as examples of how to do ally-in right to shame all them selfish white women who turned up to a march that relates to them.. and by default cannot be good examples of allies…

OP posts:
Original poster
TinselTwins · 25/01/2017 00:43

Why are people not bothered most of the other time to the same degree when it's not that different? You know why? It's because a lot of the time people decide to turn a blind eye

and that can be said for most people!

There were all kinds of people there who either haven't been to any or many marches/protests before. Why not just state that as a general fact! Hey guys! If we ALL did this again, next time ANY of us are under threat! think what we could do!

but no, that's not what's flying round social medial, it's only directed at the white feminists who were there, and there were a hell of a lot of other profiles at that march, it was a lot of people's first march, not just white women's.

OP posts:
MrsTerryPratchett · 25/01/2017 00:42

I'm an ally WRT the missing and murdered Aboriginal women, for example. But I'm also a feminist because there isn't one of my privileged, white, Western, straight female friends who hasn't been sexually harassed, raped, been beaten by their partner, paid shit wages, been involved in the sex trade... Not all of them all the time. But all of them have experienced one or more of these at some point.

But the left has always been divided and divide and conquer is VERY effective. Judean People's Front anyone?

Original poster
TinselTwins · 25/01/2017 00:39

Am not saying sit down and shut up.

You might not be, but a hell of a lot of others are saying exactly that, word for word.

OP posts:
Original poster
TinselTwins · 25/01/2017 00:37

What made me sad about the match was the thought that, if women stood up often and were not selective on what suits them as a race but women in general. we would be further in the cause

There's so many things wrong with this

Mainly it's the assumption that the white women at the march only marched for themselves and and their own narrow interests and weren't there in solidarity with all women or any other aspect of womens rights, yet, men who were there showed "solidarity" with women round the world Hmm that right ther hypocritical and misogynistic

Secondly, that they sit at home turning down

OP posts: