Intersectional Feminism

That's really interesting prawn. I think it connects a lot with the ignorance of the intersectional feminist movement about cultural relativism. The idea that it is Islamophobic to oppose FGM is harming girls and protecting the patriarchy.

As well, of course, is the fact that we in the West had a lot of the stuff that is now being defended as uniquely Oriental/cultural. Like arranged marriages (hellloooo read Pride and Prejudice), marriage between cousins (a Celtic tradition in the backblocks, as I understand it), marrying a teenage girl to some old widower who wants free labour to look after his existing children (the Sound of Music!).

The liberation of women and girls is not a decadent western luxury.

You do, Prawn, I agree. I have a real problem with this.

Back in the 1980s a Bradford head teacher, Roy Honeyford, caused a furore when he attacked fashionable multiculturalism.

I remember hearing him say that every year underage girls in his school were taken out of school to go "home" to their DPs or DGPs country of origin and forced into marriage there. They never came back to school, but nobody went looking for them. The local authority completely ignored the phenomenon. He was outraged that politicians and educators were turning a blind eye. They said criticizing the families was racist.

Ray Honeyford said the opposite was true. Had these been little white girls, he said, the nation would have been up in arms. But because the girls were brown we were supposed to accept it because "it's their culture".

He made a big impression on me. He really cared about those girls. He was quite right that the supposed multicultural approach was racist because it treated BME girls as lesser. To him all the girls should have the same protections.

He was intersectional in his views because he thought all girls should be protected against forced marriage. However his career was ruined and, even now, you see people arguing that the oppression of girls and women has to be tolerated because culture.

Someone made reference to this essay from 2013 on the reddit Gender Critical page. I have found it brilliant in summing up a critique of identity politics from a left perspective:

andrea366.wordpress.com/2013/08/14/the-problem-with-privilege-by-andrea-smith/

I tend to think intersectionality is often a way to water down feminism and to exploit female socialization by demanding that women take care of the interests of other groups. No one is telling the BLM campaigners to spend time and energy on promoting women's rights, are they?

Yeah.

I don't listen to people who talk about "intersectionality", really. If they want me to listen, and there are actual women actually affected by the thing they want to talk about, they can call it feminism, plain and simple.

It seems to me that intersectionality is used as a crutch for liberal feminism.

If liberal feminism's approach to "Women are made responsible for childcare and are not paid for it and thus have no financial independence" is "Hire a nanny and get into paid employment" then someone will call that "white feminism" or "middle class feminism", and will look clever and everyone can then talk of how difficult it all is.

Once you get away from the assumption that women are oppressed because of our gender identity or because we are to stupid to make the right choosey choices, you are much less likely to come up with ideas that only work for white middle class women.

prawn I agree, I'm just reading a thread on one of the babywearing groups I'm in where a WOC stated in her op that white women shouldn't comment on any cultural issues that affect women off other cultures. So apparently we should trust women activists working within their own cultures to stamp out harmful practices... Yeah cause that's going so well for all the girls who are suffering fgm on a daily basis. See this is the type of sit down shit and stop centering your white fragility rhetoric that means feminism has lost its fangs. One of the MRA arguments is that women in western. Ou tried have already got equality but when we say who gives a fuck look at all the countless women suffering rape, fgm and underage marriage were now not supposed to point that out as indicated by our own natural allies.. Ie other 'feminists'? And by the quote marks I mean, defanged liberal feminists who have incapacitated themselves with hand wringing

I tend to think intersectionality is often a way to water down feminism and to exploit female socialization by demanding that women take care of the interests of other groups. No one is telling the BLM campaigners to spend time and energy on promoting women's rights, are they?

Feminism puts the interests of women - all women - first or it's not actually feminism. It's definitely not going to achieve anything either - which I suspect is part of the point.

Wow aliasnumberone love your analysis. Also yy to babywearing groups getting sucked in to intersectionality. Breeding ground for antivaxxers too.

corabel no missed that drama altogether!

When I first started becoming aware of social justice and intersectionality I had a pm on Facebook from a perfect stranger who sent me in the direction of a few groups, not because she wanted to recruit me as a lib from but because she wanted me to see the fuckery. She told me she thought the social justice warriors on the babywearing pages would end up eating their own tails, looks very much to me like a lot of them have, and alienated plenty of allies in the process.

Some people are just arseholes I've decided, and it's perfectly reasonable to decide someone's else's opinion is a crock of shit if you've considered it and assessed it as such. just because they say they're oppressed on X y and z axis doesn't mean you have to throw yourself at their feet and renounce your privelege for being white cis Hetero educated ablebodied neuronormative or whatever else and accept their narrative without question. That's ridiculous, the only way we grow as individuals and a movement is to use our critical analysis to question probe deepen our understanding of the world around us and how we inhabit it.

I'm not sure though how intersectionality can be brought back from the brink of the extremes it's got to.

Incidentally was anyone a member of the "guilty feminist" podcast group on facebook? It basically imploded and was shut down as it became quite a horrendous space similar to what alias describes. While aspects of intersectional feminism seem hugely important - in my opinion - it seems like it is being misused and misunderstood massively. In more extreme cases it's being used to silence discussion in an almost totalitarian way.

Barcoo, thanks for that. I totally understand what you mean about not wanting to talk about aboriginal discrimination and the history of the abuse suffered with regards to being told to stop talking out of your lane. It's a problem with intersectionality that I find incredibly frustrating. I'm in so many Facebook groups, mostly babywearing ones randomly, where non BIPOC are told to shut up, sit down, get back into their own lane, find their own spoons, told to google, stop expecting other people's labour, etc etc that people simply stop asking questions for fear of being dog piled and called white feminists. I honestly think 'white feminist' has become a slur in many instances.
While I sympathise with people who are genuinely exhausted by constantly answering the same questions or fending off the same micro aggressions I don't think it's a healthy way to encourage understanding and education to humiliate anyone for asking questions. And if anyone dares to say that, then they get shouted down for crying salty white tears and being a 'becky'.

With your last sentence, are people not allowed to discuss it?

We are, but we're worried we will get our heads snapped off for saying the wrong thing or 'triggering' or whatever, by the leader. She made it clear that disagreeing with the concept of white presenting = white privilege was unacceptable.

@Barcoo2 that's really helpful. I have always tried to understand the aborigines. Little snippets I have come across have always shocked me and the fact that they have always been faceless in Australia's media and everything else.

What I have also realised is that I probably didn't understand the way the journalist is thinking and how his point of view is coming across and the intention.

With your last sentence, are people not allowed to discuss it?

...sorry, back now. So yep, from the south east. There is so little in the archives and from oral history to try and piece together the culture. In fact, the government wrote into the rules that to make a land rights claim, you had to show a continuous connection to culture since colonisation. Making it impossible for anyone but those in desert type places that the Europeans didn't want to exploit. Also if you are Aboriginal then it doesn't matter how 'pale' you are, you still face discrimination. For want of a better description, Aboriginal people with no European heritage are not really visible in the south east. There is no sliding scale of racism where the 'darker' you are the more racism you get. If you look even slightly Aboriginal then you have historically had discrimination. Also, for the children who were removed from their families, they have the added trauma of motherlessness and lack of family bonding. The northern remote communities have lots of problems that are different, but it doesn't mean that the 'pale skinned' ones are more privileged.

Hopefully this is helpful to understand the specific context in Australia. I imagine it's very similar for First Nations in Canada and the USA. Also for the record Bolt, that journalist, says that the Stolen Generations didn't happen. He says that the children were taken because the parents were bad parents. So he is very offensive and ignores all of the evidence.

I'm finding it hard writing this because now with 'intersectional feminism' I feel that it's not my experience to talk about. Yet what we have understood over the last few years is that it is not Aboriginal people's jobs to educate us - we need to educate ourselves. So I'm educating all of you but am I doing it ok...? Makes me and others I've been communicating with very nervous about doing any actual discussion of the issues.

What I would say is that the journalist has a point when it comes to privilege

Quencher I can see that from face value, it would seem that paler skinned Aboriginal people would be able to benefit more. The argument by racists here is that they are choosing to identify with their 'Aboriginal side' and not their European side.

However there are certain aspects about history that need to be understood. Aboriginal people from the south east (the most populated/urbanised areas) had their culture and nations decimated. Where I live there are no known Indigenous names for so many of the local flora. The people were forced on to missions and forced to train as servants etc. In Tasmania - well, if you want to know the specifics look it up. Horrific. For so many children of black mothers and white fathers - the father was taking advantage, perhaps rape, perhaps the mother was forced into a situation of prostitution, obligated by an employer. These children didn't have a 'European side of the family' that chose to acknowledge them. Have to go now, baby is awake...

I've actually seen a lot of blow outs in the American based intersectional spaces online between indigenous WOC and black African American WOC, seems that even within some intersectional spaces WOC are accused of, in some cases, either being anti black or racist towards indigenous WOC. Yup! I have come across this too.
You should include South Americans too. One of the biggest ones is that the black South Americans don't want the Americans to include them in their racist issues because they don't consider themselves as black. That does not seat well with black Americans in America where everything is judged through race. With creoles that is a whole kettle of fish and hatred.

Barcoo2 I don't know the case you are talking about. From what you have posted, I get the gist and I have read about the breeding they did. Watched a movie on that too.
What I would say is that the journalist has a point when it comes to privilege. They defiantly don't have the same privilege as the next white Australian.

However, Some of them can get away with it.
I do remember reading an article about an athlete who refused to revel his ancestry. It made news in the uk and I was shocked that he was being forced to do so by the media. I didn't see the benefit of him doing so to the people who wanted to know. By that a lone. He has the privilege to disguise his heritage and benefit by accepted in the sports. Anyone other average aboriginal would struggle from the sense I gathered when reading the article. The difference between him and the others is that he grand parents who married white Australians. Something like that.
Where I would have an issue, is that the hatred he would receive for just being who he is if he had revealed.
It's a shame that he could not stand tall and say am mixed aboriginal and proud.

Similar thing happened to slaves in America and the Caribbean. The lighter slaves where more expensive. That led to lots of rape of female slaves. And the rape mentality lived on until 20th century. Colourism among black people flourished.

Elfing that sounds really hard. I too would be interested to hear more indepth about the conflict between feminists idealising women as independent and being physically dependent.

Alias have you got any articles or sources where the issue of 'white privilege' is discussed from an American indigenous perspective? There's obviously an issue with simplistically transplanting American concepts onto another jurisdiction. We don't, for example, have the extra layer of an appallingly treated racial group that is more prominent/populated than the original inhabitants. We do have racial groups who have experienced racism (refugee waves), but many of them were educated intelligentsia or from a mercantile class so brought with them some level of agency. The new groups of Sudanese who have come via UNHCR camps and are new to Western education etc are vulnerable targets by racists, and the media are quick to leap on any example of individual criminality and then extrapolate it to the whole group. The women, of course, are the ones who have the worst experience as they are trapped and isolated in suburban homes with very little support structures or access to English language acquisition.

@Scallops I do agree with what you have written. The way black women and young black girls are handled and treated by the police is similar to how they would handle a man. They lack the sense that they have different body weights and power. Man handled and thrown about as if they would be able to take it.

One of the things that white feminist don't understand, is that a black woman's need to be treated like you would treat any woman. To be looked at on the same level as any other woman. To be on the same level of respect as a white woman. To be looked at without being judged based on sex as woman but also, as black woman. Just to be a woman.

It's even worse if a black woman is ever considered to be feminine. That's the right reserved for white women wether it's good or bad. Any black woman who is thought of as feminine, beautiful and meets the European standard of beauty is and will be considered exotic looking. If they ever try to be sexual in any way shape or form. They will be called sexually aggressive because it's part of the culture. This also affects how they treat black women who report sexual assault and rape cases.

This mentality is there. White feminist don't have to deal with it because they at the stage where they have to protect what belongs to them. We are trying to get our foot in. Our vaginas and wombs do not have the same rights to be treated equally.

Can I just ask, what things do white feminists do to exclude black feminists?

I've an example from a few years ago now when in the US there was a big push by a prominent white feminist for women to report sexual assaults, DV etc to the police. Similar to quencher's example of how maternity care for BAME women is very different than for white women, this declaration totally disregarded how black women are treated by the police and this would be putting their lives and freedom in danger. BAME women are far more likely to be arrested and charged themselves than white women and they were far more likely to suffer police brutality and backlash once they were back home. The complete lack of awareness from the white feminist (whose name escapes me, sorry) was very exclusionary and she didn't acknowledge her errors or the dangers of what she was asking women to do.

ElfingHeck wrote - "One underlying cause, in my opinion, is the equation of feminism and female independence. Thus 'disabled' is treated as 'dependent' and thereby anti-feminist."

What similarities and differences, if any, do you see in the way that feminism treats voluntary dependence (e.g. being a so-called trophy wife) and involuntary dependence (e.g. disability)?

elfing I'm sorry you've experienced that, I'm interested how it's manifested itself?

I am female and disabled. (And also feminist).

I think there is unconscious disabilism in a lot of feminist activity and theory. One underlying cause, in my opinion, is the equation of feminism and female independence. Thus 'disabled' is treated as 'dependent' and thereby anti-feminist.

I remember when I was involved in Land Rights marches in the 80's meeting an Elder who spoke of how her "race status" would change depending on the season. She would be classed as an octaroon in winter and a quatroon in summer. She was part of the Stolen Generations, stripped of her language, family and mob. Bolt's articles and insinuations are disgusting. And lack facts.

Sorry, nothing to do with intersectional feminism at all, but reading about that case has pissed me right off.

Thanks barcoo, and sorry I have no idea where I got Ireland from.

I've actually seen a lot of blow outs in the American based intersectional spaces online between indigenous WOC and black African American WOC, seems that even within some intersectional spaces WOC are accused of, in some cases, either being anti black or racist towards indigenous WOC. The level of criticism is astonishing. I have to say though it does make some very interesting reading and I've definitely learned a lot but it does seem that it takes the wind out of the sails of a lot of potential for action.

What you said ^^ about the nonsense of white privelege for aboriginal folk who are white presenting rings totally true. It's understandable that from a white supremacist PoV where white is the pinnacle of privilege it doesn't matter what the pathway to holding that privilege is but of course from a. Historical and cultural analysis it stems from systemic racism and abuse. It must be incredibly hard to reconcile those two conflicting ideologies on a personal level and I thing that conflict is exploited by the uber liberals who later this guilt onto people... In this case white presenting WOC.

It's somewhat become a competition to see who can beat themselves down enough and not uphold each other, which is what feminism should be at its most basic, and surely where the Crenshaw meant for her intersectional analysis to lead, not to this self flagellating narcissism? And I do mean that, it is narcissistic, it's virtue signalling when applied incorrectly, which seems to happen more often than not.

I'm entirely happy to be corrected though, this is all relatively new to me and I do recognise that white privilege is real and I am white and do benefit, and as such my analysis may be totally skewed.