Intersectional feminism

It's not exclusionary that transwomen can't be 'grabbed by the pussy' by Trump. That's slipping into 'tit privilege' territory. They're bloody lucky they can't.And there was nothing to stop them being outraged in solidarity at this affront to women.
As for the pussy hats, white women's labias are not cerise pink with cat ears. Do I really need to point that out? Only someone with no understanding of female biology could have taken the pussy hats as an essentialist anatomical statement . . .oh. And only those with an agenda that hurts women could have given any credence to that complaint.

The hats are just a play on the word pussycat, they have ears.. It's supposed to reference Trump's comments, not look like genitalia.

The pink was chosen because its bright, stereotypical female and would be different to most hats - so helicopters etc viewing the women's march from above would see a sea of pink.

There was a massive kerfuffle on ravelry where the designer of the pink pussy hat had her pattern. A designer posted a pattern of the same hat in blue and called it the freedom hat and it was seen by most as the opposite message of the pussy hat so I think the colours are significant for it.

One of my American friends knitted herself a green one because she doesn't like the colour pink. (At least I hope that was the reason, because if not, she needs urgent medical attention).

Wah posted too soon. Is there anything preventing women making hats of other shades? I'm not sure I fully understand the point.
I was reading a stupid Facebook thing about vulva cupcakes yonks ago (sadly deleted now) and a black trans woman was arguing that it was racist because "the vulva of POC is often drastically different than white people" despite the fact the event was providing chocolate cakes and icing. I thought that was pretty racist myself.

It's kind of odd, because most pussy hats are handmade and obviously can be knit/crocheted in any colour. So white people wearing pink hats is appropriate surely (although I'm not entirely sure many white womens bits are neon pink )

It would never have occurred to me to think pussy hats were pink because of real vulvas - I assumed (pussy ears - hence not literal pussies but a clever visual analogue of a play-on-words to remind everyone of the awfulness of Trump's remarks) that they were pink because pink is the colour popular culture associates with women's stuff.

FWIW, post pregnancy my vulva is more of an aubergine colour - and I'm white.

Where has fauchevalent gone? Come back!

@quencher the feminist groups near here are full of TRAs and they made a loud noise on social media and in town about how the women's march was trans-exclusionary, how it was wrong to reduce people to their body parts and transmisogynist to focus on "pussies" etc etc.

Perhaps I misunderstood your post, but it sounded to me as if the sentence bolded below which you wrote - was saying that I had put a trans interpretation on events. It read to me as if you were minimising the reality of another attempt by TRAs to silence discussion of women's biology by implying I had put a slant on things, rather than accepting I was reporting what I experienced at the time.

But perhaps you meant something else by it?

Probably you saw it more in relation to trans than what the colour was.

Some people did have it shaped like the labia. That's the one I saw with the article.

I thawt I thaw the original puddy hat, I thawt I thaw it!

Actually, I think I have traced the original and it is pink because pink is a women's colour and it is shaped like pussy cat ears.

drive.google.com/file/d/0BwBjtQGbV7gEZU1TdUd2b1JIZGM/view

I don't think it is meant to be a vulva / vagina - if it did it would put a new slant on 'dickhead' I suppose :).

I can understand where the confusion happened though.

@thoethecatpurred.
Why are you trying to minimise the TRA's anti-woman stance?
Am only talking about what I came across. It was an article after the women's match, talking about women of colour and not trans. yes! am allowed to mention it here and how I understood it. And no! am not trying to minimise anything. They had their issue and women of colour had their issue with it too. Do I have an issue with it my self? no! because I didn't even notice it as anything more than the feminised gendered colour pink. Wondered why they would use pink but never equated it to skin colour. Months later someone else brought it up again in a debate and it was still referring to women of colour and skin colour. The only trans links I come across are on Mn and yes I have learnt a lot from here and those links.

Black people are structurally oppressed by a white supremacist system. Women are structurally oppressed by a male supremacist system. Poor people are oppressed by a capitalist system.
Under what system are all these young intersectionality fans being oppressed? Maybe, because the people who came up with it fell into all those three groups you mentioned? And are still struggling to make it.
yes! there are white working class women struggling too, not forgetting the poor people in third world countries not forgetting the war ton ones.

And talking of grass roots, I do know about grass roots and was part of one. seeing that I was not born in the uk. I know what experiences people have that does not involve race but only gender as the attributing factor to the mistreatment of women.

@quencher

The people who did the design made it all pink. Some women of colour took offence to that because of the image and the hats was made to make a statement.
Probably you saw it more in relation to trans than what the colour was.

Nope, sorry that's not what happened. You seem to be saying that some WOC took offence but that I have misinterpreted it as being a trans issue? Why are you trying to minimise the TRA's anti-woman stance?

The complaints about the pussy hats from the intersectional feminists near me were ALL from TRAs or those supporting them.

Examples:

Trans community: Women’s March protesters’ focus on female genitalia was ‘oppressive’

On Pussy Hats and Transmisogyny

How the Women's March's "genital-based" feminism isolated the transgender community
"pussy hats set the tone for a march that would focus acutely on genitalia at the expense of the transgender community. Signs like "Pussy power," "Viva la Vulva" and "Pussy grabs back" all sent a clear and oppressive message to trans women"

Not on our TERF "Alex Lythall has seen a growth in casual trans-misogyny following the US elections, using the infamous ‘pussy hats’ worn at the Women’s Marches as a prime example. “They are extremely harmful to transwomen who might be standing there without a vagina”."

etc etc et-fucking-c

WOC may well have had a very reasonable objection, but if they did, I didn't hear it above the cries of "transmisogyny" from my local feminist groups.

This is women being silenced when we want to talk about our biology, yet again. I thought we'd past that stage but no, here we are again, just a different angle. But the same thing at the end of the day.

quencher I thought the pussy hats had cat ears - and that was the pussy joke. Have I completely missed the point? I thought they were pink because that's the colour 'for girls', and it was picked in the same way the breast cancer campaigns use it.

Oh OK ... I didn't realise you were talking about more recent history. I'm not sure exactly which feminist you were talking about either. I know that Betty Friedan was roundly criticised for discriminatory practices against lesbians - what we'd probably now call homophobia. But, at the same time some black men in the civil rights movement treated women (both black and white) appallingly and were decidedly anti-feminist. Stokely Carmichael comes to mind ....

This was granted in 1870. Black and white women did not gain the vote until 1920.

The Voting Rights Act, signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson (1908-73) on August 6, 1965, aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote under the 15th Amendment (1870) to the Constitution of the United States. The act significantly widened the franchise and is considered among the most far-reaching pieces of civil rights legislation in U.S. history. The year before the law was passed you had the match from Selma to Montgomery for this very purpose.
After the U.S. Civil War (1861-65), the 15th Amendment, ratified in 1870, prohibited states from denying a male citizen the right to vote based on “race, color or previous condition of servitude.” Nevertheless, in the ensuing decades, various discriminatory practices were used to prevent African Americans, particularly those in the South, from exercising their right to vote.

I wish I could remember her name. She is a prominent feminist from the sixties. she was quite racist. Not every one was as nice as those who joined the matches during the civil rights movement.

Countess how do you think the tool could be used better?

X post. OK makeourfuture. I suspect our exchange has the makings of a derail.

Persecution is an extremely strong word.

Persecution of the Jews is a widely used and understood term.

Listen I am withdrawing my objection - I just realised I am the guy in the back of the room who raises his hand and says, "What about the Inuit?"

'Intersectionality to me was not a movement but a methodology'

This, exactly.
I don't remember Crenshaw's article calling for a movement - she gives us a clear and useful tool.
It makes me uncomfortable when I see people blame intersectionality for the liberal oppression Olympics mess that feminism is embroiled in at the moment because it didn't have to be used like that at all.

Well I am not Jewish so I would have to be careful. But I think with the Holocaust and pogroms you may very well have a point that they were persecution. If that is even a strong enough word.

But the Holocaust was just part of the story. The full history of mistreatment stretches back quite a ways - Jewish people were restricted on where they could live, suffrage was limited and antisemitism was woven into the fabric of society and the state.

Thanks for the Claire Heuchan link. I'd never heard of her but I broadly agree with the points she makes in her article about Scottish nationalism. I'm personally tired of hearing about how non racist Scotland is. I dare say if we had a major port in Aberdeen with immigrants trying to get in, our tolerance would quickly vanish. I also wonder if any of the utopian Scotland crowd have ever enjoyed the inclusive atmosphere in Ibrox on Old Firm day.

As a white Scottish woman, I have her back for making those brave points. However, what I don't agree with are accusations that she was trolled and harassed for being black, or even for being a woman. The indy debate rages so very fiercely and there is zealotry on both sides. Siding with an Englishman calling Scotland racist was always going to attract the absolute worst online bullying, regardless of the ethnic background of the speakers.

That's what indy/brexit does. Causes bitter, bitter division.

I think of what has been done to Jews as persecution.

But I'm totally open to you expanding on your above post if you want to.

I can only think of the above three systems of oppression

Well some Jewish folk may feel they have had a bit of oppression.

So girls and women experience sex based oppression via the social construct of gender.

People of colour experience skin colour oppression via the social construct of race.

Poor people experience economic/labour oppression via the social construct of socioeconomic class.

Of course these systems of oppression intersect. Women and people of colour are very often also poor. Black women experience skin colour oppression and sex oppression.

But that doesn't mean that there is a massive Venn diagram or matrix of oppression. There may be of discrimination but not of oppression. I can only think of the above three systems of oppression.

So young earnest postmodernist people who claim via intersectionality that they are somehow oppressed need to explain to second wave feminists like me under what system and social construction they are being oppressed if it isn't one of the above. What is the system or the supremacy that oppresses them. Oppression is not about individuals or even groups, it is about systems and class. What oppressed class do they find themselves in? And which class is benefiting from their supposed oppression?

Black people are structurally oppressed by a white supremacist system. Women are structurally oppressed by a male supremacist system. Poor people are oppressed by a capitalist system.

Under what system are all these young intersectionality fans being oppressed?