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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Mary Beard and "white feminism"

35 replies

CeciledeVolanges · 18/02/2018 16:23

I've been following the Mary Beard row on Twitter and I keep seeing "white feminism" being used as an insult and "said from a position of privilege" used to invalidate what she said.

What are your thoughts on this, please? Why are "white feminists" seemingly (not necessarily, happy to be proved wrong) getting it in the neck along with Oxfam etc and not the white men who have actually done what they have done here?

By the way, I just want to make it utterly clear that what was done by those who took advantage of their position to abuse vulnerably women was utterly despicable. Does this have to undermine the whole position of aid, Oxfam and anyone who argues for the continuation of those institutions? By analogy, could you say that vicious and inhuman war crimes were committed by some of the Allied forces in WWII. Should we just have stopped fighting when they were discovered? Sorry re Godwin's Law etc. Please help me understand this.

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BahHumbygge · 18/02/2018 18:16

Yes BlindYeo. The phrase horizontal hostility comes to mind. Get the factions squabbling among themselves, rather than directing activism up the power axis to take down the oppressors at the top. Their grip on power is maintained and consolidated.

QuentinSummers · 18/02/2018 18:08

I read her blog earlier then Twitter. Stuff was getting quoted completely out of context and being twisted purely to attack her. E.g. her blog said Most aid workers deal with that, I suspect , by drink and cigarettes. But that kind of societal, infrastructural breakdown provides a space for much worse. That is not to condone the awful things that happened but to contextualise them. Someone on twitter said that showed she thought child abuse was equivalent to drinking Hmm. I agreed with her blog and when I had read it, i agreed with her tweet. She has nothing to apologise for imo.

www.the-tls.co.uk/oxfam/amp/

"White feminism" in this case appears to be misogyny. Easier to have a go at her than the men using the prostitutes.

thecatfromjapan · 18/02/2018 18:05

Thanks, Ova. I'm hoping more people will post because, as I said, I'm hoping to develop, deepen and extend my own thinking on this, so want to hear what other people have to say.

Just one thing, and I'm not sure this is the thread for it, but it;s bothering me ...

The other aspect of the safeguarding concerns raised was the issue of abuse - and non-DBS checking - in UK stores.

That, to me, is also very serious. Volunteers in these stores are often children. They'll be working for Duke of Edinburgh awards and - very often - be children from non-mainstream schools, gaining work experience. They are vulnerable. It just all points to an abuser's heaven.

I've also just read a journalist on Twitter (Samira Salwani) pointing out that DBS-checking tends to go out of the window when people are recruited for overseas work - which is extraordinary but unfortunately just what you can see happening when given the whole dynamic of thinking about workers in 'crisis' geographies (and there's a whole load of thinking that needs to be done about that designation).

Absolutely grim.

BlindYeo · 18/02/2018 18:00

I think the phrase is either being used to divide and conquer or has the net result of dividing women so they can't conquer.

Agree with NotTerf that identity politics is harmful. Dividing us up into little squabbling segments.

OvaHere · 18/02/2018 17:29

Great post thecatfromjapan a lot to think about.

thecatfromjapan · 18/02/2018 17:15

I also wonder about the women who are still trying to do their best in these organisations. I wonder if we need to think about the role of men in these organisations far, far more than the role of women.

thecatfromjapan · 18/02/2018 17:11

MB's tweet wasn't great, to be honest, and if you (for instance) had taken it as your starting point to think through all the implications of the Oxfam situation (which is, I think, the tip of a nasty iceberg re. Aid/NGOs around the world and abusive men in various organisations) it would actually have hindered your ability to think through the situation. It didn't, really, offer any real tools for thinking. In fact, I'd go as far as to say it was actually something that would close the door on thinking.

That said, MB is a feminist Classics scholar, who has achieved some prominence because she shows common-sense on a variety of issues, some of which are beyond the field in which she is an expert. That's great, she's clearly an ally. However, quite why you might think, even expect, her to be an expert in a field not related to her own area of expertise, I don;t know. She's not someone I'd go to for insight and 'tools for thinking about' this particular issue.

In some ways, I think the twitter-storm is a bit inappropriate - as though she is an expert here. She really isn't. She's almost certainly going to have an opinion that hasn't acquired depth, knowledge and nuance. Some of the outrage seems to be surprise (why? Hmm) and some of it seems to be some sense of betrayal (as though she has been over-invested with a prophet-like status by people who have seen her as a 'go-to' figure when they need a short-cut for thinking about difficult issues).

Some of the outrage is from women who have spent years thinking about these issues, who have probably written papers, books, PhDs, articles - and been met with silence and (bored) indifference. I can imagine the incredible frustration - the 'innocence' comes from a position of not having to become informed. It is a form of privilege. And, of course, it kind of mirrors the silencing of those who have worked damn hard to get the information out there, into the mainstream.

That said, I'm really fed up with the spectacle of women carrying the can for this.

There's so much to be said about this whole story. Catherine Bennet has written a very good article about what it tells us about attitudes to sex, the sex trade and progressive politics.

I think there is a lot to be explored about how abusive men inevitably gravitate to areas where the ability to abuse is made easier for them - and how this becomes a culture that tolerates abuse - and what that means for all the women involved.

For myself, I'm actually trying to process what I think about 'open secrets'. I remember a friend writing an article that touched on this years ago (about twenty years ago) - it looked at the link between 'aid' and AIDS, and NGOS, Aid organisations, etc, and the (inherently) abusive sexual relations that sprang up when those organisations moved into areas.

It was considered 'old news' then. No-one seemed to care. I'm really wondering how 'open secrets' serve to silence subaltern and feminist discourses that seek to argue back against 'common knowledge' and abusive, though widespread, practices.

I think MB was probably at the beginning of her thinking on this issue. Twitter might not have been the best place to start. I think the response has been disproportionate. I hope that people are going to use it productively, and look up some new (to them, maybe) voices. I suspect it won't happen, though.

There, surely, should be some way of accepting that individual feminist women aren't going to be 'right' about everything and interacting in a way that isn;t completely destructive, and to recognise that, sometimes, we occupy positions of privilege and that may obscure our knowledge, but doesn't necessarily make us wholeheartedly 'bad'. Political purity is a very damaging notion.

My thinking on this is still developing, and is fluid. I'm posting, in part, to learn and listen.

Social media is also very new. Perhaps we're still developing our thinking about the ethics of communication in social media.

TallulahWaitingInTheRain · 18/02/2018 17:07

While I think her colleague calling her out for implicit racism was fair enough, the pile-on is interesting isn't it.

Anyone would think it was Beard who had been sexually abusing people in disaster zones. We don't call out men for being abusive, we call out women who are completely unconnected to the abuse except via one ill-judged tweet.

Which law of misogyny is that again?

NotTerfNorCis · 18/02/2018 16:57

Identity politics are harmful and need to stop. They're being exploited to weaken the feminist movement. Look no further than Madigan's comment: ' don't be afraid to use identity politics '.

OrderOnline · 18/02/2018 16:38

I don't know what went on other than MB thought the half apology was ok. She is entitled to her opinion.

White, straight, able bodied, middle-class women like their male counterparts don't realise they are privileged.

I have some understanding of various strands of feminism, I don't buy into top trumps, not looking deeply and I am not keen on gender.

I have had to highlight and educate able bodied women on here, I don't blame them for not knowing, they were respectful to me and took what I said on board, end of. We now work together and make things better for all women and girls.