[quote cinammonbuns]@CatherineMorland I don’t understand why this is always the response when this is mentioned. Are you trying to say white people experience racism to the extent ethnic minorities do. No? Then what the poster said isn’t wrong.
Also feminism is definitely centred in white women especially on here.[/quote]
Because when it comes to oppression on the basis of sex, white women do not escape its consequences by dint of their skin colour. That's why those girls in Rotherham or other victims of grooming gangs are brought up. We live in a majority white country and the majority of victims of grooming gangs are white women and girls (the majority of grooming gangs are populated by white men btw).
However, the mechanism of the patriarchal oppression of women and girls has been demonstrated in a truly obscene way in the cases of the grooming gangs where the perpetrators belonged to an ethnic minority. Because the institutions that should have protected these girls after they found out about the abuse decided not to. For political reasons. Because the suffering of these women and girls was deemed less important than the risk of reputational damage.
Simply dismissing white feminists as having nothing to contribute to fighting oppression on the basis of sex because of our (undeniable) racial advantage is nonsensical. I grew up in a more than 99% white country. Most immigrants who were not white were men. All we had was white feminists. Should we dismiss them because they were white? Deny the suffering of white women at the hands of white men?
Sex is the axis of oppression here and white women suffer that oppression alongside all other women. Because we are all members of the oppressed class when it comes to this particular axis of oppression.
However, some groups of women suffer other types of oppression which intersect with oppression on the basis of sex, and depending on where we live or what background we come from, these types of oppression can have a more severe effect than oppression only on the basis of sex.
Which applies to the victims in Rotherham. They were also oppressed on the basis of their socio-economic status. Indeed, there is no question in my mind that public institutions would have looked away had the victims not been poor. Should we dismiss poor white feminists, too?
Saying "white feminists" in this way as if all white women and girls were a homogenous group, all equally "privileged" is simplistic. I grew up poor and discriminated against on the basis of my parents' jobs. I'm also a migrant woman and have been discriminated against on that basis. I'm also white, well educated, now economically fairly secure, able-bodied and straight. Things which work to my advantage. But when it comes to oppression on the basis of sex, I share many experiences with women who are not like me. And I campaign for all of them.
My own history tells me that intersecting oppression also means that we must be aware that not all solutions will work equally well for all women suffering oppression on the basis of sex. And certainly seeing everything through the lens of white women alone would be shortsighted and has in the past proven counterproductive.
But that's not what's happening in the case of Oxfam and its despicable sexual exploitation of women and children in the countries where they have provided relief.