Why do lots of black women still feel that feminism is nit for them?

[SpringHasSprungYay]

Isn't it sad that in this day & age, so many black women still feel that feminism is a white woman's thing.
How can we make things better?

[quote BigHeartyTruffle]**@KylieKoKo, @MichonnesBBF and everyone else who has taken time to post such articulate and interesting posts actually answering the question posed by the OP - thank you. I feel it’s got somewhat derailed and your responses haven’t received the acknowledgement you should have. I hope other posters read and take note.[/quote]
Agreed.

@LittleWhingingWoman

So here is another question - what is white feminism?

Good question.

@Salmakia

The opening post here was racist. And yet folk sit around here for 7 pages wondering about the reality of racism in the womens movement.

Folks will argue with me about "how was that racist" and I'll tell you for now I won't be engaging with sealioning so please don't @ me of that's your plan for the holiday weekend.

It is racist to centre whiteness as default. To centre a feminism led by and for white women as the definitive feminism. To assume Black women aren't doing the work, been doing the work. This isn't new. It's actually tedious for anyone with a library card. I beg you all read feminist theory. Please. Black radical feminist work. Womanism.

*This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color

*All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave

*Combahee River Collective Statement

*Finding a Voice: Asian Women in Britain

*Heart Of The Race: Black Women's Lives in Britain

So for you a better question would have been, for example, "Is it correct to consider that feminism in Britain is not intersectional?"

@Tillsforthrills for the record I don't think it's the same and I don't think that it's always ok for tran women to be in women's spaces. It's the way the discussions are framed rather than the concept itself. The fact that you disagree doesn't change how they sound to some black women.

@Tillsforthrills
She has. Because the OP, in the opening post, defines feminism as something white.

Those kids (and it's mostly girls) have no real interest in actual racism and how it actually effects their classmates. Their intersectional feminism only covers their own feelings of not wanting to appear to be racist. They can identify into their own minority now and feel persecuted. They love fetishing that sense of persecution because now they feel that they are vulnerable like their black and brown classmates. It's a kind of warped vicarious cuckooing

^ yes to this. My eldest DD speaks a lot about the guilt placed onto their generation from our generation around inequality and she feels it keenly sometimes overwhelmingly. I consider a certain amount of this as functional as it allows problems to be faced up to and addressed but it is causing huge anxiety in teens I think.

This generation’s teens are in the unhappy position where all the shit that has been carried out abusively by the majority over marginalised people for generations has flowed downwards towards them and this is the first generation attempting at least to call out if not yet fully tackle inequality and the pain it has caused.

I think this is causing serious compassion overload to the teenage generation who feel they have the responsibility to fix every wrong carried out over time while they save the planet at the same time, while that really should be our generations responsibility not theirs.

The trend of identifying into a marginalised group is one way of coping with those enormous feelings of guilt and shame and just pressure.

@Salmakia is saying that feminism being a white woman thing is white feminism, and that if we think that, then we don't know about other forms of feminism @Tillsforthrills. I think.

[quote KylieKoKo]@Tillsforthrills for the record I don't think it's the same and I don't think that it's always ok for tran women to be in women's spaces. It's the way the discussions are framed rather than the concept itself. The fact that you disagree doesn't change how they sound to some black women.[/quote]
I am a black woman and I don’t agree. The fact that some don’t agree and find it comparable doesn’t change that fact. Racism is a different experience for me and many others.

[quote Lesperance]@Tillsforthrills
She has. Because the OP, in the opening post, defines feminism as something white.[/quote]
I think she described it as something that’s **perceived to be white by some black women.

[quote BigHeartyTruffle]**@KylieKoKo, @MichonnesBBF and everyone else who has taken time to post such articulate and interesting posts actually answering the question posed by the OP - thank you. I feel it’s got somewhat derailed and your responses haven’t received the acknowledgement you should have. I hope other posters read and take note.[/quote]
Thanks @bigheartytruffle

I think sometimes people are more interested in having a debate about why they are not racist than listening to black women.

I used to live in the US in the eighties, racism was rife. I was once told black women are the lowest in society, because they were looked down upon by everyone; all whites and all men. It stunned me tbh, as it was certainly true at the time they said it and that continues through to today. White women often do look down on black women, so why on earth do you think black women would side with white women, many feel they're colluding with the enemy.

I explained in my post. The centring of whiteness marginalises Blackness. It's this phenomenon which created the phrase "marginalised voices" for them to be pushed out something is being centred. Whiteness. Because of racism.

It's why Crenshaw's paper is called Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color It's why a white woman, Maria Helena Lima named her paper 'The Margin at the Centre': Teaching Black British Women Writers.

Sealioning is when you keep asking for the same thing to be explained again and again for more evidence for proof for alternative wording. I preemptively answered the question in my first reply because I knew it would come. Doesn't need to be asked or answered again.

That's fine @tillsforthrills we are not one homogeneous group all with the same opinions. I know a lot of my black friends also see some parallels. And it's not all discussions by any means.

This thread is such a painful read. Just when you think we're going to have a productive conversation someone comes along and plops a perfect demonstration of the issue!

It makes me so sad. I read and learn and read and learn.

@KylieKoKo. I understand and also do agree with most of your points

@oliviastwisted

Those kids (and it's mostly girls) have no real interest in actual racism and how it actually effects their classmates. Their intersectional feminism only covers their own feelings of not wanting to appear to be racist. They can identify into their own minority now and feel persecuted. They love fetishing that sense of persecution because now they feel that they are vulnerable like their black and brown classmates. It's a kind of warped vicarious cuckooing

^ yes to this. My eldest DD speaks a lot about the guilt placed onto their generation from our generation around inequality and she feels it keenly sometimes overwhelmingly. I consider a certain amount of this as functional as it allows problems to be faced up to and addressed but it is causing huge anxiety in teens I think.

This generation’s teens are in the unhappy position where all the shit that has been carried out abusively by the majority over marginalised people for generations has flowed downwards towards them and this is the first generation attempting at least to call out if not yet fully tackle inequality and the pain it has caused.

I think this is causing serious compassion overload to the teenage generation who feel they have the responsibility to fix every wrong carried out over time while they save the planet at the same time, while that really should be our generations responsibility not theirs.

The trend of identifying into a marginalised group is one way of coping with those enormous feelings of guilt and shame and just pressure.

Absolutely spot on. However hard someone pushes the TRA agenda with young people, they are not as blinkered as it sometimes seems. A lot of young people at the school I work are beginning to understand the long term effects of this and that the LGBTQ+ movement has quickly become less about LGBQ and more focussed on the T. So much so that they renamed their group Queer Club. Even in a club so young the vocal students (bullies) are all from white middle/upper class backgrounds and who are used to getting their own way. No doubt they will all go to Oxbridge/Russell Group unis to study PPE and 30 years from now will be running the country. As for the rest, the majority of young people in general are too afraid to speak their truth for fear of being called a TERF, a bigot, or anti-trans. When I discussed an assembly my son had at school he said no-one disagreed with the mantra of TWAW and the were all for allowing TW into women’s sports. When I asked him directly what he thought, even though we were sat in our own house he was reluctant to voice his opinion. He wouldn’t agree or disagree.

My opinion is that a women is a woman and a trans woman is a trans woman and should not be allowed to compete in elite (or any other) women’s sport. If that makes some small-minded section of society label me anti-trans so be it. I know I am not, my family and friends know this to be true so everyone else can take a hike. It seems that to be Pro-women these days you must also be anti-trans..

@KylieKoKo

There was a really recent thread on here where many posters were saying that they were going to vote because Boris Johnson "knows what a woman is". However, he is on record saying black people have lower IQs and that Muslim women look like letterboxes. That post kind of typifies why some brands of feminism don't feel like they are for black women.

I have encountered far more discrimination that's based on the colour of my skin than my sex, however, when I've said this to some white feminists I have been told it's not true. The presumption is that I am lying or that I'm unable to understand my own experience in the world.

Finally, I see parallels between the way some people talk about transwomen (not everyone) and racist rhetoric about black people. One example is taking one criminal and using that as an example for the whole demographic. When you know how that feels for people to do it to you it's very uncomfortable seeing people doing it to others.

Completely agree.

There are a few incredibly hateful posts on this thread that have gone virtually unchallenged by women on this thread that proudly proclaim to be feminists. That is a demonstration of why some black women feel that feminism is not for them.

I am not well and not going to articulate myself well. I am a black woman, but in the main I find feminism off-putting. I am religious and conservative and I find that something that is very unwelcome here. But the fact is many black African and Carribbean people come from families where religion and a certain social conservatism is the backdrop of their culture. Something that is not understood. Pussy hats, slut walks, this fascination on Handmaids Tale and dressing up in red capes at rallies seem performative and etc turn me off, I mean, what does it do to affect my reality as a woman of colour facing discrimination for basic things, like speaking too 'uppity' in front of white authority figures like GPs, teachers, police, Judges just to get basic decent help? Getting a black taxi to actually stop and give me a ride home in the dark? Nothing. It just looks vainglorious.

I think feminism in the main advantages well educated middle class white women, and some women in that demographic have intentionally been exclusionary and made my life difficult. Lower working class women of all backgrounds don't benefit from the real cream of feminism hardly at all.

I have been in positions where I have been pregnant with swelling ankles and had to beg to be moved with a doctors note to a sitting position at work, while several white female colleagues in higher positions have had a whole room put aside for them to rest in and everyone acts like their pregnancies and their comfort is somehow more important.

Have you had a consultant in the year 2016, not even ask you about symptoms, not give you a physical evaluation at all, just ask demeaning and wholly inappropriate questions about your earnings, and how many partners you've had, then act surprised when you say one, because they they think all black women are 'promiscuous' and then turn and say 'well unmarried mothers of carribbean origin are more prone to stress?' When the problem is your thyroid is failing and you now can't get a diagnosis for several more years because it's on your notes that you are suffering depression? And then had to weigh up whether you ought to complain, but if you do, you might be destroying a person's career or on a personal note, just not be believed (I mean it sounds like something made up) and do you have the strength to bother with it, so just sucking it up and crying all the way home?

The GC debate has made me more aware of the need for some sort of feminism, I personally do see myself as a woman first, before a black one. It's just not what happens in reality. And I did need some educating and have found radical feminism somewhat different than I imagined with some viewpoints that I completely agree with, but I can't get fully onboard.

But I'll also never dismiss or denigrate the role of men in my culture and the difficulties they face, so that's another obstacle. I could never understand why white feminists talk so disparagingly of white men. That seems odd to me and sort of culture hating.

I don't want to hate, I just want equal parity.

@DysonSphere you have articulated yourself perfectly.

Then there was an FWR poster who did the faux 'What can we dooooo to make it better for you'? Outrageous. That poster was criticised roundly - and rightly so.

Hello @LyingWitchInTheWardrobe, are you talking about me?

I asked whether there were any current campaigns or causes we could support or any particular issues we should be raising with our candidates in the local elections.

I'm still open to suggestions

(Thank you @DomesticatedZombie for the reminder to support Allison Bailey and Raquel Rosario Sanchez. I have a few spare £ so I'll be topping up my donations to both)

The only reason I posted over there was because the thread was set up to attack FWR. Protected space or not, it's a bit much to expect to be able to do that and not get a response.

I am a white woman, I have a black DH. I have close black female friends now but I didn't grow up in an area with many people who weren't white. It's taken me many years to learn that so many of us white women absolutely are not allies to black women. I'm appalled when I think back to incidents that happened in the workplace in my early 20s with a close black female colleague, things that other women said to her and how she was frequently ignored. I'm so angry at myself not speaking up but I certainly would now.

We need to do a much much better job at listening to black women and actually hearing how we can be allies, not immediately being on the defensive and talking over them. And then we need to put that into play, actually understand the ways in which life is harder for these women and be by their side challenging it.

@DysonSphere that is an excellent post.

@DysonSphere I am very sorry to hear about your experiences. It is unforgivable.

I do not presume to understand what it is like to be subject to prejudice due to race. I have lots of experience of sexism (and as a family we sadly have lots of experience of ableism). Thank you for telling us about your experience

I can only say that if you had been in my workplace and I had heard about the discrimination you faced during your pregnancy, I would have done my outmost to help you.

As for the consultant, I wish you had reported him (I assume a he). What an absolute lowlife

@elidelochanthefirst

I am a white woman, I have a black DH. I have close black female friends now but I didn't grow up in an area with many people who weren't white. It's taken me many years to learn that so many of us white women absolutely are not allies to black women. I'm appalled when I think back to incidents that happened in the workplace in my early 20s with a close black female colleague, things that other women said to her and how she was frequently ignored. I'm so angry at myself not speaking up but I certainly would now.

We need to do a much much better job at listening to black women and actually hearing how we can be allies, not immediately being on the defensive and talking over them. And then we need to put that into play, actually understand the ways in which life is harder for these women and be by their side challenging it.

To be fair, this is also a good reminder that not all white women need to be approached defensively.

[quote KylieKoKo]**@DysonSphere you have articulated yourself perfectly.[/quote]
⬆️⬆️⬆️

This.

Thank you @DysonSphere