White Feminism

[Brefugee]

suggested from another thread, is this something we should talk about. At the risk of being accused of being a TAAT it isn't that.

But on another thread a black MNer said that at a conference she had experienced racist comments from a panel, and she was the only one who pointed it out. And had been the only black person in the room.

The reason i brought up White Feminism on that thread was that the poster was instantly dismissed as a potential derailing troll. Which is... well not sure if the person dismissing the poster is white or not, but it was pretty much the very same treatment. Immediately written off as insignificant.

I've seen comments on the FWR board before that White Feminism rears its ugly head a lot, and that black mumsnetters don't feel comfortable on the board.

I find that shocking. But I'm not black or of any other minority. I'm a white 2nd waver - and i hope that i don't make racist comments or dismiss black women's experiences. I do hope that if i did, they would point that out to me. (and I'd be sorry they have to do that work)

So - should we talk about this? I do think it causes rifts where we should have bridges.

Yep I’ve read that staring is a micro aggression in here so I don’t do it

It is probably why nobody is going to stand up at a conference and call out racist comments lest they be told to sit down, get back in their lane and not to speak for [who knows what we are allowed to call people any more so insert the bestest newest word that describes the whole range of people that are not white] people as they can speak for themselves.

Hear Hear

Alas, we are the 'wrong sort' of brown skin. The type that is conveniently ignored by those who claim to be eager to 'uplift the voices of black and brown people ' or some pish like that. 🤣

I do not accept that white women cannot start threads about feminism not being inclusive of woc, including on mumsnet. If not us, then who? Woc have to do all the work themselves?
on one of the threads about black mumsnetters some time ago, it was put that we (white women) on the sex and gender board might not support dismissing of woc but perhaps we scroll past, perhaps we haven’t reported. This was true of me. So I try to call it out now, and I try to report it when I see it. Sometimes that means a thread is derailed, but in a very recent example it’s really derailed not because the offensive comment is called out, but because the original poster and a few others jump into ‘shut the fuck up’ mode - all what are you on about?? We are talking about a white British man! (They just said man; the rest is assumed. Then they just said British, and they meant by this someone white) On and on and on and on. That’s the derailment. It must be exhausting. So I will continue to call it out, and I do not care whether people call derailment and want to write 10 derailing posts about why the woman who called it out should just shut the fuck up and only respond like everyone is white british.

But 'staring' and 'making eye contact' are two very different things. @Sunnydata You originally said 'making eye contact'.

Most of us would say it's rude to stare at people.

but in a very recent example it’s really derailed not because the offensive comment is called out, but because the original poster and a few others jump into ‘shut the fuck up’ mode - all what are you on about?? We are talking about a white British man! (They just said man; the rest is assumed. Then they just said British, and they meant by this someone white)

would just like to clarify for the record that in the thread the OP is talking about, none of that happened.

Calling out sexism usually leads to lots of dismissive and aggressive responses. Calling out racism is 100x harder.

It's too outing to go into a lot of detail but I have a client who is a traditional city firm. Obviously, the management team is pretty much exclusively white, mostly male. There are some token women and one or two men of colour. Not many.

To give them credit, they are keen to improve diversity. But some of the things they do are so cringeworthy. I had to write up a report on one such event and for the purpose, interviewed the black woman who had organised it. What struck me most about the conversation and what I found heartbreaking was that she was flagging the good things and how they'd got support and buy in from leadership etc etc, but there were some glaring issues - two in particular being a thoughtless and inappropriate comment from the MD who was part of the event and the fact that while they had got support from management overall, with the exception of the "top" manager (who possibly felt he had to be there), the rest of the management who were involved were the second tier types. And even with me, she had to brush past it and focus on the "good".

I would have believed that the opposite, that of not making eye contact with someone who has their eyes up and searching faces that would notice eye contact, would be the case. I would have thought that seeing someone and seemingly deliberately to not make eye contact would be an issue in some, if not many, cases.

As nonny has said. Making a false generalisation such has avoiding eye contact with any person who someone might categorise into 'not white' (which is my clumsy way of working out how this would work in practice, I am sorry) has the potential to be just as harmful, or am I wrong?

Coincidentally I watched this TED talk a couple of days ago where Coleman Hughes made the case for "colour blindness" in public policy. He says the term doesn't mean not physically seeing people's skin tone, but instead treating people practically as much as possible the same regardless of skin colour. He feels that there's a strong case for addressing policies to help those who are disadvantaged (for any reason) rather than by race.

This TED talk was so controversial that they didn't publish it for some time and wanted to present the opposing view as well so hosted a debate between Coleman Hughes and Jamelle Bouie "Does colour blindness perpetuate racism?"

I think holding space to really understand people's different points of views is important and I learned a lot from hearing two considered, respectful opinions about it.

I have come across this my whole life haha but that's a subject for another thread! I absolutely don't begrudge black women looking out for themselves and not me either - as you say, I can advocate for myself!

"And this is also true but I believe that if the girls had have been from wealthy backgrounds with ‘posh’ accents…they would’ve been received differently by the police"

It wouldn't have happened in the first place though, would it? They were girls who were 'hanging about' not kidnapped from their boarding schools.

Who benefits from white women shutting the fuck up?

I really doubt it's black women.

"Most of us would say it's rude to stare at people."

It's cultural though. I'm on the continent and people can stare longer here before it becomes seen as rude, particularly older people staring at younger people.
If I'm in a rough area, I do avoid looking at people much at all.
If I was at a social event I definitely would not avoid making eye contact (any more than I do avoid it a bit out of shyness anyway).

I think that this is a valid and worthwhile point, but I also think that it's valid for feminists who have the privilege and power of being part of the dominant white hegemony (whilst obviously we are fighting against the partiarchy within that) to acknowledge that we shouldn't be exercising what power we have solely on our own behalves and fighting only those aspects of the partiarchy that oppress us as relatively privileged women while reinforcing the partiarchal oppression of less privileged women.

I remember going to a founding formation meeting when the Womens Equality Party was in the process of being founded and it was a focus group to find out what policies women wanted, and the levels of unacknowledged privilege in the room was horrendous, and generated solely a list of policies that would benefit privileged, afluent and powerful women often at the expense of minority communities. I am sure they had other focus groups in other less well-healed areas but it was the moment when I realised the complexity that is at work here.

White Feminism doesn't mean all feminism practiced by those with white skin. No group is homogenous. However, feminism that is practiced while continuing to enjoy and benefit from a culture that works on the assumption that "default" woman is white, middle-class and afluent is equally as toxic as the men who assume "default" human is male. We can do better. It doesn't mean we have to solve racism before we are "allowed" to be feminist but we can do our feminism from a position of being aware of how privileged we are and we can think about whether the changes we make to benefit our own lives make things worse for women somewhere else - if so, then it wasn't a feminist act.

I think holding space to really understand people's different points of views is important and I learned a lot from hearing two considered, respectful opinions about it.

Exactly! If one claims to care about black / brown / whatever people, then one should be interested in ways people from such groups with different and sometimes opposing viewpoints are platformed and able to discuss and argue their positions. The fact that black people who don't tow a specific ideological line are viewed as 'controversial' is a sad state of affairs. It shows people (who claim to be progressive) don't view black people as full and equal human beings to white people, and cannot comprehend the diversity of thought and opinion that exists. Ditto for any other category.

I have brain fog but I'm wondering if 'being racist' is synonymous with 'white feminism' (which to me is somewhat ambiguous). I just don't find 'white feminism' helpful as a term because it's general, vague and might suggest that feminism is mostly or inherently bad. Is there a way of maintaining 'feminism' but also ensuring it is anti-racist? I like intersectional but in the original sense and not the one it has been corrupted into.

I am a black woman and I pretty much stopped posting on the sex and gender forum because I very much felt excluded from their feminism.

There were a few things that led me to feel this way but thess stand out.

In one thread posters were swooning over a known and vocal racist. I pointed this out and explained that in doing this I was told to pipe down and let the grown ups speak. This went unchallenged.

Posters insisting that drag queens are the same as blackface, even though their origins are completly different and the oppression of black people and women are incomparible as they are so different.

Posters telling me separate out race and sexism issues, as if I can split myself up and experience blackness and being a woman separately.

In one thread posters were swooning over a known and vocal racist. I pointed this out and explained that in doing this I was told to pipe down and let the grown ups speak. This went unchallenged.

If that's who I think it is I agree with you and it makes me sick.

Posters insisting that drag queens are the same as blackface, even though their origins are completly different and the oppression of black people and women are incomparible as they are so different.

Can we not find drag and blackface equally as offensive?

If it means being a feminist whilst simultaneously being white, it is going to be hard to avoid.

As far as I'm concerned the women's movement has always embraced all women whatever their nationality, creed, race, colour, class background. The only thing that unites us all is the fact of our sex and the fact that sex has certain consequences for women the world over.

obsessing over diversity = divided

Unity is what I'm more interested in.

This is all incredibly vague. Even the reference to a specific meeting has no specifics about what policies were discussed and what harms they would cause.

Personally, I find discussions at this level of vagueness not to be particularly useful, and even harmful. Bad actors often use people’s agreement with vague, nice-sounding statements to pretend they have support for much more specific and controversial ideas (see the trans movement!) And vagueness is also a feature of the accusatory/destructive version of Social Justice discourse.

I’d set myself up as being against Vague Feminism - if that weren’t a perfect example of the kind of thing I’m against. I think feminism works best when discussions are kept concrete and specific.

Can we not find drag and blackface equally as offensive?

Unless you experience racism I don't think you should be arguing with black women that these things are the same. It's like a man saying that he's experienced the same thing as sexist violence against woman because he got beaten up. Both bad but not the same.

You can, of course, hate drag queens and find them offensive.

The vagueness does my head in too.

You can, of course, hate drag queens and find them offensive.

Thanks, I'll do that. I mean I don't "hate drag queens" but I find drag utterly offensive, misogynistic and anti-woman and I am appalled that unlike blackface it not only hasn't been banned but is something that is glamorised and popularised.