Can someone help me get my head around this?

[ReallyAngryBeavers]

I'm white. I accept white privilege is a thing I benefit all the time from (even when I don't realize it). But I feel really uncomfortable about this particular article

Can a woman telling off a harasser "be privileged"? Does she owe it to him to listen to his "side"? I'm really uncomfortable with it because it seems to be ignoring male privilege in a one on situation and that the men involved have put themselves in the situation they are in.

My goal is not to criminalize verbal street harassment, for a few reasons. First, the long history of institutionalized racism in our criminal justice system has not made me confident that laws against street harassmenwould be applied uniformly or fairly. But more importantly, I believe street harassment is fundamentally rooted in belief systems about women, which are more meaningfully eradicated and improved through social change, education, and advocacy.

Even the woman from CAH states that one of the reasons she wouldn't want it criminalised is because it would not be fairly prosecuted. I have no doubt that it is true. But I also don't see why that should mean you don't advocate for it and also for anti racist training of police officers. It just seems like saying "ah well black bad guys will get it worse than white bad guys" so let's just leave women to it. Even though it is disproportionately women of colour who will suffer? Why doesn't that matter just as much?

Hey, I know! Why don't men just stop harassing women they don't know on the street? That would remove the problem completely, eh?

That would be a real start, wouldn't it.

But again, women (even those of us with white privilege) should not have to put up with harassment, even if it is from a man who might also be a member of an oppressed group.

See I am not sure if it is me being defensive or not but I felt like the article was saying racism "trumps" sexism, where as I always saw them on kind of par. With women of colour suffering the most.

While I was reading it I noticed the author was quite young and it occurred to me (even as a white woman) at 23 I would have been more concerned about racism than sexism and felt it was more of a pressing issue and that I didn't really "get" feminism properly until I was older and certain expectations regarding my sex became too much. This woman will suffer racism daily but may not have dealt with the gender expectations that older women deal with.

So I did wonder if it was something to do with age or if I was being both a #whitefeminist and a bit ageist. Not sure really.

If I am being really insensitive or totally out of order, please anyone say and I will ask for thread to be deleted. I don't feel like it is my place to tell a WoC how she should feel about feminism/race obviously, I'm just trying to see where she is coming from and if I a missing a big piece of the puzzle.

Hey, I know! Why don't men just stop harassing women they don't know on the street? That would remove the problem completely, eh?

This.

at 23 I would have been more concerned about racism than sexism

Me too. I'm pretty sure I've only recognised a small % of the racism that exists out there but unlike sexism the bits I've noticed have also been entirely recognised by my peers (again mostly white) and are left in questioned. To that extent, the bits of racism I see seem to be clearer to everyone (including myself) than the bits of sexism I see. I still find myself swapping race for sex if I'm not sure about a potentially sexist situation or statement to help me to decide. e.g.

'If a white person and a black person have children of course the children will take the white person's surname, there is an historic precedent.'
'It's not an issue that the Traveller's club (London posh club) is for white people only, after all black people have their own swimming sessions)'

Perhaps I am so blinded by my privilege that I can't do this the other way so instead on race issues I elect to just shut up and listen to someone who is affected by it and as a default setting, believe them.

I suppose what I'm trying to say badly is that racism cannot trump sexism (just as it can't trump any of the other isms) they each require the same solution - for unaffected people to a) see the problem and then b) stop being dicks. Being affected by one of the isms doesn't give carte Blanche to be a dick in regard to one of the others.

I think (apologies if I have it wrong toffee) that toffee is saying when she is unsure if something is really sexist (because everyone says it's "tradition" she imagines it as a race issue to see if she would see it as discrimination.

Not that she understands racial discrimination because she suffers sexism.

Not sure why I bolded she.

Ah sorry I misunderstood that.

Also exhausted. How is it only bloody Wednesday

Told you I was saying it badly . You both understood me despite myself though. I don't believe I 'get' how racism is for those on the receiving end (coming from the privileged side I would be surprised if anyone really could) but for some reason when I see racism, I feel more certain of what I am seeing (and of it being so obviously wrong) than when I see sexism (despite actively being on the receiving end of it).

This seems to also be the case in my peer group - I find myself having to explain the reasons for my feelings, 'argue my case' rather than simply be listened to and believed. In my lazier brain moments and when frustrated I have done the switch from sex to race on the situation in question and it is surprising how quickly it makes people abandon their former stance.

Perhaps acquiring the 'shutting up and listening with a default setting of believing' approach is the silver lining to the cloud of experiencing being the 'other'. As Buffy says, because it pisses us off we try not to do it to other people.

By that logic though black men should be more empathetic than white men and so in an area where the population is balanced (unlike mine) I would expect more white men to be filmed receiving cards.

Toffeepenny. I would imagine that a black person might take offence to your claim to see racist issues clearly, much in the same way it might irritate a woman if I explained that I totally get their oppression.

I've been told be black people that racism is much more complex, deep rooted and prevalent than I had thought (and I had previously had a similar attitude to yourself). So now, as a white person, I err on the side of caution and assume that what I think I 'get' is just the tip of the iceberg.

I'm not meaning to be harsh, but I feel that a white person claiming they 'get' racism or that they see racist issues in a clear/obvious way is....arrogant?

On reading the thread again, I think I should clarify my point.

Everyone has been clear in adding the disclaimer that they don't fully understand racism.

But at the same time, there seems to be a bit of 'but racism is more obvious than sexism, isn't it: kinda thing going on. And all I'm saying is, that I don't think its possible for white people to talk about racial discrimination with any kind of credibility.

She seems to be talking in part about issues of what is and is not legal, and I think that is hard to understand when we have a completely different culture and set of laws around freedom of speech, hate speech etc from the US.

I think there is a difference between recording people and putting it up on the Internet, and saying anything at all to a person harassing you. There is criticism there of making any kind of response at all to someone harassing you in case the police come over and behave in a racist way.

I guess you're male, subjugateddad? I am white female and was raised to be far more sensitive/aware of racism than of sexism. Still not briliantly aware, but racism was a (n almost) universally regarded Bad Thing (even if we often didn't see it) whereas sexism was barely recognised. Maybe because racism affects men, too, so it's possible to get a balanced, non-hysterical account of it? ;-)

I'm pretty sure I've only recognised a small % of the racism that exists out there but unlike sexism the bits I've noticed have also been entirely recognised by my peers (again mostly white) and are left in questioned.

All Toffee said was that when saw racism her (also white) peers also saw it and that there wasn't debate about it being racist. Where as frequently sexism is brushed off as natural/inherent/ the way things should be/ tradition. I think her "small percentage of racism" could also be read as "tip of the iceberg" as well.

Can I make it clear my post is about the writer of the article, not Toffee? I seem to have posted in the middle of a discussion of something else.

Well I'm a middle-aged coloured woman**, but I don't think even I understand the full extent and complexity of racism in modern Britain...

It used to be so simple - "No dogs! No Blacks! No Irish!"

On the surface, everything looks fine - racial abuse and descrimination are outlawed, racism is genuinely socially unacceptable, to the extent that even outright bigots feel obliged to say "I'm not racist, but..." before saying something flagrantly racist.

Yep, everything looks dandy, until you start counting things...

• Like how many black high court judges there are (don't even ask about black, female high court judges - that's just silly)

• How many black senior police officers

• How many black bosses of major companies

• How many black senior managers - err - anywhere.

• The composition of the prison population

• The comprehensive media coverage of black people who do something wrong (city traders, judges etc) as opposed to everybody else.

And so on.

Then you start to think that there's something going on - something hidden, unspoken, pernicious. Not so much 'tip of the iceberg' as 'completely hidden iceberg'.

We used to get the mantra that "you just need to educate yourselves more!" - but I believe that now black and ethnic minority students are getting better grades and more degrees than ever before. There's still that invisible force, keeping us all in our place.

I must admit, generally racism is a much bigger thing for me than sexism. I can see plenty of successful white women.

Right now, sexism is out in the open. You can see it, hear it, fight it. For me the big risk is, if we succeed in achieving superficial change without a fundamental change in underlying attitudes, then we'll not have the catcalls and page 3 (which many people will be grateful for), but we'll not really be any better off.

** I used to say 'woman of colour', which I really like as a term, but it's clearly an Americanism, so now (thanks in part to the Cumberbatch nonsense) I've decided to change to something simpler, more straightforward and British.

I like the numbers too - they are harder to manipulate than words.

I was surprised to see that the only recent-ish numbers I could find for the judiciary appear to show the same issue (missing people at the higher eschalons) impacting equally between sexism and racism when compared the totals in the population.

E.g. from the Guardian in 2012, on the make-up of the judiciary

It has changed: in 1998, 10.3% of judges were women, and 1.6% from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds; by 2011 the figures had increased to 22.3% and 5.1% respectively.

The population of England and Wales is very different. According to the latest data from the Office for National Statistics, the non-white population is 12.1% - and 50.8% of the total population are women.

Both just under half of the number that would be expected without the invisible forces you mention in place.

(As an aside, I did not realise Linda Dobbs QC was also the first black member of the judiciary and now intend to read up a bit about her, she must be amazing)

There is a fundamental problem with identifying racism here - the block of text given above lumps together several 'backgrounds' under the banner 'non-white' . Besides making it impossible to tell which background is most badly impacted by racism in the judiciary, I'm not sure how much more 'othering' it could be than that. At least the category 'non-man' doesn't exist (I've always had my suspicions about the origins of woman 'womb-man?' though)

I agree with the prevalence of 'black people who have done something wrong' in the media particularly the penchant for the thuggish police mugshots that never seem to be used for white criminals (the distant cctv blurry image or courtroom artists drawing of them looking crestfallen seems to be preferred) but I would compare this treatment to the 'women as objects of decoration but rarely action' in almost every daily paper. I don't think either racism or sexism is out in the open yet.

And to clarify when I said:

I'm pretty sure I've only recognised a small % of the racism that exists out there
and
I don't believe I 'get' how racism is for those on the receiving end of it

I mean I'm pretty sure I'm ignorant of most of it. Not that I think the little bit I believe I can see (tiniest tip of iceberg) is all there is.

Apologies for any offence.

Right now, sexism is out in the open. You can see it, hear it, fight it. For me the big risk is, if we succeed in achieving superficial change without a fundamental change in underlying attitudes, then we'll not have the catcalls and page 3 (which many people will be grateful for), but we'll not really be any better off.

So how do you think we get fundamental change? Do you disagree with the woman from cards against harassment's approach? Personally I think her "here is a little card to say you've hurt me" and also the tiny little needling fear that they will be shamed on social media seems an excellent approach.

How are women supposed to stop the attitudes that objectify women? I feel like the onus is always on the woman to find a "nice way" to ask men to just leave her the fuck alone. Smile more/ask nicely/ "educate" those that don't want to be educated.