Feminism for women of colour...

[AnotherEpisode]

As a black woman, I quite often feel sidelined within feminism.

I don't feel feminism addresses the difficulties faced by women of colour in western societies and quite often I feel I am drawn to race issues over feminist issues because of this.

I absolutely have more difficulties in this society because of the colour of my skin than I do because of my sex.

I feel that the lack of understanding towards racism amongst feminist circles gives me a stance of one over the other in which racism usually wins, which is unfortunate really!

This article, although written in a strong, comical and sometimes rude tone, gives a good insight!

thegrio.com/2015/02/23/patricia-arquette-blacks-gays-white-women/

Not sure why I'm posting but I'm interested in a wider perspective especially people's thoughts on the article!

"I am like you buffy I don't read the research saying how crap my life chances are."

For 2 years I was in charge of doing something about the gender disparity in our department. (I am a woman and not "from round here". ) And I had a hard time trying to tell my boss that it was wrong to ask me in the first place and I was wrong to accept the job. After 2 years I was ready to slit my throat and would randomly burst into tears while driving to work. I still feel a rage now whenever I think about it.

Just to be clear, in my 'overweight scruffies' example, I specifically was not thinking about academia, because the brilliant but badly dressed academic is a well understood phenomenon.

Let's consider instead a commercial or government setting, where most people are in 'business' dress and there are a minority of scientists and cleaners - that's a more challenging scenario for our inbuilt assumptions isn't it?

But coffee hits the nail square on the head - why do we need to make any assumptions at all? Just be polite to everyone until you find out what they are doing there.

That sounds shit Upto.

Personally I'm very glad to hear StillLost explain about how things work in a law office, and I happily accept that if I was a black lawyer I wouldn't be mistaken for something else.

But now I'm thinking about how that works.

The last time I was in a law office (I wasn't in trouble btw), the solicitor (white, male, youngish) was wearing jeans, a big check shirt and seemed unshaven (although I'm sure he would describe it as 'designer stubble'). At the end he apologised that he had to rush off because he was doing a prison visit - I remember being a bit at the thought of him turning up at HMP wherever looking like that...

But of course this was in the badlands of 'Sahf Lahndun'.

I also once visited a big law firm uptown - there it seemed to me that everybody was dressed very smartly. I really couldn't tell who was a lawyer and who was (say) an accountant or a p.a. - unless of course I made sexist assumptions.

So I'm genuinely interested - what are the sartorial clues which distinguish the grades in a law firm? Is there an implicit earring size limit for example? Or even is there a written dress-code?

True fact - if you turn up for your first day at my friend's work in an inadequately posh suit, you get an advance on your salary and pointed at the right shops.

Sorry Peckham I didn't mean to misquote you (or rather out of context).

Peckham actually stilllost is a white woman working in law. I do not think any woc working in law have stated their opinions. stilllosts' experience is still valid but you cannot take it as universal anymore than my experience is.

I am not picking on you or lost but I am always wary when any one experience is held up as the correct and universal experience. That was one of the complaints up thread that woc experiences and opinions are told that their stories are a distraction or exaggerated or lies. Everyone is entitled to be heard and believed.

The thing is buffy I totally understand why everyone wants a universal experience ... Because then there is a neat universal solution. And that is ultimately what is wanted; a way to improve things.

Real life is messier and more complicated.

Namechanged to say, as a black lawyer, that the situation is not as positive as StillLost would have it.

I was once described by a colleague as being so smart that whenever she saw me at work I made her feel she ought to fly to Paris immediately and buy a new outfit.

And yet, I have been ignored outside court in favour of my white male assistant whom it was assumed must be the opponent, and mistaken for clerical staff by someone who came into our office, asked to go and get a drink by a guest at a work function (I was obviously a waitress, not a fellow guest), to go and do photocopying by random visitors to the office, and so on and so forth. And no, it is not my shy, humble and retiring demeanor (hah!) that causes these 'misunderstandings'.

The whole point is, some people don't see the D&G suit or the general air of competence and authority, or register the fact that you are at the head of the table because you are actually chairing the meeting, and not by mistake.

They only see skin colour. And make assumptions accordingly. The fact that the assuption is a weird one to make in all the circumstances only reinforces the extent to which, for some people, being a particular race overrides all other evidence and status indicators. It just goes to show, in other words, how deply entrenched the negative stereotype is.

And frankly, a white lawyer should be a lot more circumspect about telling people how the legal profession treats its black members.

not 'deply', 'deeply'

Yes yes yes to bore re the entrenched negative stereotypes.

This is why women generally and woc make the effort to "signal" their status with smart outfits, speaking "well and confidently.

All of this is done to prevent the automatic response that your behaviour or clothing is so confusing that the only rational choice is that you do not belong.

Well said Ithought

I spent quite a few years early in my career deliberately NOT helping out and deliberately NOT making the tea even when it would have been simply polite to do so. But hey ho. Didn't seem to have made any difference to my so-called career. (But l would have felt worse if I did make the tea, I think.)

As opposed to the other posters who aren't in the legal profession but apparently know all about it?

Well, just to add to the personal experiences about the legal profession and women; not only have I been mistaken for support staff, and not due to my clothing as in the firm I was with we all dressed "smartly" (I put that in quotation marks because it's a word not used that way much in the US), but I also experienced a client telling a senior partner in my presence and before even getting to know me, "I don't want one of those women lawyers working on my case, no offense, dear." And WOC colleagues have told me of worse experiences.

I think it's better now (I am no longer practicing) but only marginally so.

Still, have the black lawyers at your firm ever said anything about their experiences and whether they are the same as yours?

And what Rider said.

I quite specifically limited myself to finance so no idea who you are referring to lost.

The quote was from bore, who has stated she is a black lawyer!

Trust me black people in general have a very good idea of how the legal system treats us, not just the those that work in it.