Feminists whose only anti-'privilege' is their sex?

[BeyondTheWall]

This is more an ongoing stream of thought than a carefully considered OP!
...

I got called a tumblr feminist recently in a 'debate', had to google what the insult meant To start my random train of thought, i wondered if 'tumblr feminists' encompassed those with the "im alright, jack" attitude - who agree with for eg equal wages, but as they personally recieve them, they're not overly bothered with fighting for anything.

Then reading the nicki minaj thread and other 'white feminism' stuff

And something else about 'middleclass feminism' recently (though off the top of my head now, i cant remember what this was)

I was wondering if there is a link between these. Got me to thinking, is there a link between feminists who have more than one anti-'privilege' and their compassion for others with different anti-'privilege' (wish i could think of the correct antonym to use for this!).

Are those termed white feminists, middleclass feminists and tumblr feminists all the same people? Who also happen to be straight, well educated, gender-conforming and able-bodied (and maybe even young and thin?)

Is there any correlation between having less 'privilege' and more empathy for those with similar but different circumstances? Or is my hyperempathy squewing my thoughts on this?

I guess as well as generally discussing it, I wondered what posters personal circumstances re 'priliege' here were to go in the spreadsheet

Angry and apprehensive. I want to get away from them, I don't trust them.

But if people paid attention, I feel like most of them wouldn't trust them either.

Sorry, gone off a tangent there!

An interesting tangent, though, Whirlpool! As well as personality, which I do think has a lot to do with it, I also think it's interesting how we define categories of privilege. For example - I am not from an ethnic minority or disabled etc so, on reading this thread title, I assumed that I fit the bill of someone whose only 'anti-privilege' is sex. But, like etKruste, I am also a single parent. I'm working class, too. But, unlike my sex, these things are variable.

Those who use the 'tumblr-feminist' insult, however, are trying to define categories of privilege as something concrete that the person being insulted can never be (I mean anyone can have a change of circumstances and experience the anti-privilege of being poor or abused but your ethnic background or the class/cultural background you were brought up in won't change). So it's a stick to beat women with and it's a way of silencing women.

Ironically, empathy for an 'anti-privilege' that I don't have may well come from an understanding that there are many anti-privileges that we may all experience at one time or another. Those who have no empathy can safely stick to negatively shouting shallow insults rather than doing the deeper thinking required to change things.

I have nothing to add so far, just want to acknowledge that i am reading

I don't think privilege = lack of empathy.

However, I think there is something here about visibility and class. There is often an assumption amongst fairly privileged white women that their viewpoint is in some way 'universal'. This is often not in obvious areas of race or transsexuality where difference is foregrounded: in fact, these women are often highly educated and therefore accustomed to thinking about those differences that are tied up in identity politics in quite a sensitive way. There is nonetheless a more hidden and pervasive way in which assumptions that are often heavily tied up with class are seen by those women not as assumptions but as some kind of law that counts for everyone because of a lack of experience. And by 'lack of experience' I mean 'lack of living it', because I think you can be really quite empathetic without really being able to understand what it's like to walk in those shoes. For example, I know women who come into daily contact with poorer people as doctors, for example, and they do an enormous amount of high quality professional work caring for them. But the structure of assumptions that they have are still those of a selectively educated middle class, yet they can't really 'see' themselves in that way, because despite this daily contact, they are still never really 'outside' of their own perspective.

I don't think class is necessarily a blinker like this, but I think it can be in a lot of cases, particularly because our culture isn't very good at opening out other voices in class terms.

Just going back to one of the qq in your OP -- I think it's too easy to criticise women for being "middle class" or "white" etc etc, and use that as a way of undermining their arguments and ideas. I hate the holier than thou of some of the "check your privilege" debates atm (it's what gets me about some of the radical trans*activists' arguments).

It's done to take down, diminish, and divide women. No-one does it to other people (men) in broad-ranging and revolutionary movements.

You can see it in the history around suffragettes. That somehow their struggle wasn't wholly valid because a lot of the activists were privileged, upper middle class or aristocratic.

It's a not-so-subtle way of undermining women. Nothing more, in my view.

they are still never really 'outside' of their own perspective

Good point, but doesn't that apply to pretty much everybody? And it should not be used to undermine what is achieved.

Yes, it does absolutely apply to everybody! As a PP very wisely said, when dealing with difference it pays to tread very carefully and to try to be as open and to make as few assumptions as possible. Which is hard to to and I for one will be the first to admit I sometimes fail!!

I think the difference is that these women are sometimes not aware that their class-based prejudice is even class-based. It's just seen as a 'truth'. An example might be in areas of taste, where a certain kind of aesthetic taste that is quite closely related to class is presented as 'right' and other kinds as 'tacky' or 'wrong'. (It is surprising how often this comes up, too - you might think it would be rare, but it isn't!)

I also take the point about diminishing and dividing, which is why I think this should never be used to insult, though it may be important very gently to question! (Including questioning ourselves).

*hard to do!!

I think that to an extent some people have to experience something similar to empathise. Others are capable of thinking it through whilst being, and having always been privileged.
The opposite side to the coin of the privileged person with no empathy, is the person who is so wrapped up in the injustice done to them, they brush off those done to others. And I believe those people would behave and think like each other if their circumstances were exchanged. They just lack empathy.
Despite only average income and being a lone parent I appear more privileged than I am, but for many reasons aside from lack of wealth and being an lp, I have an equal amount in common with the less privileged, so I fit in both groups iyswim. Which means I get to hear empathic views and judgemental ones from both sides, because I'm 'one of us' with either group, as well as many sub groups within them. And I'd say both in positive and negative ways I've been equally shocked and suprised from opinions from both groups.
I think what I'm trying to say is empathy is more about basic personality, and the ability to reason from anothers point of view, rather than needing to experience any lack of privilege yourself.

Really interesting points. I suppose there's a further question then:

do arguments or views need to be based on empathy and/or shared or similar experiences?

Are views/arguments only valid if drawn from empathy and/or shared or similar experiences?

It's a tricky one, IMO, because for a very very very long time, women's arguments were belittled or dismissed because apparently women don't have the right "life experiences" to understand or speak about certain things (eg world politics). Or the view that women should be limited to authority only in certain areas - and guess what, they are the less powerful, influential, well-paid etc etc etc

"Are views/arguments only valid if drawn from empathy and/or shared or similar experiences?"

I would be really troubled by the idea that only empathetic viewpoints are valid for exactly the reason you state. Plus, it is too close for comfort to that old-fashioned expectation that women ought to do facework socially.

I think what does trouble me, and I'm only speaking personally here, is when people aren't aware that all of our views are inevitably a bit blinkered by our experience, and that some effort is needed to reach out and over, if that makes sense, some openness (not just women, everyone).

This is why I find the class thing troubling, because it's so often very deeply buried and people are simply not aware that what they take for 'universal' is actually a specific position that is the result of a lot of socio-economic circumstances, to the point that they will say things that are actually really quite discriminatory without really being aware of it. I just spent a weekend with my PIL, who would self-describe as humanist lefties, yet their conversation is peppered with discriminatory remarks about 'tacky' furniture (my poor neighbours) or 'women wearing lots of gold chains and laughing too loudly on the bus' or urban areas not being 'naice' compared to villages with thatched cottages.

Perhaps it's because the problem is structural in nature? I feel like we are a very, very long way from living in a world without racism or homophobia, but there are basic ways of calling the worst kind of behaviour out, basic recognitions that certain speech patterns aren't OK at a very fundamental level. That's not the case for class - to accuse someone of being a 'snob' doesn't have the same charge at all! Yet my wider point is that this awareness and condemnation of individual-level behaviour in all cases (racism, sexism, class discrimination) is often at the expense of a very laissez-faire attitude to more structural forms of racist or homophobic discrimination - which tends to be operational at the level of class too.

I also feel like we have this wealth of knowledge now that the country is run by and for the middle class, and yet nothing is done to bust things open in a way that is fairer (witness those reports on the 'glass floor' at the weekend).

Really enjoying this discussion, btw. Tis interesting to hear a wide range of viewpoints on the issue, and it's definitely helping me to think these things through in a bit more depth...

I think part of it is that things associated with being working class are seen as a choice, as if people are going around wilfully being working class, and could change if they really wanted to.

I think I might be one of those - white and MC etc. I don't have tumblr but I do post for e.g. post interesting articles on facebook and invariably they are about issues I understand...women in politics, work/life balance etc. Obviously there are a lot of other issues that are important in feminism but these are the ones that affect my life, and I consider myself to have a considered opinion on if that makes sense.

Having thought about this some more, I definitely think lacking in one area can sometimes make you less considering of someone else's lack.
On the appearance privilege, I've been told many times I can't possibly have or ever had self esteem issues or even passing concerns as to whether an item is flattering, because I'm thin, therefore can't possibly empathise with, let alone share, the same concerns regarding my own worth as someone who isn't thin. Although in fairness once explained some people will say 'I've never thought of it like that I just assumed'.
Whereas nobody has ever expressed suprise or questioned the fact as an able bodied person I can empathise with disability.

I have a fair amount of exposure to Tumblr because my dd uses it quite a lot, although mostly for shipping and cute animal videos really. She has quite strong feminist views, but they are not very deeply informed yet because she is only a teenager. She also identifies as bisexual so is interested in LTGB issues, but again doesn't have a huge amount of her own life experience to inform that. That means she sways in the wind a little more.

I would say that apart from being female I have pretty much every privilege going. I am white, educated, physically and mentally healthy, wealthy, straight, happy in my own body, have experienced no great traumas and I am still relatively young. I grew up loved and cherished in a happy, healthy, wealthy family too. Oh and I have lived pretty much all my life in two democratic, stable, rich and relatively free countries.

My parents have strong Christian values which brought a few issues, but gave me a strong identity as unique and special and also a strong sense of obligation to do good things with my life, especially given all my advantages and blessings [I'd probably use privileged here because I am an atheist, but I think that in some ways blessings is more appropriate, as all these advantages were in no way earned, but given].

My dd is probably more empathetic than me, but I don't think that's because she isn't heterosexual, I think it has more to do with our different natures. I am much more analytical and she sees things more through an emotional lens. I'm a 'look at the evidence' and the big picture, she is more what about 'x' person's experience. I also think that's a youth vs experience/age viewpoint. I certainly know my opinions have become much more informed (or radical I suppose) in the last decade or so.

To me the important thing is to acknowledge your biases and give space and listen to other people (even if you don't agree with them). But also not to feel that your own thoughts don't have value, they just reflect and are shaped by your experience, exposures and learning.