Intersectional feminism

[Fauchelevent]

This is my first FWR thread but many of you will know me from the transactivism threads and posts about race and here and there.

On the Rachel Dolezal thread, quite an interesting discussion began about race, feminism and intersectional feminism with Quencher especially raising some very interesting and informed points. But this isn't a TAAT.

The question is intersectionality, intersectional feminism - the movement as it was intended and the movement as it stands.

I'm black, and I feel that discussions with some white women feminists often ignore race or I feel like when race is discussed, there are a lot of issues. Sometimes discussions go down the line of black women setting feminism back by being too hypersexual, muslim/orthodox women seen as backwards and so on. I see on MN a lot of people comparing gender issues to race and saying that if it were race, it would get dealt with but women are on the bottom of the heap. As a black woman i certainly feel shat on for my race as much as my gender. So intersectional feminism seems like the natural destination for women who want and need feminism but feel like mainstream feminism excludes them. Equally, intersectional feminism makes a point to make spaces accessible for disabled people, tackle homophobia and so on.

Yet intersectional feminism has also become a toxic space. It has become a space of stifled debate, regular misogyny and very orwellian. Women who disagree with the party line are blacklisted and sometimes sent death threats. Women who do not toe the party line are also guaranteed to lose any friends in this circle. For example, with student activism becoming increasingly intersectional, it also means there's less room for debate and very little dissent because anyone who disagrees will be ex communicated. So lots of people in their early twenties and younger will have this way of thinking.

I also hear from a lot of feminists who are white that they feel they cannot get involved in intersectional feminist debates because they're shut down as being "White Feminists" even by other (lower case) white feminists.

How do we balance the need for feminism that is aware of racial matters, sexuality, class and so on, because poor women, gay women, and women of colour should not feel shut out of feminism. We have to also understand that women tend to navigate their own cultures and communities differently, we all have different histories and so our feminism may look different and we may need to look outside our experience (making sure disabled feminists can access events and so on)

What we have at the moment is a post modern choice feminism where everyone is included and nothing - including the words woman, female and feminism - has meaning. It means tackling male violence and female oppression takes a back burner and in its place comes discussions of liberating oneself with make up and selfies, whatever you find on everyday feminism, and silencing and violence towards anyone who doesn't agree with absolutely everything in the ideology. Lots of young female feminists are also identifying as non-binary, possibly because they don't have the "feeling like a woman" experience that MTT speak of so assume they must not be women. Occasionally "cis scum" and "white feminists" will be told to shut the fuck up. So its currently full of a lot of issues - but a lot of aspects are it are necessary.

I'm not sure what I hope to get out of this thread really, other than a few thoughts from others. I'm happy to answer any questions - I'm black and early 20s so i have a lot of direct experience with extremely cult like intersectional feminism. Unfortunately I am spartacus though so I get very silenced. Posting on MN is a massive relief. This international womens day was like international virtue signalling day with everyone declaring that its international womens day for everyone who identifies as a woman, non binaries, and all non-cis men and anyone who disagrees should fuck off - so a bit tiresome!

Anyway - no real questions, just hoping for some thoughts and a discussion on intersectional feminism and its issues on the back of the RD thread.

I'm referring to you saying there was an onus on them to get educated and up skilled and compete.
I suppose I see it as a Venn diagram. One circle is white working class men who are the casualties of the forces of capitalism living in industrial ghost towns. The other circle is sexist, racist, MRA men who feel entitled to jobs and resent the women and minorities for 'taking them away'. Although there is some overlap in the middle, my comment was entirely intended for those men in the second circle - those men who complain about a 'feminised workplace' and a 'mancession'.
By adopting the terminology of the men in the second circle to discuss the men in the first, posters of this thread were using a highly effective conflation of antifeminist/racist propaganda.

Yikes!

To me this thread has sadly gone down the slippery slope intersectional feminism generally does. Someone tries to make feminism all about men and their plight, whether it is unemployed working class white men, men with gender dysphoria or any other subset of 'poor men. Then some women object and point out - this is feminism - about women, challenging sexism and misogyny.
Then they get distainfully called 'privileged' for it in such a way that silences further discussion.
Hey ho! Such is life in a patriarchy!

@QuentinSummers thanks for that.

Then I think both of your feminism is based on class prejudice.
Both feminists and GLB rights activists supported coal mining and steel working communities in the UK when they were targeted.
But this discussion has demonstrated the validity of intersectionality to me am confused too

To me this thread has sadly gone down the slippery slope intersectional feminism generally does.

I agree.

Um, I didn't call anyone privileged. I stated in my first post that I am in disagreement with the concept of privilege!

Who has called someone privileged?

Sorry. What you actually said was "I think both of your feminism is based on class prejudice"
I don't really know what you mean by this. My feminism is based on class prejudice?
Please explain it in such a way that doesn't effectively say you think my feminism is based on class privilege which I need to check.

almond please could you explain why you believe I am prejudiced against working class people. I read and respect a lot of your posts but on this point I don't understand what has happened.
I don't want to put words in guardians mouth but I read her post as saying that a common pattern is for people to be called "privileged" by someone else as a way to shut down a debate and win an argument (which I think is true, seen it a lot) rather than she was specifically referring to you.

For the record, my feminism is woman-centred and based on a desire to end male dominance and oppression of women and girls.
Although I also believe in ending all forms oppression, I do not consider this feminism where it does not concern women or ending male dominance - it is something else.
From what I understand, intersectional feminism is intended to be about women but detailing the way other forms of oppressions intersect with sex-based oppression of women in compounded and nuanced oppressive ways. Unfortunately the MRA''s, TRA''s and exploiters and users of the sex/p*rn industries, and other antifeminists have hijacked intersectional feminism, so that it is effectively not a form of feminism at all - since it is all too often putting men first and theoretically and actively antifeminist in the discourse eg- focusing on the plight of [white, working class] men affected by capitalism and using[/minimising/excusing] woman-blaming antifeminist language like 'feminised workforce'.

Quencher I agree with what you said about service industries - and I think this is what a lot of people have in mind when the term 'feminised workforce' is used - ie - if you don't have grease and soot deeply ingrained into your callused hands, then you aren't doing man's work
Quentin thanks for you USA article etc - it illustrates the male- entitied thing perfectly.

I will come back to the white working class issue, but it seems highly related to the offence taken at the phrase 'feminised job market.'

This is not an anti feminist phrase. If you google it, there are pages of results from sociology, anthropology, human rights groups and geographers using the phrase.

I'm not saying that no MRA has ever used the phrase 'feminised job market' but that is not where the phrase comes from or its most common association.

It is widely accepted by the UN and other related groups that femininity and masculinity are the terms we used to describe socially constructed gender roles. It has been widely used by feminists.

I myself use such phrasing, such as the global feminisation of poverty.

There was absolutely nothing in User's posts that suggested that she was using such phrasing to imply that women's work was down to innate abilities of women and men. She was clearly talking from a feminist perspective on why she does not find privilege a helpful concept.

user said Stereotypically male jobs are disappearing while the job market is being more and more feminised and used the phrase "mancession"
The implication is that white working class men in the US are disadvantaged while the evidence is that in fact women and ethnic minorities have been harder hit but are more adaptable to the new circumstances.
I do take exception to "feminised job market" and I don't think the fact that phrase is currently socially acceptable means that at its roots it isn't betraying sexist notions of how the world works. There are lots of things that have been in common parlance historically that are no longer acceptable, sadly it seems that openly misogynist language is the last to go
Can you imagine the uproar if the labour market was being described as ethnicised?

I don't think the fact that phrase is currently socially acceptable means that at its roots it isn't betraying sexist notions of how the world works.
This

It's class prejudice because it is entirely erasing what working class men and women from those communities have done for the development of rights. In the UK working class communities mentioned (by Guardian) many trade union rights were established, as was the Workers' Educational Association.

The history of the appalling way those communities were treated, the police and government brutality, the unsafe working conditions and demands is wholly at odds with the notion that men from such communities had an 'unfair advantage.' The fight for education and skills is at odds with the notion of people without skills or education.

It is also taking it completely out of the context of those communities, and the impact mass male job loss in an area has on women, who not only face economic pressure but also face a greater pressure of doing the unpaid work of community building when a key part of the community's identity, history and social role is collapsing.

Are there particular forms of misogyny in different working class communities? Of course, but most of the argument here seems to be over an MRA stereotype used largely by young, college educated men (Milo Yiannopolous, for example) that does not reflect on the actual difficulties for those communities for both men and women.

What phrasing do you think should be used then, Quentin?

How do we discuss the impact of socially constructed gender in the job market for a particular sex?

And ethnicised is used to refer to job markets. There isn't an uproar, The meaning is clear when read in context.

It's class prejudice because it is entirely erasing what working class men and women from those communities have done for the development of rights

Sorry you need to explain this bit a bit better - I cannot see how you would glean from my position that my feminism is based on class prejudice. The labour/trade union movement has been and still is key to the promotion of women's rights - I have at no point said anything to the contrary.

How do we discuss the impact of socially constructed gender in the job market for a particular sex?

I don't see how reinforcing gender stereotypes is going to help - I can't think of a context where the terms 'feminised' or 'masculinised' workplace will bring clarity rather than confusion and lazy thinking.

That's a critique, not an alternative.

How are you proposing that feminists describe the socially constructed gender role ascribed to women when carrying out class analysis, if you are unhappy with femininity/feminised etc?

By the way almond I am totally with you on all of this:
In the UK working class communities mentioned (by Guardian) many trade union rights were established, as was the Workers' Educational Association.

The history of the appalling way those communities were treated, the police and government brutality, the unsafe working conditions and demands

And this

the impact mass male job loss in an area has on women, who not only face economic pressure but also face a greater pressure of doing the unpaid work of community building when a key part of the community's identity, history and social role is collapsing.

But I am not with you on the idea that the men in these communities do/did not have certain advantages over the women in these communities rooted in patriarchy and male dominance ie - that patriarchy and male dominance magically disappear during class struggles.

'But I am not with you on the idea that the men in these communities do/did not have certain advantages over the women in these communities rooted in patriarchy and male dominance.'

I never said this and certainly do not believe so. Of course they do and did.

Please give me an example of where you think 'feminised' or 'masculinsed' are helpful terms in class-based analysis [because I'm completely flummoxed and can't think of any] and I will be able to suggest terminology I believe would be more accurate and less sexist.

Guardian, why don't you just google feminised job market and look at study after study using the phrase?

Or maybe you can start by explaining the social mechanisms by which women are oppressed in a systemic manner so I can understand how you use language? Because I don't think I can explain to you when we seem to be lacking an agreement on basic feminist terminology.

It is used here for example:

www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/The-Changing-Labour-Market-2.pdf

Just Googled 'feminised job market' still none the wiser. It threw up very different uses - some about the influence of feminism -some about the presence of women, some about job titles, some about changing behavioural expectations. I don't see how 'feminisation of the workplace' is a meaningful umbrella term for all that, or whether all that actually even belongs under one umbrella term anyway. To me lumping it all together under that term is clearly sexist.