White women- it's all your fault

[WeldMeDaphne]

I will preface this by saying that I am indeed a white woman. And I realise this affords me a lot of privilege.
Among a lot of the rhetoric around the Events unfolding in the US (mostly Charlottesville), I've seen a number of open letters to white women about our complicity in the neo-nazi and white supremacist movement in the US and elsewhere. Clearly those women marching last week on the nazi side were white, but there was a lot of suggestion that those white women not marching but associated with men marching (wives girlfriends etc) were just as culpable as the men wielding torches and assault rifles. I guess I would like some help understanding how this is a white woman issue rather than the white men being responsible for their own actions? I get that one of those pieces said those men are going home to pie cooked by their doting wives but I just feel as though a man who holds those views and has no issue with demonstrating them publically is unlikely to be a caring loving husband?
I am fully prepared to listen to all view points and I totally understand that the people on these marches are white, but they're mostly men, right? Sonhow is this women's fault?

Katerina Pierson is half white and black her mother gave her up for adoption and then she changed her mind. Her brought her up in poverty and obviously never taught her about history and to be proud of who she is. She sounds very confused was slavery good for her ancestors.

Flatpacker what is the purpose of you posting on here then? I'm posting my views and experiences like everyone else, just because I don't explain these to you in the way that you would like does not make them any less valid. I will continue to post as I see fit. If you revert to the posts I have made they have clearly hit a nerve if with you, as you seem to think I have to breakdown everything I say for you specifically. I don't have to explain every element of racism to you, as I've said previously we all have access to resources. If there is something that you want further understanding with, revert to google. I don't owe you anything

@HorridHenryrule thanks. She can have the same seat as amarosa and stacy dash. Very similar mentality.

What is hitting a nerve, Mucho, is seeing two oppressed groups going to war on this thread! My reason for reading initially was to explore the reasoning behind why it is apparently women's fault that white male nationalists exist. I posted when I saw how toxic the debate had become around the colour of skin. I tried to reach out and understand your position, but was immediately rebuked. I post in good faith, as I've already said.

WRT the feminist issue, many women, even feminists, carry around and propagate sexist tropes. I'm sure I do: I have a girl and find myself acting in a certain way, have certain expectations of her that I don't of her brother. If merely having sexist ideas makes one sexist, then I am just as sexist as any menz you'd like to grab. I don't, however, believe we are equivalent. And I would ask you: if racist views (in particular, a belief in essentialism) can be held by black men and women, are they also to blame for the racism seen in the world?

Flatpacker your comparing 400 years of slavery, ongoing racism that Blavk women and men have suffered to what exactly? Two oppressed groups please

Actually I think this was a healthy Deandre not "toxic" you just didn't like the way the topic was being discussed.

Flatpacker stol changing the subject, I made very specific points, stop changing the goal posts when it suits you. If you don't understand my perspective that's not my problem

I get really nervous, as a Sarah-Ditum type of feminist, white, middle class, educated etc about wading in here, but here goes.

In my probably ham fisted but well meaning way, I try to think about the issue of race in feminism, in ways that feminism has taught me to think. So I see a sliding scale of awareness and action in men, when thinking about women's rights.

1. I am a misogynist. I hate women.
2. I am not a misogynist, and I have no specific, conscious ill feeling towards women, but I am generally hostile towards feminism because it feels challenging and doesn't reflect how I see the world. I do come over as unthinkingly sexist.
3. I believe in some sort of egalitarianism, and I have listened to women, and I agree that feminism makes sense. But I have not addressed my internal misogyny, and unless I consciously modify my behaviour, it will come over as sexist on occasion, but I feel quite aggrieved if women point this out.
4. I believe that our society is set up on lines that have historically, and still continue to disadvantage women. I believe that we're raised in ways that exacerbate the differences and disadvantages between the sexes. I've thought a lot about unconscious biases and how I can best mitigate against them, and I genuinely try to fight them wherever I'm aware of them, and also encourage others to do the same.

I know it's not a direct comparison, but if you sub out the word woman/feminism in that to WOC/racism, then does it tell us anything? I'd like to think I've got to a level 4, but then if someone of colour told me I was only managing a 3, I'd believe them, because they'd have a clearer view, if you know what I mean? And that would make me feel bad, so I'd push back a bit, probably. I wonder if in some parts of this thread, people feel like they're being accused of being a 1 or a 2, when they perceive themselves at a 3 or 4 and that's where the tension is?

This thread is hopeless, I give up. Solidarity to other lurkers out there thinking wtf, like I am.

I agree, Morris. It went downhill very quickly.

What staggers me is how it always seems to be in women's spaces that these arguments happen.

Black women are women too. Women's spaces are as much theirs as they are ours, surely?

Racist misogyny has often masculinised black women too. The trope of the feisty, aggressive black woman is as much a racist and sexist stereotype as any other. It has been used to set them apart from other women and historically to justify using them for far harder labour than white women were deemed capable of. The portrayal of black women as more masculine, less womanly than others is racist AND sexist. Look at some of the godawful stuff said about Michelle Obama or the Williams sisters online. I'm sure it wasn't intentional but on this thread people have drawn parallels to transwomen or commented on women and POC being two different groups that can be set against each other. I think it's fair enough for the WOC on this thread to get frustrated with that, underlying it there is an assumption that WOC are not "standard" women; that they get sexism plus racism as if the sexism faced by white women is the default definition of sexism. It isn't, sexism faced by black women is often quite different.

What I meant was that similar arguments seem to happen in women's spaces more than they do in other(s') spaces. Bearing in mind that the original topic of this thread is long lost and the focus seems to be on women oppressing other women my comment was more about how this seems to be a common topic that arises in women's spaces and often overtakes conversations that are about totally or partly different things. By contrast, it does not seem to happen in other areas of the left, or at least in my experience.

Surely women's spaces are exactly the right place for women of different races and ethnicities to discuss or even argue about these issues, though. This is the place for women to talk to other women. Within women's spaces we are all women and so it's natural that the things that make women different from one another will be highlighted in women's spaces. It seems natural and healthy for this sort of discussion to happen.

Doesn't feel much like a 'discussion' to me.

Nor me.

We obviously have different views on this but IMO the WOC on this thread have made clear arguments. They would like white women to recognise that they belong to a privileged class and accept that although they might not be overtly racist themselves the prevailing culture, especially in "white America" but also the UK feels to them like it is becoming more racist and more hostile. They would like white women to play an active role in trying to change that. They've been told that people don't have time for that, or it's not their responsibility because actually it's white men that are the problem or it's racists that as they aren't racist it's nothing to do with them, or because it's far away it's not their problem or that it's unfair to put this expectation on white women because they are an oppressed class compared to white men. I don't think they've really been "heard". I heard them and have taken on board what they've said. I hope this post is taken as it was intended, I don't mean to stomp in and "white-splain" things.

Sigh- I wish you could edit posts on here. I think you can still get the gist even though there are mistakes in there.

They would like white women to recognise that they belong to a privileged class and accept that although they might not be overtly racist themselves the prevailing culture, especially in "white America" but also the UK feels to them like it is becoming more racist and more hostile. They would like white women to play an active role in trying to change that

I don't see a lot of clarity, to be honest. I just see a lot of name-calling that has drawn us way away from the topic of the thread - including a bizarre accusation that white women fabricate rape accusations against black men.

I guess I'd also like to see groups of men on the left angst about how they are a privileged class who oppress women.

They would like white women to recognise that they belong to a privileged class

All white women belong to a privileged class? That's clearly ridiculous as a suggestion.

Thanks, Duke - I wanted to say that.

Well yes, just like men belong to a privileged class. It doesn't mean every white woman is privileged over every black woman just like not every man is privileged over every women but taken as a class, yes. I think it was clear that I was t talking about individual women all being privileged.

Well yes, just like men belong to a privileged class

I really wish they'd angst about this more.

I find that in conversations with black men on the left it's always about racism and never about the privilege they have as men.

I don't think white women routinely make up rape allegations and I don't think that's what was suggested either but the fact remains that black people in America make up 13% of the population but 59% of exonerations for sexual assault. 59% of the people proven to be wrongly convicted of sexual assaults in the US are black, that doesn't mean they are all being falsely accused by white women but does suggest that they are being convicted on flimsier evidence than white men and are more vulnerable to being wrongly imprisoned.

But "as a class" is completely irrelevant to the individual. It's meaningless, it's divisive and it's insulting.