How do we scourge out racism and classism in feminism?

[Treesybreezy]

I need to apologize upfront - I am disabled and also looking after a baby so I'm not going to be able to check back on this thread as frequently as I'd like. I will be back tho.

I've just read this by sister outrider sisteroutrider.wordpress.com/2018/01/15/dispatches-from-the-margins-on-women-race-and-class/amp/?__twitter_impression=true . I know there have been other threads where black women (or other ethnicities) have said, racism is a massive problem and there's been a large, reflexive defensive reaction from white women here.

I'm too tired to articulate this properly now in support of what sister outrider has said, but I've definitely seen both racism and classism in action.

How do we set this right?

Thebewilderness are you feeling your age this weekend?

Yes I am.
We seem to be rediscovering what we should already know. Those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

It gives me a sad and causes me to feel my age.

Sarcasm? Huh?

Women, the working class and BAME people are all oppressed groups.

If someone started a thread as either:

'How do we scourge out misogyny and racism from working class people who are fighting for their rights?'

Or

'How do we scourge out the misogyny and classism from BAME people who are fighting for their rights?'

People would be unanimous in condemning that phrasing.

Being BAME or working class is no free pass to be misogynist and antifeminist- eg defending a thread title which recommends that women, feminist women, are urgently and thoroughly punished into 'woke' compliance.

thebewilderness - I'm always grateful for the experience and 'the long view' you bring to these debates

PermissionToSpeakSir - yes those both sound awful don't they?

I just thought that scourge meant remove, I didn't know it had meanings beyond that, its not a word I use.

I am sorry for not getting much time to read full threads at the moment and I have not seen what's happened bewilderness but your contribution is always valuable and the presence of older, knowledgeable feminists is essential. I have learned more from older feminists than I have learned through reading books, and the silencing of older women in the media, etc makes it even more crucial that the intergenerational conversation keeps going.

PermissionToSpeakSir your post was insightful, thank you. How would you rephrase the title though?

BeyondSceptical
Sorry, getting touchy obviously. Been a long day

How would you rephrase the title though?

It depends what the OP intended - maybe she meant it to have a whip-like sting to it, to berate women for being 'white' or middle class?

On reading the sister outrider article I was nodding and thinking how much of what she described rang true for me although it does not flow into my experience of wider structural inequality. Feminism has its own internal issues. I have never read the essay but an older feminist mentioned 'The tyranny of structuredlessness" and there''s a lot of pain all around. People holding one another to ridiculously high standards, suspicion, blowing hot and cold, using one-another as wheel-out testimony machines, being massively territorial, nepotism. She is not the only one disappointed in her 'tribe' and it isn't only BAME or working class women ducking out of the movement and feeling jaded. It isn't just 'white', middle class women acting like arseholes. It isn't just white, middle-class women holding the power within feminism.

So if what the OP meant was 'how do we address structural inequality within feminism?' Perhaps that would have been a less misogynist/antifeminist way of putting it, but I feel the op was being deliberately being inflammatory and it wouldn't have given the same satisfaction.

Excuse the extra 'being'

OP appears to have left the thread very shortly after starting it 3 days ago.

Very well and clearly stated, Materialist!

Materialist
Absolutely - agree with every word

Great post, materialist!

I fully admit to not having read the whole thread, but something is niggling at me and this involves concepts of cultural relativism as well as not only free speech but the right or capacity to name oppression.

A few times now I have been called to account for making statements about women in cultures other than those dominated by Western Enlightenment thinking. For example, I have been told that as a white-skinned woman (my heritage is mixed, but anyway) I can't comment on FGM or the wearing of covering clothing, etc. because I'm somehow oppressing women of other races, ethnicities and in particular faith groups and being all culturally imperialist and all that.

At the same time, I remember in the 70s when Persia/Iran went under religious rule and the wearing of the hijab was prescribed and ME and MANY Islamic women (some feminists and some not) clearly and loudly named this as patriarchal oppression. I know now women living in Islamic countries who cannot go out in public without wearing a cover because they will be spat on. These women are often denied public roles too because they are not seen as 'modest'. There is still a majority view (I think) that FGM is bad, but I'm worried that soon we will have to consider this as a cultural preference for fear of being seen as 'bigoted' and 'racist'.

My own view is that the Hijab is oppressive and that FGM a brutal violence. I won't personally discriminate against a woman for wearing a hijab (etc.), and I will 'mind my language' when discussing this and involve terms that are pejorative and might 'other' these women, but I will align myself with groups that speak out against hijab wearing and FGM. I will always take my cue and instruction from women who are 'of' these groups of course. I quite simply do not see this as either bigoted or racist and I will refuse to believe it is.

I agree that this situation is that of an emergency. But it doesn't mean that racism and classism are not problems too; nobody is saying to stop working towards a common goal(prevention of self-ID), these conversations can happen simultaneously.

the real question is how do we turn left politics away from the idealist and individualist privileging of subjectivity and back toward its roots in materialism, ie analyzing and combatting the concrete conditions of oppression — oppression meaning not how one feels internally but having the fruits of one’s labor and resources taken from one, with legal, political, and economic structures in place to enable and ensure that taking. As happens on the basis of class, race, and sex.

This is my priority. The intersection of classes and the impact of power structures. Individualist analysis will - however well-intentioned - only ever reproduce those power structures.

I agree this is an emergency, but I also think that:

1. all women have a right to know about this and object to it, whether they are daily mail readers or guardian readers or heat readers or good housekeeping readers or any other type of reader or don't even read at all.

2. we need to make sure every woman can hear, understand and relate to the arguments - an example of this going wrong was the big questions programme yesterday.

thebewilderness - I'm always grateful for the experience and 'the long view' you bring to these debates flowers

Same here, it’s invaluable.

Great post , Materialist.

There is still a majority view (I think) that FGM is bad, but I'm worried that soon we will have to consider this as a cultural preference for fear of being seen as 'bigoted' and 'racist'.

I think this already happened, YAS, and in fact accounts for the delay in the issue being taken seriously. I remember raising it as an example in an ethics class back in 2006 (to an uncomfortable reception); it was ages before it was more widely known about and discussed and I think ‘sensitivity’ to cultural ‘preferences’ was part of that.

FGM was actually widely discussed in the 70s and 80s - maybe it has gone unfashionable? I have been warned not to use it as an example when teaching (adults) because it is too confronting. Sigh.

Thanks for bringing things into sharp focus materialist.

As a feminist my priority is women - which of course means all women and when it comes to FGM and 'other' oppressive, misogynist cultural practices, my feeling is that we need to focus on as these things as relevant to us all as an attack on us as women and not be hesitant for fear of offending those still invested in them.

I have seen in very recent history accusations of feminist racism, classism, transphobia, islamophobia, 'whore'phobia, etc cause feminists a paralysis from second guessing their own motives and fear of re-enacting the oppression upon other groups that they experience themselves under patriarchy.

I have also seen this paralysis actively fostered by women themselves with deeply misogynist undertones - women becoming figures of hate because their skin is pale, their words articulate and their opinions uncompromising. It is misogyny that views feminist 'uppity' and unapologetic women as 'domineering' and seeks their no-platforming and removal from public life.

We are in a state of emergency and this paralysis is being actively fostered by T/MRA through bastardised intersectional theory.

Even as quite an aware child, I was not privy to discussions about FGM in the 80s, but I can believe it, YAS.

Even as quite an aware child, I was not privy to discussions about FGM in the 80s, but I can believe it, YAS

I was a student then - it was discussed and roundly condemned in women's studies classes.

What happened in the 90s (and 00s)?

From my point of view, despite having been involved in activism (not feminist activism) myself, I found it generally flat, politically. The 80s seemed to be a more politicised time, though as I say, a child’s eye view from within a particular context is unlikely to be free of significant distortion.

Now we have ID politics fracturing dissent into useless little pieces.

Off topic, really, but I’d be interested to know the perspectives of the more senior amongst us.