"A subset of women"

[JellySlice]

The statement "black women are a subset of women" appears to cause offence, but I don't understand why. Surely black women are a subset of women in the same way as Jewish women, Polish women, refugee women and diabetic women are subsets of women? Isn't that what intersectional feminism is about?

Is this statement offensive on its own, or only when hijacked by the AWA TRAs?

Submariners are not inferior to other sailors! yes hipsterfun because submariners have had to endure centuries of being othered/treat and made to feel inferior by sailors

As a woman - and I think we can agree women have endured othering/inferior-isation by men since forever - I can’t say I’m bothered if women are referred to as a subset of people.

If you want to take issue with a common prefix that features in such solid-gold classics as subterranean, subcontinent, subtraction, subcommittee, subcutaneous, submersible, and my all time favourite, subversion, that’s up to you.

TRAs using the racist subset bullshit is... racist bullshit. Obviously.

I'm interested in that re Crenshaw (I've never read her, or tbh much else about intersectional feminism but I know what susbsets and intersections are). It sounds much like what I was trying to say upthread :

^ It's a phrase which is used cynically by TRAs to make a false equivalence with an intersectionally oppressed group of women.

But perhaps one of the points of intersectional feminism should be a reminder that white women are a subset of women. Western women are a subset of women. Etc. That it ain't all about white western women?

'Subset' should be a neutral, mathematical term but the way it's used is politicised.^

Woah. What a thread.

I'm a visual thinker and I've always seen things like this as and not other, and popped onto a Venn diagram. I may be thinking more simply about this than required but sometimes that's the best way.

And in primary school science it's characteristics of living things. I couldn't remember if subset is a term in Venns so I went off to check.

It doesn't appear to be so. It seems that the term to describe the area where two characteristics are shared is union and the area is called the intersection.

From Wikipedia:
The combined region of sets A and B is called the unionn^ of A and B, denoted by A ∪ B. The union in this case contains all living creatures that are either two-legged or that can fly (or both).
The region in both A and B, where the two sets overlap, is called the intersectionn of A and B, denoted by A ∩ B. For example, the intersection of the two sets is not empty, because there are points that represent creatures that are in both^ the orange and blue circles.

I've always seen this as where you are trying to show that women with another protected characteristic are doubly disadvantaged. So being a woman and severely disabled leaves her more vulnerable to sexual abuse in a care home. Being a woman and black means you are subject to the extra layer that comes with racism and misogyny.

The Venn groups would be A) BAME (men and women) and B) women. The union would be BAME women.

So you can't put TW into an intersection with women on one side and ?? Men on the other unless you use gender stereotypes. So it doesn't work.

I tried to get my head around set (subset) theory applied in this way and it doesn't seem to work (using scientific criteria) but I need to look at it again and at the quote upthread.

So again a situation where semantics and scientific and this time mathematical criteria have been skewed / used and then misled (if TW are W.)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venn_diagram

Set theory:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_theory

Subset' should be a neutral, mathematical term but the way it's used is politicised.

Yes all these terms are politicised. And all have real life implications for actual people.

I probably shouldn't have used BAME as an example except that where ever racism exists, BAME people are at risk of disadvantages.

But, as many pp have said, none of the mathematical terms work if you're not using accurate scientific terms with in the methods. Also real life people are so extremely complex with multiple aspects of their being that can be seen as either privileges and disadvantages, the whole thing quickly becomes extremely messy.

The offence hasn't really been conjured out of thin air, though, has it?

Yes, it's a mathematical term, but 'sub' doesn't mean 'part', it means 'under':

'a prefix occurring originally in loanwords from Latin ( subject; subtract; subvert; subsidy ); on this model, freely attached to elements of any origin and used with the meaning“under,” “below,” “beneath” ( subalpine; substratum ), “slightly,” “imperfectly,” “nearly” ( subcolumnar; subtropical ), “secondary,” “ ...

I think there's plenty of faux-naivety on this thread.

Women does not mean white women - I can't believe that needs to be stated here. For a group to be a subset they need to be a smaller group within a group which is different from that group. Since 'women' includes all races then a racial subset makes no sense. Also... there are far more black women than white women in the world (again, wtf, why do I have to say this?). So if we are taking some weird definition of subset then it is white women who would be a subset. But this would still not be right since "woman" does not contain any qualifier for race, ability, sexuality, etc. It just means adult human female.

Yes, it's a mathematical term, but 'sub' doesn't mean 'part', it means 'under'

That's why I don't think the term works at all.

A Venn diagram is 'and.' Union of two characteristics. So doubly oppressed in the case of black women.

But a Venn diagram showing overlap between 'black' and 'women' does not demonstrate the complete inclusion of black women within the group 'women' .

Purple = women
Red = black group wholly within 'women', ie black women
Green = white group wholly within 'women', ie white women
Yellow = transmen, some wiil be black, some white, some neither, but still wholly within 'women'.

I've been following this thread and am in the camp of 'subset' is an objective, scientific term that, when accurately used, should not be considered offensive because it refers to all groups that are part of the whole set, regardless of their privilege (although I do understand that the 'sub' prefix is socially loaded).

Then the TRAs came along with their racist false equivalence of black women and males, and made it all a hell of a lot more complicated, because that really is disgraceful. I don't think that there would necessarily be such an emotional response to the word 'subset' had it stayed out of this debate and only been used in terms of genuine intersectionality and recognising the additional layers of oppression of some women (due to for example racism or ableism) in order to address and eradicate that oppression. We wouldn't hear about the subsets of white women or able bodied women as much, but that's because we generally don't talk about white women or able bodied women as being disadvantaged (and therefore they aren't relevant subsets to be discussed when addressing intersectionality), but that doesn't change the fact that white and able bodied women are still subsets of the whole set of women.

Whether or not you agree with the inclusion of the 'sub' prefix in the word generally, the dictionary definition (and we do like those) is clear that it does not mean that something in a subset is in any way less than the whole, it's just a part.

So it seems to be another objective, neutral word that TRAs have come along and politicised with their 'me me me' politics, cries of thought crimes, and desire to completely control discourse, and I really don't want to fall down the rabbit hole of changing clearly defined language on the basis of TRA politics. Do we really want to be employing the same logic as they did with their objection to the word 'woman'?

If we all can't agree than can I suggest 'cohort' as an alternative?

Yy to socfem.

Also, as another pp said, subsets in relation to living things are used in evolutionary descriptions eg as said finches, but if this idea is applied to humans, it is definitely extremely offensive for many, for obvious reasons.

Doesn't demonstrate the complete inclusion of black women within the group 'women' .

It's not supposed to. Venns don't work in all contexts. as i have found when trying to do this with shapes with 7 yr olds

You can't show inclusion like that.

You can only show the extra layer of oppression. Or advantage, eg in the natural world. Biped and winged.

Fionne had a conversation on her twitter debating inclusion and sets.

Interestingly she and others changed a particular image around that I later saw Prof Glazzard at Leeds Becket LGBT college tweet as an example of inclusion; I always meant to go back and look at it more closely.

But a Venn diagram showing overlap between 'black' and 'women' does not demonstrate the complete inclusion of black women within the group 'women'

I'm typing while solo parenting so really not a great idea to join in with complex debates.

It doesn't in the diagram you've posted but I Personally wouldn't draw it like that.

The statement "black women are a subset of women" appears to cause offence, but I don't understand why. Surely black women are a subset of women in the same way as Jewish women, Polish women, refugee women and diabetic women are subsets of women? Isn't that what intersectional feminism is about?

Interestingly you don't refer to white women being a sub set of women? There's a kind of unconscious assumption here that white is the main model and all else a mere deviation of form - which is racist.

Black women, White women - are all women - not sub-sets of anything.

But blackwomen are a subset of women (trans women aren’t). Do people think subset means something it doesnt? This thread is confusing

"Sub-set" is an issue, yes. Women of different colour, experience, class, religion or grouping are all women. Some women have additional oppressions to deal with on account of their class, their race, their country etc What matters most is their femaleness - certainly for me.

But a Venn diagram showing overlap between 'black' and 'women' does not demonstrate the complete inclusion of black women within the group 'women

“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.” “How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice. “You must be,” said the Cat, or you wouldn’t have come here.”

Rather than the phrase 'sub-sets' it is, maybe, more relevant to talk about different axis & locations of experience . So, we're all women, but have different backgrounds, cultures and experiences.

The sub-set 'thing' seems to have arisen as a result of ideas and theories around inter-sectionality. It is as if nobody has ever before noticed that some women are oppressed not just as a result of their biological sex, but also on the basis of their skin colour or their disability or whatever.

Interestingly you don't refer to white women being a sub set of women? There's a kind of unconscious assumption here that white is the main model and all else a mere deviation of form - which is racist.

Also incredibly arrogant and factually wrong.

In the world at large white women are in the minority.

All these people drastically misunderstanding what 'sub' means must get very upset when they go into Subway or any subterranean tunnels

'Subway': a thoroughfare below the ground.

'Subterranean': below the earth.

Who's misunderstanding what?

We're all mad here.

Is inter-sectionality obsessed with what divides us, rather than what unites us? It just a funny way of coming at things.

"Some commentators have described the manifestation of intersectionality as being similar to the way religious faith manifests itself. Notably, for example, conservative political commentator Andrew Sullivan argues that the practice of intersectionality manifests itself "almost as a religion. It posits a classic orthodoxy through which all of human experience is explained—and through which all speech must be filtered. Its version of original sin is the power of some identity groups over others. To overcome this sin, you need first to confess, i.e., 'check your privilege,' and subsequently live your life and order your thoughts in a way that keeps this sin at bay."[69][70] David A. French, writer for the National Review, states that proponents of intersectionality are "zealots of a new religious faith" intending to fill a "religion-shaped hole in the human heart". Additionally, he describes "extremist intersectionality" as justifying "intolerance in the name of tolerance".[71] "

So it seems to be another objective, neutral word that TRAs

Not just the TRAs - all the social constructionists, pomo-addled and queer theorists.

Even the term intersectionality, which Crenshaw coined as a material analysis (via set theory) of structural oppression has been warped by this crowd into a superficial hierarchy of identity components.

The poor woman even made a video about it:

Just posting for anyone interested.

racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/mapping-margins.pdf

This is Crenshaw's original paper on domestic violence and how American black and Latina women are let down by structural forces of different kinds because they exist at intersections - or the margins of - those structural forces, including the intersections of feminism and anti-racism as well as legal anti-discrimination frameworks.

It's a brilliant paper and written very clearly.