Why is comparing Womanface to Blackface offensive?

[Backinthecloset123]

I've seen quite a few people state this is offensive and still don't understand why.

Here's an example.

twitter.com/Bon_QuiGirl/status/1189546024479707137?s=19

Could someone explain?

The way I see it, the abhorrence of the history of slavery and racism, and of course blackface, can be equated to the abhorrence of Womanface due to the history of the rape, abuse, murder and hatred towards women by men, the FGM taking place to this day, the murdered female infants, the list goes on.

I am trying hard to understand and would love to hear why my thinking is wrong, and the comparison offensive. I have no hidden agenda.

Thank you for your opinion.

It is just that, though - an opinion. Same as my opinion. Same as any one else's opinion.

There's a feeling of "pulling rank" on this. Women are not allowed to talk about women's oppression.

RuPaul's dragrace is unpleasant and rife with negative female stereotypes, but it isn't being used as a tool to actively encourage violence against women.

And what of the males putting on the costume and saying "I'm a woman, being sexually harassed and treated as a piece of meat is so empowering that's it's literally the bestest thing ever; keep it up, boys"?

Are they actively encouraging violence against women? Because they're the type I'd describe as wearing "womanface."

Still glad of the explanations though - I may not agree with everyone else's analyses but it's pretty important to me to have a heads-up on why the use of a particular word is likely to screw up communication attempts.

I'm not sure why there is this argument about who had it harder, women or black people. It would be one thing if we were talking about a clearly disproportionate comparison that was trivialising, but I think that is pretty clearly no the case.

And I've never understood the comparison in this case to be so much about the things being equal in suffering, it's not really about that one way or the other, as being a similar kind of thing qualitatively. Even with that, it seems to be a comparison that is meant to be partial rather than complete.

And I still am not at all understanding how disagreeing with it being a good comparison makes it offensive. This seems to be a very different definition of offence than one used to find.

But no one is saying “women aren’t allowed to talk about women’s oppression”

No one. Please do talk about it.

Black women have tried to talk about their oppression, sexism + racism.

Idk, Maybe this thread is actually meant to be about UK Blackface, but the two tweet threads are US-based, so we’re at cross purposes.

If people specifically wish to discuss blackface by which, historically, white men and white women oppressed BW - would you not want to engage with BW (uk or us?)

AIBU?

I took "it's offensive" to mean, basically, "this actual word is triggering all sorts of unpleasant shit and it's seriously hindering the conversation even though we basically agree; can we be mindful please?"

Which, well, fair enough, no?

But I appreciate there's a wide range of opinions on whether the emotional content individuals attach to words as a result of their experiences is worth bearing in mind or utterly inconsequential.

I mean, I do my own version if the topic's child sexual abuse and I get a bit narked when people with no direct experience say I'm out of order for having built up negative associations with certain words. It'd be a bit hypocritical not to extend the courtesy I value to other women who've been fucked over by different points of the patriarchal stick, to my mind.

Bit different if someone's saying "I find this offensive so you categorically must not ever do it" obviously.

See, this type of comment is what I find disingenuous about this whole thing:

They have asked, could WW even sometimes, critique drag without comparing to blackface

Even sometimes? It's not a systemic endemic epidemic FFS. I see drag being critiqued all the time without reference to blackface.

This whole thing is about walking on eggshells. The pain, the agony of enduring these pertinent parallels! The emotional labour! It's divisive and racially essentialising.

Womanface and blackface are both examples of people being oppressed by white men.

Yes, I think it is a valid comparison. Women have been enslaved since time immemorial, because women are the class of people who can gestate and produce more humans, directly, because of our biology. Whereas men cannot.

Tyro you’re the least offensive person I know

I guess for people whose spaces are mostly white Or mostly black.. it doesn’t have much practical impact, if any.

People can say what they like. Everyone has their own line in the sand. I had no idea white people wanted to talk about blackface so much.. now I know!

To Pp (way bAck)... That guy in the paper I would call an AGP.

Because it's mainly white middle class males who are driving the Self-ID/Womanface thing. & It's male white privilege that's enabling their voices to be heard so loudly.

As socialised white males in the 1st instance had/have they been subjected to institutional racism, microaggressions, stereotyping, workplace and educational discrimination? No - they haven't.

& numerous white women haven't experienced any of that either.

The comparison is offensive. Co-opting the experiences of a people who are punished merely for the colour of their skin, particularly whilst black women in particular have no voice in all this really - even though will also be affected by concerning situations around Self-ID in womens' spaces, is dismissive.

Aa dismissive as Self-ID
having the nerve to claim their experiences are akin to the discrimination faced by black women.

Swings & roundabouts. Different hymn-sheet but same song on both sides isn't it

I took "it's offensive" to mean, basically, "this actual word is triggering all sorts of unpleasant shit and it's seriously hindering the conversation even though we basically agree; can we be mindful please?" Which, well, fair enough, no?

I think this really depends. There is a sense in which I'd say, yes, if a word is causing problems why not just drop it.

But I think that sort of demand is happening a lot, in a lot of different contexts, with the question of really looking at the nature of the upset itself being set aside without real examination. There is an increasing tendency to create these sets of taboo words or taboo settings to use them or to say that words and comparisons belong to certain people by virtue of this racialised ideology. This whole tendency seems to me to be very questionable and reduces our ability to talk about things and analyse them, and just think about them. Often we learn more about things by comparing and contrasting with other phenomena, or by using something someone is quite familiar with to give a sense of a situation they are less familiar with.

In general, by strong inclination is to resist these kinds of demands to create taboo language and phrases without extremely strong reasons.

In terms of individuals who find it painful to talk about certain things, sure. In individual personal conversation, sure, though it's not easy to know what will bother people. But at the same time in a more theoretical discussion on a serious topic, or in a class, or article, I'm not sure that kind of personal sensitivity has much place.

I still think that if someone thinks the comparison isn't relevant, they should argue that, and if its a strong element there should be no need to bring this business of offence into it.

It's divisive and racially essentialising

That is what libfems / TW say when women talk about sex based oppression: "stop being divisive and bio-essentialist - sex doesn't matter, only our shared gender! We must unite against the real enemy: c*s men!"

I may be misunderstanding, but the message I hear to BW is "stop being divisive and racially essentialising - race doesn't matter, only our shared sex! We must unite against the real enemy: men."

I know its uncomfortable to talk about. But race matters (I wish it didn't).

Womanface and blackface are both examples of people being oppressed by white men.

'Womenface' = white women and black women oppressed by men (white and black)

Blackface = black women and black men, oppressed by white people (men and women)

Women have been enslaved since time immemorial, because women are the class of people who can gestate and produce more humans, directly, because of our biology

I agree with you.

And for women enslaved, colonised or "protected" by white people, enforced sexual relationships with white males resulted in babies who could be (a) sold as chattels (b) removed without consent to train as servants. Etc. There are people now in their 50s, who (b) applies to. They are over-represented in the prison and mental health systems; they are suffering the loss of single sex spaces.

I am not saying being married to the dreamboat and bearing legitimate children was a walk in the park, mind

Just another way for men to instigate division among women.

I think we all know what we mean by "womanface".

It's only men who object to it. And handmaidens.

Can I put my hand up and admit to actually not having the faintest idea what "racially essentialising" means?

In fairness I'm not convinced libfems actually know what it means either. "Our shared gender matters, not our sex" being prime evidence that they're not massively down with bothering to check they've understood a word before throwing it around willy-nilly.

I may be wrong, but I understand it to mean placing excessive importance on race.

“Bio-essentiallist” is what TRAs call us for placing excessive importance on sex. They need everyone to overlook sex, so they can erase that axis of oppression.

And for women enslaved, colonised or "protected" by white people, enforced sexual relationships with white males resulted in babies who could be (a) sold as chattels (b) removed without consent to train as servants.

This isn't a white-people thing. This is a people thing. Vikings did it. Middle Eastern desert tribes did it. All over the world, this is what the human species has been doing for a very long time. Find a weaker outgroup, kill or enslave the men, rape the women, treat the resulting children as property - that's patriarchy, in a nutshell. It's what men do.

When I use racially essentialising I mean that it's the idea that a race has a group think. That they're all the same because of their race. Whereas in reality you have plenty of different people from a single race with totally contrasting views. What separates people should be their ideology not their race. Experiences and ideas from a person's perspective need to be prioritised and respected if they are relevant to the issue. But I do not accept the idea that all black people care about preventing "painful" parallels with their experiences. Those that don't care are not commenting or getting involved. They think yawn, as I do when I don't give a fuck about an issue affecting my characteristics.

So in these debates because US cultural imperialists are really dominant in laying down their views, we think that it's the dominant view or if we don't follow it we're not respecting their experience.

The best parallel, if I may make one, is how nowadays we can't publicly express support for Iranian women activists without being told hijabs are a choice choice and it's islamophobic to show solidarity with these women.

The discourse iirc was from black, radical feminists, using class based analysis, who represented only their own views

Calling them “US cultural imperialists” is ridiculous hyperbole. Black rad feminists are deboosted, suspended and Twitter jailed like no one else on earth.

People can agree to disagree - it’s not the end of the world and doesn’t mean the outreach was a waste or failure.

To be clear, of course not all black people care about blackface / drag .. Nor do all white people. I have friends who love drag

A few Black radfems put their view out there to GC feminists, that’s all. Its more relevant in shared spaces if you’re in them, as opposed to FWR

I support the White Wednesday women. Truly courageous and inspiring 🌹

Maybe 'yellowface' is a more apt analogy, as I don't think it was a crude propaganda tool to allow and encourage violence, but I don't know much about it's history, and I don't think it will catch on, tbh.

I think we all know what we mean by "womanface".

It's only men who object to it. And handmaidens.

That's clearly not true. This has not been a discussion between handmaidens and radfems. I'm a fucking radfem, and I personally think that it's not a helpful term wrt drag which is where I've seen it most used, but I can see it may be more appropriate when talking about actual threats of violence by blokes performing femininity.

I'm not trying to 'ban' a term, I've just read the critiques, think they make a fair point, and come to my own conclusions about what I will say in the future. I don't really understand why, when calmly explaining that, I am getting long rants about women's oppression in return, as though I'm not actually a proper feminist for listening to the perspective of some specific women and adjusting my conclusions accordingly.

The word that sprang into my mind to use about Kenny Everett or the depraved abortion guy was ‘body snatchers’. I think it better fits what they’re up to than ‘woman face’ and contains the macabre element which is present when men do this to women. I’m sure it could be modified to make it even more accurate.

It’s ridiculous to call black American women ‘handmaidens’ or cultural imperialists, for objecting to the use of this word. Male supremacy is also white supremacy in the west, and black American women are subject to both. We know words matter, so it might be worth listening to them when they’re explaining the significance.

Read a novel on this a while ago Valerie Martin Property. About slavery and the position of women in that society at the time not an easy read but very good won the orange prize a while ago

'Drag is entertainment based on stereotypes, often negative ones, of women. Blackface was entertainment based on horrible caricatures of black people'

Sober now.
Your statement still says that drag is not caricature.
Telling me off for having a drink won't change the words you wrote.

You were very clear and I strongly disagree. Take another look at the Kenny Everett video. That's not a horrible caricature. Well ok I don't know what you see then.

'As socialised white males in the 1st instance had/have they been subjected to institutional racism, microaggressions, stereotyping, workplace and educational discrimination? No - they haven't.

& numerous white women haven't experienced any of that either.'

Racism >> see Irish posters comment earlier
As for the rest, I don't understand how a feminist can make those claims. My industry has a pay Gap of 40+%. Women were vastly over represented in those hit by austerity. And way more likely to live in poverty. No microagressions? From men? In the UK? Micro and plenty of overt too, irrespective of class. Yes women with additional axes of oppression have a worse time but the idea that educated white women get no shit is bollocks. It's just as illegal for her to get an abortion in ni. She'll experience Street harassment and be at risk of partner violence etc etc

You need to stop downplaying the real issues that women have, to prove a point.