The problem with white feminism

[FrackOff]

Listen to this amazing podcast on white feminism, the link with the right wing, racism and colonialism pca.st/vzbdlq7j

You need to hear the whole thing to get the whole argument

Bin men are doing a public service, the waste is on the street. Window cleaning require specialist equipment (ladders) that not everybody has access to.

The point about male bosses was mainly rhetorical, given how unthinkable it seems to be for men, especially important men, to clean up after themselves.

Sorry but I still don't see how it can be inherently wrong to employ people to do some domestic tasks but not others.

There are abuses of women in domestic roles, women who are trafficked from poor nations and have passports and phones confiscated, who are given no time off. See the 'Maids for Sale' thread for example. But that is not in anyway the same as employing a cleaner on normal terms as people like CarolCutrere are doing. I see no reason why those who can afford to pay to outsource such tasks shouldn't do so just as people outsource gardening, painting and decorating or numerous other tasks they are perfectly capable of doing themselves.

I know that logically it can be regarded as similar to other cleaning roles.
However I just don't feel personally comfortable with it. It feels exploitative.
Instead of displacing "feminine roles" to men, we are displacing them to low paid, low status women. And this is being defended because painting and decorating (a specialised trade, infrequent task) is the same? It doesn't feel the same to me.

The point about male bosses was mainly rhetorical, given how unthinkable it seems to be for men, especially important men, to clean up after themselves

I don't think it wise or fair to categorise and lump all people ( 'men', 'white women/feminists'...... )into a fixed category and assign it negative connotations. It may be understandable as a rhetorical political device, but can up sounding bigoted.

Some men are very fastidious about cleanliness, just like some women; and don't piss all over toilet seats, or up walls or whatever.

Arnold, why do you think men draw "arbritary lines" around what they regard as women's work, and refuse to do themselves - domestic work, cleaning, caring for others? Do you think they just chose tasks randomly or is there more to it than that?

In feminism this is a significant question.

It's not the same terfsandwich and all the women here playing the daft lassie here know it isn't too.

can end up sounding bigoted

I"m always going to talk about men as a class Justhadathought. That's what radical feminism does. Exceptions don't disprove the rule.

Claiming it sounds "bigoted" is whataboutthemenz and I would argue has no place here.

I guess the difference is that I don't see cleaning as an unskilled task not on a par with painting and decorating. I sure as hell don't see childcare as an unskilled task. Indeed one of the issues I see with child care roles is the barriers to entry for working class women to areas like child minding because of the level of non-childcare specific requirements around insurance, food hygiene etc that child minders have to fulfil.

Claiming it sounds "bigoted" is whataboutthemenz and I would argue has no place here

It does sound bigoted, though. It is perfectly possible to discuss broad and general concepts and political ideas without lumping everyone in. That there are are still heavily gendered expectations and roles, and that roles that women mainly carry out that are valued far less......but real life is far more nuanced and subtle than just saying " all men". It is an unnecessary sledgehammer.

Same with the posters on here who talk about 'white feminism' - thereby discounting everything that is said or held to be important by women just because they are white. Nothing a 'white feminist' ever says or does can possibly centre black women in the way that the posters expect them to be. White feminism, and therefore white women are automatic oppressors and just need to shut up and listen.

@Justhadathought I think your argument here agrees with what Alison Phipps is saying in the podcast in theory if not in application. She is saying we can't talk about 'all women' without considering how various kinds of privilege skew our perceptions. She isn't saying white feminists should shut up and listen. She is one herself, as many have pointed out, and she isn't shutting up. What she's saying is that white feminists need to be aware of whose voices and experiences (current and historical) they are including or excluding when they talk about 'women' as a group.That's how she links trans exclusion and racism in some current discourse.

The podcast is hosted by a Black feminist, Chantelle Lewis, who has a.invited Alison Phipps on, b. agrees with most of what she says, although not everything, and c. has her own voice and opinions, much of which has been ignored or decentred by posters on this thread, which I think rather makes Alison Phipps' point

Driechdrizzle
How many middle class people clean other people’s toilets for money? Nobody was saying that cleaning was exclusively done by working class women, but the fact is cleaning is overwhelmingly done by working class women*

Your posts get more and more bizarre. Unless you actually want to completely abolish the capitalist system and replace it with some sort of bizarre Marxist collective (which I suspect you probably do ) it can't have escaped your attention that there are many, many jobs done by working class women and working class men.

Claiming it sounds "bigoted" is whataboutthemenz and I would argue has no place here

It and you do sound bigoted. And your suggestion that saying so has no place here compounds your bigotry.

You are still ignoring that white vs "POC" is an Americanised viewpoint that is irrelevant here.

BAME - which we use in the U.K., and which is where we and AP are talking from - includes minority ethnicities that happen to have lower melanin.

The "cleaning ladies" being discussed above are (in my area) at present far more likely to be Eastern European than darker skinned immigrants

Further to BeyondBreakingPoint's comment regarding the irrelevance of viewing UK issues via an Americanised lense I would add that it is also unhelpful to numerous international issues.

Pleas see this thread for example

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3740646-Maids-For-Sale

Women from poor countries being abused in an appalling way,, enabled by the same tech giants who are forcing trans ideology on an unwilling populace to the detriment of all women.

Errr, have any of you actually been a cleaner? I was a cleaner for a long time. All the way through university, with a few other jobs here and there. Including a sex line and shops, both worse imo.

Yes, I do have Thoughts about cleaning people's houses and capitalism but comparing domestic cleaning to sex work? Nobody needs a sex worker, lots of people need a cleaner because they are disabled or old. Most of my clients were elderly women, as it happened. Most of the other cleaners at the agencies I worked for were white Polish and local British women with kids, if you are interested.

I would much rather be trafficked into cleaning houses than fucking strange men, fyi. I have no idea who any of you are, maybe you're working class and hated cleaning, I don't know, this looks quite bad to (working class) me.

What she's saying is that white feminists need to be aware of whose voices and experiences (current and historical) they are including or excluding when they talk about 'women' as a group.That's she links trans exclusion and racism in some current discourse

We should all be conscious that our own particular experience is not at the centre of everyone else's universe, nor does it relate, exactly, to everyone's experience......that doesn't invalidate arguments or campaigns by any particular groups of people, though. We all tend to campaign for things closest to our own heart and experience. Things which move us.

This 'white feminism' thing is a red herring as far as I'm concerned - and seems to stem from the politics of intersectionality - in which each group vies to be centred, in leagues of oppression. Not only does it highlight the difference between people & groups ( which is of course valid) but arguably it cements them in place, reinforces and upholds them.

The women's movement I know has always been about all women; and the sufferings of the the most marginalised the benchmark for how far we've come. Feminism for me has always been about recognising our common humanity; recognising our common condition as women. Of course some women are oppressed by their ow particular situations and conditions in a way which might not, necessarily, effect us personally - doesn't mean we cannot empathise and support.

What I see is that many women are caught in a conflict between their ethnic identity, and their position as women in those specific cultures, as well as in the world at large.

Womanhood is not an identity; being female is a fact that cannot be changed. Cultures can change though; people can break out of their class, out of their specific social, religious, or cultural confines...they need not be fixed identities; unless you want them to be and seek to preserve them.

much rather be trafficked into cleaning houses than fucking strange men, fyi. I have no idea who any of you are, maybe you're working class and hated cleaning, I don't know, this looks quite bad to (working class) me

Terfsandwich and Dreichdrizzle's posts seem to be driven by class hatred as much as anything. One or other , I can't recall which and can't be bothered checking, has also run the line that anyone employing help looks down on their employees. That bears no resemblance to my experience or anyone I know who hires help.

I think it's interesting (I have no further analysis than "interesting" atm!) that the jobs viewed as those that should not be outsourced are those thought of as generally "Female" - cleaning, childcare etc, whereas those that are okay to be outsourced are more "Male" - DIY type tasks. There is a definite parallel between those jobs being done as employment and those carried out in the typical home - with women doing the everyday drudge of well, everything, and men doing the one-off or more rare jobs like taking bins out or mowing the lawn.

Knowing that there will be no instant societal change that will make chores be evenly split, it seems it's the women who must carry on with everything and not outsource, whereas the men can do so with no qualms. The focus on women not using other women for such here - whilst arguing that stereotypically men's roles are fine to be competed by others - looks suspiciously like a trojan horse to me.

have any of you actually been a cleaner?

Yes I worked my way through university as a cleaner in a large, predominantly psychiatric though it also had some specialist medical wards and central services for the trust, hospital and have also had stints cleaning in factories.

I enjoyed my time at the hospital enormously. It was a real eye opener in terms of understanding mental health issues and I enjoyed spending time with local people rather than students. The factory jobs were rather more meh but they paid the bills and were a lot less dull than production line work which I've also done.

Never done sex work and would never want to. It isn't even vaguely comparable in my view.

My mother worked as a cleaner, and as housekeeper, at different times when I was growing up; also looked after the elderly parents of people who were working full time.

These were roles she felt she could do quite happily - and she developed good relationships and even friendships with some of the people she was employed by. One person even left her not an insubstantial amount of money in her will.

My view is that outsourcing your cleaning is completely fine, providing you pay properly for it

The issue is if you are under paying and therefore exploiting the people cleaning for you

Nannying in London had me earning 50+k.

There are people who very much have the idea that you're of lower status and not very bright. Most women I know who nanny were trained ( I'm not, didn't finished my history degree either) a lot went on to do teacher training or nursing after, have families start their own businesses, the housekeepers I worked with were normally studying (accounting and social work etc) and I've worked for some really interesting and inspiring women.

The issue with nanny and paye isn't getting under paid generally in the U.K. (and NZ) but employers trying to not pay any/ all tax and pensions.

There's a rather large difference in the U.K. pay wise between a private nanny and a childminder/babysitter or even an au pair. The idea of the darker skinned, poorly paid nanny is another Americanism, isn't it?

That is not to say that childcare isn't viewed as menial work - the fact that pp have automatically lumped nanny in with other childcare demonstrates that. I'm simply saying that our idea of poorly paid jobs is again being influenced by US norms.

Somewhat ironically telling of the colonialism effect espoused by AP - that posters have to keep reminding others that we are not in America, isn't it. :)