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

In truth I did have a small vodka and coke while browsing Mumsner last night.

Bought it myself out of Tesco though, I don't think there were any Russians around but one can't be too careful these days.

It is after all lunchtime in Moscow.

Well, the vodka I'd be up for but my Russian pronunciation isn't great.

I reject the use of 'white feminism' as a slur to those who don't wish to include men's sexual rights activism in their feminism.

This. It's a very common deployment of the term, and often by white women who consider themselves feminist, white TRAs, and white male allies of both these groups.

White privilege is relevant when considering issues concerning women and race in feminism, it is completely irrelevant when considering the inclusion of mainly white, men who wish to be recognised as women.

Exactly.

Here you go, OP, have some imperative of your own.

Read Pragna Patel's FiLia speech:

filia.org.uk/news/2019/10/29/sbs-bradford-connection-and-the-politics-of-simultaneous-resistance

See what actual liberatory politics look like: internationalist, collaborative, class-based, positive, uplifting, inspirational.

What a far cry from bourgeois, third wave, identifarian, faux intersectional feminism's endless hectoring and picking and blindness to class.

Here is the FWR thread about it. Sad to see it passed you by:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3730067-Pragna-Patels-speech-from-FiLiA-Southall-Black-Sisters-Bradford-connection-and-the-politics-of-simultaneous-resistance

That is a great piece justturtles.

(Eagerly awaits explanation of how Frack just knows in her heart of hearts that Pragna Patel works for Vladimir Putin.)

Yeah I don’t like White Feminism. I really don’t and I think it is a thing. I think its main proponents are people like Alison Phipps and Sally Hines. Their ‘feminism’ is based around centering males and ridiculing and downplaying legitimate concerns from women. It is a patronising and exclusive form of feminism that is based on upholding capitalist and neoliberal values. Its tactics involve positioning yourself as better or different to other women and public takedowns and crucifixions of women that you disagree with. I think it’s abhorrent and it’s shocking that someone like Phipps lacks the insight to see that she is doing the very thing that she is supposedly campaigning against.

Is it time to roll out WBH again?

It seems like Alison Phipps’ students have got the measure of her though.... I would also rather stay in bed than listen to her.

As well as my liking of vodka I realise I have also been known to enjoy 19th century Russian literature.

If 'taken in by Russian trolls' means 'has been known to read Dostoyevsky' I must plead guilty as charged.

Can you blame them? If forced to attend her lectures I'd take headphones and a pillow.

I suppose Gogol could be regarded as a sort of proto-troll.

Reality apparently she’s not as interesting as she thinks she is

The difference between white and brown feminism is that brown feminism is often more pragmatic and gets things done by working within misogynistic systems, while white feminism is often radical and tries to make major infrastructural changes without encouraging grass roots change. There also seems to be a conflation of white feminism with TRA / LGBT rights which are both separate issues in non-white countries.

For example how many people know that women across the Middle East managed to use Islamic law to ban male lingerie staff by boycotting all local lingerie shops? It was so successful that even high end make up stores now only employ women.

Indian grass roots feminism is rooted in business. How many people know that poor women in the major Indian cities nearly all work yet their type of work (cooking / cleaning / dairy / demolition / bricklaying / rubbish collection services) wasn’t unionised until the feminist organisations stepped in to show them how. Now because of unions most of these professions essentially have a city wide minimum wage; and in a lot of cities women can earn more in these professions than men.

From Raquel. Rosario Sanchez piece linked to on page 1

Notably, during my time as an immigrant in the US, most of the people who complained to me about what they called “white feminism” were white themselves. I felt tokenized; like they wanted me, as a Dominican woman of colour, to validate them and their feminism. I became suspicious of all white people who used the term. Criticizing “white feminism” seemed to be a way for white people to present themselves as different, better white people — as cool, “intersectional” feminists who just happen to be white.

Now that I am back in the Dominican Republic doing shelter work, I believe my friend from grad school was right about one thing: white feminism is real. It is epitomized by gender identity ideology.

The current trend among third wavers, as well as among progressives, is to argue that we can ignore whether people were born male or female and instead use language like “genderfluid,” “multi-gender,” or “genderqueer.” But there’s a massive gap between this language — popularized within Gender Studies classrooms in the West — and the realities of marginalized women in countries like mine.

www.feministcurrent.com/2017/07/26/white-feminism-thing-gender-identity-ideology-epitomizes/

I mean, I know low student attendance is a bit of a problem but if you have 3 out of 80 students for half a semester then chances are it’s because of you. Probably because you expect them to accept your rubbish uncritically and because you tell them that none of their experiences could ever compare with those of a transwoman. Oh and that they are crying white tears over sexual assaults and should just recognise their privilege and shut up. I do wonder why you’re so unpopular, Alison.

Thanks LBD. I love Raquel. It’s nearly ALWAYS white woke women who use the term to try to point-score and to set themselves up as different and better than the rest. Often ageist too- explicitly and disgustingly so. They also frequently invoke really offensive stereotypes of black women and suggest that they aren’t ‘real women’ which is such utter offensive bullshit that I don’t know where to start. There are plenty of women of colour in the GC movement.

Oh and I have zero clue how Alison and Sally’s woke ‘cis-privilege’ discourse is supposed to help the many women across the globe who are raped, mutilated, killed at birth etc. Yep, super privileged in comparison to the white middle class men and boys who decide they feel like a woman.

I didn’t know that grumpy

Thanks. This is such a great place here wher we get to learn

But there’s a massive gap between this language — popularized within Gender Studies classrooms in the West — and the realities of marginalized women in countries like mine.

There's a massive gap between the language of Gender Studies classrooms in the West and the realities of marginalised women period.

It isn't helping the Syrian refugee women down the road from me, it isn't helping the learning disabled women who frequent my workplace, it isn't helping the teenage girl my neighbour fosters.

Quite the opposite, it is taking resources away from all these rather more pressing matters, but I guess these are just cunty women with real problems so who cares?

I mean, I know low student attendance is a bit of a problem but if you have 3 out of 80 students for half a semester then chances are it’s because of you.

Absolutely. 20% of students not attending a lecture, I would class as poor attendance / abnormal. There is definitely something else going on there.

sounds pretty racist if you ask me. im sure a thread critiquing "Black feminism" etc would not have been taken too well and rightly so.

seems like white people can never do anything right ever again because someone long ago who isnt alive anymore did colonialism.

Nothing will ever be enough for these people.

Honestly, academic gender discourse is about as First World Problems as it gets. In the rest of the world all feminism is focused on the material realities of women's lives because of course it bloody well is.

I remember when the stories about the women's village in Kenya hit the news and there were TRAs handwringing dramatically about whether or not it was inclusive of transwomen and I was just going, well, in the event that any show up I'm sure they'll put that right at the top of their priority list.

[hmm}