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

There's a specifically US problem that it's an excessively 'carceral' society, with disproportionate numbers of black people being jailed, sometimes for minor infringements of the law. If that's being conflated with 'should rapists and sex slave traffickers be jailed' then all its proof of is horribly muddled woman-blaming 'thinking'.

Yes that's a good point, but it's a popular idea here too, and yes, seems to be directed mostly at the female victims of sex and other violent crime and those who advocate for their justice when it comes up in "feminism".

Non-white women in distress inspire less sympathy than white women even amongst people of their own race. It’s one of the key reasons why maternity outcomes across the western world are worse for non-white women. Happens in the UK too - Milton Keynes General was forced to turn into a teaching hospital (or close) because of systemic racism across the board when it came to how the hospital treated non-white women compared to white women.

I, for one, spend all day hating men. After all, the arguments against workplace discrimination, sexual violence and self ID just disappear without a little man-hate.

zero interest.

Still remember my sister to stop being an ‘overdramatic idiot’ because the started screaming when a consultant wanted to stitch her third degree tear up before the local anesthetic could kick in. She had to be pushed off her by a midwife. Thankfully bil works for the NHS and was able to make one of the highest level of complaints - apparently this Indian consultant did this a lot to Indian patients.

Sorry to post and dash but some of us jobs y'know

It's not an order people, just a reference to listen to if you want to! No point in engaging if you haven't listened though, as I wanted to know what people thought, particularly about the postcolonial aspect of white feminist.

If you want to talk to me about the podcast, @ me in your response

Fuck a duck Lang, I was really hoping I had missed something. Gosh. Goodness. Well indeed.

As others have said, equating the genuine problem of over-use of jail sentences for minor crimes committed by blacks people, which I do understand is a serious injustice in the US especially (here too) with the idea that jailing a Brock Turner or Larry Nassar is wrong is just... well. Scary.

Postcolononial?

Seems we're firmly in the American cultural/political colonial era.

@FrackOff What on earth did you like about it?

What do you think to the critiques on the thread that her arguments lack coherence?

Also, it's very long and very repetitive. I think people don't need to listen to the whole thing to engage.

Ok.@FrackOff this is a quote from the podcast

Rad feminists define women by their capacity to reproduce which apparently excludes black women

In the words of a PP, how does that work then? Do you agree with Alison on this point? If so why?

Not sure how the US not prosecuting a white man (Brock Turner) for raping an Asian woman (the victim wasn't white, and since this is super woke anti carceral feminism we will be ignoring the working or middle class townies versus rich kids at elite university and a judge who was an alumnus of the very same university aspect of that case) would help black men, but I'm sure Frack will be happy to explain. Or Alison, if she vanity searches her own name.

Post colonial feminism?

Colonialism
the policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically.

I don't come from a background where that activity was a positive for white women. I come from a background where the wholesale movement of jobs to other countries was devastating on the economy and for women. There was a real woman from that region crying her white tears on TV yesterday about how this is still starving people. In a 95% white area.

This is such silly privileged writing.

Let’s start from the beginning @FrackOff , can you explain how you define ‘white feminism’?

There's a specifically US problem that it's an excessively 'carceral' society, with disproportionate numbers of black people being jailed, sometimes for minor infringements of the law. If that's being conflated with 'should rapists and sex slave traffickers be jailed' then all its proof of is horribly muddled woman-blaming 'thinking'.

I also thought that was what she was drawing from.

Even in an American context though it's shallow, this assumption that this kind of police action in black communities is only about white people targeting black men. A significant push for that kind of response was actually from black communities who were tired of their neighbourhoods being dangerous and controlled by the drug trade. Municipal politicians saw that kind of action as a way of showing they were supporting those communities and giving them resources, and you a lot of the same thing happened where the political roles were held by black Americans too who promised their own communities would be cleaned up.

Even in an American context there is a sense of choosing only a partial perspective of the black community and not looking at the difficult questions and contradictions. While I doubt any of those community members are really keen on the % of the prison population made up of young black men, but they also aren't crazy about drugs or gang violence in their neighbourhoods or trying to recruit their kids.

She must be aware that black women are frequently raped by white men - indeed have been throughout history. Is she seriously suggesting that those men shouldn't go to prison? Her argument isn't at all clear.

I'm from an area that was colonised. Hell, go back far enough and nearly everywhere has been colonised once upon a time! Post post post post colonialism?

I have a funny feeling if Alison does search her own name, she may weaponise her own 'white feminist tears' rather than replying to the many valid points across the thread

Nah, she’ll just be all ‘Silly mummies on Mumsnet are incapable of understanding my Very Important Clever Work’. A bit like the op’s subtle little dig about having a job

Oh yeah, I missed OPs little passive aggressive dig

And I’ve been @-ing @FrackOff as requested but they seem to have changed their mind about wanting to talk

I was hoping to be educated

particularly about the postcolonial aspect of white feminist

You've had belt and braces rebuttals of that throughout this thread and also been provided with some actual liberatory feminism as espoused by a lifelong working class campaigner who has achieved more for women than Alison's nonsensical witterings could ever do. Any productive response from you on that?

If you want to talk to me about the podcast, @ me in your response

No. I'll stick with FWR etiquette. You just can't help yourself with the imperatives, can you?

While I doubt any of those community members are really keen on the % of the prison population made up of young black men, but they also aren't crazy about drugs or gang violence in their neighbourhoods or trying to recruit their kids.

Because class is the great unmentionable in Alison's privileged bourgeois version of intersectionalism.

Not surprisingly she is pro prostitution too.

sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/67246/

Goosefoot, not only is it a shallow approach to the US situation, and there is a problem in the US with extreme incarceration rates, but by concentrating on another country's issues over which she has no influence, she is missing opportunities to make a real difference in her own.

It isn't as if there aren't issues around the prison systems of the UK. She could expend energy campaigning for better mental health services (many people in prison are mentally ill). She could campaign for better opportunities for people living in poverty (class is a huge factor in whether people end up in prison). She could support schemes to help young people out of gangs (if racism is her concern then race does influence your likelihood of being drawn into gang culture in some parts of the UK).

She is instead choosing to essentially do nothing. About anything. For anyone.

She is instead choosing to essentially do nothing. About anything. For anyone

I was just about to post that her academic post could be abolished and no- one other than her, and others like her on the academic gravy train, would notice far less care.

In fact, it would not surprise me if many women of colour are more in agreement with various GC viewpoints because we experience patriarchy

No time or patience to listen to podcasts but I have to agree with this. I am black from a country whose population is 90% black/brown. We have absolutely no time or compassion for trans ideology. I can't think of a single person who wouldn't roll their eyes at TWAW. The vast majority of us believe firmly in binary sex. Wokeness is not knocking at our doors.
It's the same with black people I know in the UK. Our feet are very firmly planted in solid reality.

(Ps being told I HAVE to watch some bud or the other is a clear indication that it's not for me.)