How can feminism in the UK be more inclusive? Striving for equality for all women

[isequalityamyth]

I have spent 40 plus years pushing, fighting, scrapping at times for equality, fair pay, calling out sexism, even the every day minor crap...if you call me girl I’ll call you kid all day long (apparently that is really annoying). & no I’m not sitting on your lap or taking a ride in your "fuck mobile".

The reality is though that I’ve been fighting from a very white privileged middle class standpoint. I had the privilege of having a feminist father who encouraged my education, encouraged my promotion.

When I went for entry jobs post graduating I was met with a phew by the male interviewers. My name and hobbies are not necessarily reflective of how I look. I got told once in an interview they were relieved I wasn’t a heffer, I looked and sounded english (seriously yes this was stated). This was the normal.

Yes I’ve fought my way up through the glass ceiling, but I was given a ladder.

I'm not demeaning my own battle nor those of others, I am just conscious that I had help, I had a tool set, I had support, I had the right skin colour, I had privilege.

How does one take a different perspective, not all women are the same, we all have different experiences. We are not starting from the same position, as a white Middle class woman I definitely had a head start in the equality stakes.

So my long winded question - how do we make feminism more inclusive? Not so white MC centric. As surely feminism needs to be more inclusive and it doesn't feel that way right now.

Donate money to grass roots orgs that support women in different circs would be my first thought.

Read and listen on the topics you think you don't know so much about.

Having said that I'm not entirely sure what you mean.

Loads of the issues most feminists are inserested in go across the board.. Yes women in certain groups have it worse but I'm not sure what sort of feminist stuff you are thinking of that only focuses on the one group.

My parents were are middle class feminists too, I've never known anything else. I think in general people don't want to be lectured or have their lives explained to them by others. The best people to raise issues within marginalised communities are members of those communities, and there are always activists, even if that's not what they call themselves. Grassroots organisation is the only way, there isn't a big boss of feminism.

was met with a phew by the male interviewers

What does this mean?

As surely feminism needs to be more inclusive and it doesn't feel that way right now.

What feminism, where? Would you mind being a bit more specific OP?

Disabled women are a priority for me - they seem to get left behind by everything.

Also this looks like a good organisation for supporting Black women in pregnancy. Black women have a 4x higher mortality rate than white women in pregnancy/childbirth.

www.blackmothersmatter.org

@HopeClearwater the auditable phew, the pressed noses against the glass window of the office I was being interviewed in... I used to partake in a certain sport, and all the boys came to have a look and did an auditable phew that I didn't look a certain way.

That office was disgusting, they would employ people who looked "right" over those who could do the job. The finance team was introduced to me as nice boobs but don't do much.

@TheRabbitOfCaerbannog the "feminism" I'm seeing, so that does not mean all, just perhaps the more vocal - appears to be very white middle class biased.

Perhaps start by drawing attention to the lack of coverage that BAME victims of male violence get.

Bibaa Henry and Sarah Everard were murdered in similar circumstances but if you look at the number of google search results each name returns the disparity is shocking.

I don't really recognise what it is you seem to be seeing as white middle class feminism.

The feminism I see is about all female people. No female person is excluded from participating in feminist activities, or writing her feminist thoughts. I don't see feminism as a lovely party that you may or may not get a VIP invitation to.

It's a movement of women, by women, to liberate each and every one of us.

I may not be black, but I am disabled, working class and non-English. I've never felt excluded by feminism?

Having the 'right' skin colour has nothing to do with being able to 'do' Feminism effectively. Feminism already is inclusive, it's for all women. I just cannot with this performative hand wringing that has it's basis in the completely toxic Identity politics poisening Europe from the US.

Liberal third wave Identity politics and intersectionalism that rates how high you are on the totem pole of importance depending on how many claims of oppression you have ON TOP of being a woman is not Feminism, claiming that somehow all white woman have lived in a fucking utopia of equality for being white is part of this, feeling you have to integrate racism or any other issues that may affect women when there are many groups already dealing with racism is part of that. Do you see BLM centering womens issues? no you bloody dont, why is it always womens groups being expected to do all the work?! and dont come back at me with any intersectionlism arguments, read up, it was an academic legal argument that has no place in the real world but you won't get peopel like Kimberlé Crenshaw admitting this - its a world wide industry that she and her fellow academics intend to dine out on for a long time while the world burns.

Its why you get women without any sense of decency going onto the vigil threads telling women, 'well black women have always felt like this' as if it was only when this happened that mysolgyny suddenly started happening to women who were not black.

The end game for Identity Politics is FRACTURE OF GROUPS into ineffective balkansisation and inter fighting. Being a woman is NOT a priviledged position on this planet full stop. Dont bother clapping back at me this place is becoming far to third wave for me I'm out and i say that as someone who has several instances of 'intersection'

@Barracker

I don't really recognise what it is you seem to be seeing as white middle class feminism.

The feminism I see is about all female people. No female person is excluded from participating in feminist activities, or writing her feminist thoughts. I don't see feminism as a lovely party that you may or may not get a VIP invitation to.

It's a movement of women, by women, to liberate each and every one of us.

This is pretty much how I see it too.

I have to say, OP, it’s refreshing that your definition of inclusion doesn’t include men, as it usually does.

That job sounds awful! How long ago was that?! What industry? I'm also not sure what that story has to say about feminism? It speaks to a racist, sexist, classify society. Who was doing the hiring? Blokes.

I'd agree that white mc women have their voices heard more than other. Due to the racism etc I just mentioned.

Another thing you can do is, as a pp did, flag orgs that you think could do with support.

I wonder if there's a kind of assumption though. That because MC white women have their voices heard more, their feminism only cares about women like them.

It seems maybe you feel this because of how you thought?

Certainly different women cannot really understand the impact of sexism + ablism, racism etc. And what intersectionality was about originally was pointing out that women who were exposed to other structural oppression get an even shittier deal.

When it comes to the main topics- DV, rape, Street harassment, poverty, stuff around how women are treated by the medical community etc. They don't exclude anyone? A white woman won't really understand what racism is like, but that doesn't mean she is excluding women who experience racism when agitating about rape etc.

All you can do is listen, learn, support financially if you can, and bring those groups and specific issues into conversation etc if you can. (With white people obv!).

Does that help?

It's also important to follow what is happening around the world. Understand what's going on. Femicide in Mexico. Abortion laws. Child marriage. Did you know it's legal in some US states?

And don't fall into the trap of thinking oh that's terrible over there. We're so much better. Think about how misogyny manifests. Overt. Covert.

It's a huge topic. Read and learn.

Working-class, mixed heritage, ASD - finally allowing myself to discover feminism and the FWR board on MN has been a total revelation for me.

People seem so quick to find reasons to create division. Divided we fall.

Most feminists in this country would probably not even consider themselves feminists as they don't read books on feminist theory and they don't get asked their opinions by Governments etc. They just get on with "feministing". They organise the after school clubs to help working mothers, they run the food banks, they collect and redistribute baby clothes and equipment, they support each other. Sometimes what they do helps everybody but more often than not, their work helps the most disadvantaged women in our society and very often they themselves are from these groups . In my opinion, that makes them feminists

I’ve been reading, which is why I’m sitting very uncomfortably at the moment.

It’s all very well saying grass routes organisations should sort out their own issues, or that well it’s a wider issue on other boards - it shouldn’t be on here. Arg that’s exactly what I have concerns about. Surely as women we should be supporting the equality of all women in our society. Fighting for equality for all of us, not just the last few steps for a few.

There are infernos out there. And it just seems like we are being distracted - maybe purposefully.

Hello ImpatiensI!

Welcome :)

@ImpatiensI exactly, but unfortunately there are divisions at the moment - and people feel excluded. I've posted today as I've tried to listen to those who feel excluded - and I'm asking how do we make them included.

@DresdenChina Identify politics is the fucking diversion.

Yip, there isn't an intersectional anti racist movement, its a movement solely against racism.

But women have to fix other peoples oxygen masks before they can put their own on.

Feminism is a movement for the liberation of women from patriarchy, not a club for people who want to make the world nicer for everyone.

@DresdenChina

Having the 'right' skin colour has nothing to do with being able to 'do' Feminism effectively. Feminism already is inclusive, it's for all women. I just cannot with this performative hand wringing that has it's basis in the completely toxic Identity politics poisening Europe from the US.

Liberal third wave Identity politics and intersectionalism that rates how high you are on the totem pole of importance depending on how many claims of oppression you have ON TOP of being a woman is not Feminism, claiming that somehow all white woman have lived in a fucking utopia of equality for being white is part of this, feeling you have to integrate racism or any other issues that may affect women when there are many groups already dealing with racism is part of that. Do you see BLM centering womens issues? no you bloody dont, why is it always womens groups being expected to do all the work?! and dont come back at me with any intersectionlism arguments, read up, it was an academic legal argument that has no place in the real world but you won't get peopel like Kimberlé Crenshaw admitting this - its a world wide industry that she and her fellow academics intend to dine out on for a long time while the world burns.

Its why you get women without any sense of decency going onto the vigil threads telling women, 'well black women have always felt like this' as if it was only when this happened that mysolgyny suddenly started happening to women who were not black.

The end game for Identity Politics is FRACTURE OF GROUPS into ineffective balkansisation and inter fighting. Being a woman is NOT a priviledged position on this planet full stop. Dont bother clapping back at me this place is becoming far to third wave for me I'm out and i say that as someone who has several instances of 'intersection'

What an absolute lot of rubbish! People are multifaceted and are intersectional by default. Life effects women in different ways and the patriarchy will have massively differing impacts on people depending on whether there are other aspects in play too.

To say, "well don't bring your probems with race over here, go to a group about racism for that" excludes a massive number of women who are oppressed more by society because of sex and race.

You sound like an ALM meme!

'It’s all very well saying grass routes organisations should sort out their own issues'
Grass roots orgs know the issues better than any outsider.

Donating money and sharing what they do etc is not 'leaving them to it'.

Providing resources to those who know what they are doing is a great thing to do.

'Surely as women we should be supporting the equality of all women in our society. Fighting for equality for all of us, not just the last few steps for a few.'

What do you mean, the last few steps for a few?
I don't understand. Genuinely.

Also equality is pretty meh. Women's liberation is what we need.

The current preferred word at work is equity, which is at least a little better than equality.

I'm genuinely interested in the last steps for a few thing. Can you expand on that?

But women have to fix other peoples oxygen masks before they can put their own on

Which implies that black or BAME women are somehow "other", instead of women who also need to put their own masks on first too!

Don't you realise how incredibly much that defaults to a place of white privilege?

Feminism should be available to all women. For as long as white, MC feminists decide that THEY are the ones who get to set the agenda about what is important at the minute, then racism and exclusion within feminism will exist.

'. I've posted today as I've tried to listen to those who feel excluded - and I'm asking how do we make them included.'

It's not your place. Also feeling isn't the same as being.

I have a long term disability that has impacted my life from birth. It has impacted every part of my life.

Assuming you're not disabled, I don't want you to make me 'feel' warm and fuzzy. That's really patronising.

Listen to the people who know. Amplify voices. Support financially if you can.

Do not go around patronising people.

Then you're good.

I am interested in what your feminist ideas were before that make you feel so uncomfortable now.

And the few more steps thing.