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.

EmbarrassingAdmissions That looks really interesting, thank you! Something for me to bookmark to watch tonight.

My life and experiences are not reflected by the op at all. I also don't feel excluded by FWR. I do, however, feel overlooked, excluded, and angered by these crass assumptions.

@NiceGerbil

The thread I just looked at felt a bit like that as well. And people really bit.

A few random thoughts.

Many feminists are lefties of the old school. The left has always had problems with divisions, splits.

Women are a huge group. Half the population. With all sorts of experiences, characteristics, things that matter to them.

IME feminists are pretty good at having massive arguments rather than focusing on shared endeavour. Purity politics. In and out groups. What is important. How feminists should behave, what they should believe etc.

Feels like the current aim is to drive wedges between different groups of women, on here.

Divide and rule.

Very true and why I got involved in that thread and the argy bargy here which I really regret, I have accepted all the comments. As a non white woman who's still new to feminism and had my world opened by it I was angry at ppl pretending it's basically racist. This is a TRA tactic I saw a lot on twitter and hate to see here.

But you're all right - getting in a playground fight here isn't doing any good to anyone. Lesson learned!

I'm struggling with my feelings about both threads TBH, there seems something a bit off about both but maybe thats just me being cynical after reading a lot of threads with a hidden (or not so hidden) agenda.

I think 30Percent and PurpleHoodie got it best.

Focus on females. Promote, encourage an support women and ask yourself what is good for women and girls. Recognise the noise and distraction tactics for what they are.

Such wise words.

I keep coming back to thinking about this thread.

Ive always felt 'at home' in (2nd wave) feminism, and as PP say, I don't 'identify' as a feminist - I am one - it's absolutely fundamental to my identity & outlook on the world - it's sort of like a religious belief, I expect (not religious so can't be sure ...)

But I'm also aware that my feeling of being 'at home' could be that I'm educated white middle class ...

my feeling of being 'at home' could be that I'm educated white middle class ...

I can't find a link to the online event but it was fascinating to attend a discussion that included Invisible Visits: Black middle-class women in the American healthcare system albeit it addresses a US healthcare context and socio-economic intersections that include the consequences of red-lining etc.

In telling the stories of Black women who are middle class, Invisible Visits also questions the persistent myth that discrimination only affects racial minorities who are poor. In so doing, Invisible Visits expands our understanding of how Black middle-class women are treated when they go to the doctor and why they continue to face inequities in securing proper medical care. "The book also analyzes the strategies Black women use to fight for the best treatment and the toll that these adaptations take on their health. Invisible Visits shines a light on how women perceive the persistently negative stereotypes that follow them into the exam room and makes the bold claim that simply providing more cultural competency or anti-bias training to doctors is insufficient to overcome the problem. For Americans to really address these challenges, we must first reckon with how deeply embedded discrimination is in our prized institutions, including healthcare. Invisible Visits tells the story of Black women in their own words and forces us to consider their experiences in the context of America’s fraught history of structural discrimination.

oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780190840204.001.0001/oso-9780190840204

iirc, Profs Arrianna Marie Planey and Tressie McMillan Cottom had some Twitter discussion of the book including this extract:

We laughed at the absurdity of trying to keep our [CDC] badges on during a Dr's visit.. to convey our intelligence. To show that we were Black but not poor. That we were women, but we weren't hysterical.
…we had to work hard to get the best care possible.

Additional extracts screencapped here:

twitter.com/tressiemcphd/status/1110276878412201984?s=20

Arrianna Planey elaborates on additional texts and related structural issues such as #EnvironmentalRacism as well as exploring the limited, situational protection of being educated and middleclass when Black (eg, not when devoid of the subtle outward markers in an ER).

twitter.com/Arrianna_Planey/status/1314651491114901505

The USA health system seems bonkers from a UK perspective.

Certainly in the UK how much respect you get, whether you are listened to/ taken seriously etc varies massively around a whole bunch of stuff. I have no doubt that women from various backgrounds have a worse experience than others.

The thing that I found really crazy shocking was when Serena Williams had her baby.

She is really get famous, very wealthy, I'm sure she will have had the best that money can buy. And even she wasn't listened to. I mean that's really extreme.

www.nytimes.com/2018/01/11/sports/tennis/serena-williams-baby-vogue.html

Essentially she is prone to blood clots and was dismissed

'On Sept. 2, the day after giving birth to her daughter via cesarean section, Ms. Williams was having trouble breathing and “immediately assumed she was having another pulmonary embolism,” the article says.

She alerted a nurse to what she felt was happening in her body and asked for a CT scan and a blood thinner, but the nurse suggested that pain medication had perhaps left Ms. Williams confused, according to Vogue. Ms. Williams insisted, but a doctor instead performed an ultrasound of her legs.'

She apparently was told she was confused.

Thing is that people who don't have the thing simply can't really get what it's like.

And there are loads of additional issues that make things extra worse for women, and for many will feel more urgent.

It's interesting that race and feminism seems to be on quite a few boards all of a sudden. Yes the conversation and issues have always been there but this feels a bit odd.

There's also this unhelpful thing where there seems to be a very narrow view and oddly a USA centric one. It's massively unhelpful and very odd.

On another thread someone said something like. Feminism is white middle class and excludes everyone else.

I mean, what? They don't think there are feminists all over the world? On all continents in all countries? Fighting a range of different issues, which vary in severity, but are all related to the oppression of women...

I mean what are they talking about?

I'm happy to talk about how mainstream feminism has a certain view etc in the UK.

These threads are not about that though. They start from a really odd, narrow premise and seem to be more about accusations than anything else iyswim.

Accusatory , yes gerbil that's how I feel

The best response though is not to bite as it just feels like the criticism that we give men when they take class analysis personally!

There are real issues in there and it's best to listen... Jumping into a thread in black mumsnetters to say but I'm not racist is not helpful to anyone!

These threads are not about that though. They start from a really odd, narrow premise and seem to be more about accusations than anything else iyswim.

I fully agree. It's been going on for a while. The white feminism gotcha that isn't. It's another US trope that's made its way over here, but it such a superficial analysis and it's such a waste of the time of the women on this board. There's work to do.

Sabotage!

Feminism globally is very diverse

You're much more succinct than me, Beamur!

Satire

www.facebook.com/watch/?v=946862326145274

Why does feminism, and more generally apparently all of society, have to be more "inclusive"? What does "inclusive" mean?

Hello Mr g hardy.

At the basic I'd say it's stuff like making public transport and whatnot accessible by people who use wheelchairs. That sort of thing.

HTH.

[quote Gingernaut]Satire

www.facebook.com/watch/?v=946862326145274[/quote]

Inclusive to trans (TRA demand-led) means exclusive towards other groups of actual women.
The mangling of language to satisfy trans needs for validation has a direct impact on women with low, or no, literacy levels, many of those who will be black, or brown.

The demanding to be in women's spaces by TRA in the name of 'inclusion',

Oops pressed send too soon..

Demanding to be in women's spaces by some trans in the name of 'inclusion' automatically excluded some women, particularly brown women. Observant Muslim women in east London will not go to the women-only swimming sessions they usually go to, as men are now allowed to go to them.

Men in women's prisons has a horrendous impact on all women in prison, who are a vulnerable and disadvantaged group already. This is in the name of 'inclusion.'

@Charley50

Inclusive to trans (TRA demand-led) means exclusive towards other groups of actual women. The mangling of language to satisfy trans needs for validation has a direct impact on women with low, or no, literacy levels, many of those who will be black, or brown.

The demanding to be in women's spaces by TRA in the name of 'inclusion',

I meant to add, in terms of healthcare regarding the point about language.

My point is there does seem to be a malicious agenda behind SOME, not all, of the accusations of racism on the Feminism board, namely an attempt to discredit the Feminism board as a whole. Which is similar to what some pro-trans, anti-women posters seem to do. Repeatedly and exhaustingly.

[quote Gingernaut]Satire

www.facebook.com/watch/?v=946862326145274[/quote]
Or is it? 😂/😭

it probably depends on what stuff you follow. If youre talking about online, then algorithms show you more and more stuff that youve already looked at, so you could be forgiven to thinking thats the dominant position

The mangling of language to satisfy trans needs for validation has a direct impact on women with low, or no, literacy levels, many of those who will be black, or brown.

Yes I agree. I posted an article upthread about the Deptford People's Project and their experience of being colonised by woke Goldsmiths students (remember the "gulags are benevolent and were really quite pleasant" tweets) and told how to speak.