‘White’ Feminism

[Sociallydistancedcocktails]

I was recently on a thread which got me thinking about this.

Do you think ‘white’ feminism exists?

And your thoughts on the article below. I am quoting an excerpt

“White feminism is a term that has been on the tip of everyone's tongue since actor Emma Watson addressed past criticisms of her feminism in statement to her book club about the topic in early January. Though it's difficult to find an exact definition for "white feminism," it has come to describe a not-quite-feminist mindset that doesn't take into account the ways the women of color experience sexism, and how it differs from the way white women experience it. Simply put, white feminism is for white women who don't want to examine their white privilege. The term "intersectional feminism," which stands in opposition to white feminism, was coined by civil rights advocate and law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989 to help describe the experiences of Black women who not only face sexism, but systemic racism.

Understanding the ways race, gender, and other factors (such as disability, class, or sexuality) intersect is crucial to making our feminism more effective and impactful”

www.bustle.com/p/what-is-white-feminism-here-are-7-sneaky-ways-it-shows-up-into-your-life-7921450

For droit de seigneu obvs

But in order to sustain this system, white men realize that white women must be a part of that system. They must support it, they must see the value in it for themselves, not simply for their husbands or their children. They need to understand that this system benefits them personally and directly. The only way they can do that is to allow for them to invest in the system and to participate in the system.

This is idiotic and ignores the historical context of slave societies as within all of them, men did not need to convince women to support and invest in slavery because women had no choice. They had no say. Their opinions were irrelevant because women at worst had the status of property and at best had the status of a child.

There are were and still are a handful of matriarchal societies...but these account for less than 0.1% of lived the reality of women.

This is idiotic and ignores the historical context of slave societies as within all of them, men did not need to convince women to support and invest in slavery because women had no choice. They had no say. Their opinions were irrelevant because women at worst had the status of property and at best had the status of a child.

This

@SmokedDuck, in the interview the author is talking about women as knowing where their interest lie and knowing their legal rights and benefiting from the system. She says

“The other really interesting thing that I observed in the interviews with formerly enslaved people is that white women often owned twice as many female slaves as they did male slaves. When I would talk about this with scholars in the field, some of them would remark, “Oh, that makes sense, because if women are in the house, they need more female help.”

I said, “Okay, yes, that would be practical,” but what has also been important to recognize is that these women understood the law. There are laws on the books, during this period that ensure whenever a person owns an enslaved woman, if that woman gave birth, that person also legally owned her children.

And so owning an enslaved woman means that you’re not only reaping the benefits of this woman’s productive labor but also her reproductive labor.“

The other really interesting thing that I observed in the interviews with formerly enslaved people is that white women often owned twice as many female slaves as they did male slaves. When I would talk about this with scholars in the field, some of them would remark, “Oh, that makes sense, because if women are in the house, they need more female help.”

Where and when was this? Because usually in slave societies the wife of the slave owner would oversee the activities of female slaves within the house. But she was not an owner of slaves, but an overseer and her actual power was no more than other overseers who were themselves slaves, owned by the master.

Exactly, here women and men are being presented as equals, with the same amount of agency. They were not.

[quote Sociallydistancedcocktails]@SmokedDuck, in the interview the author is talking about women as knowing where their interest lie and knowing their legal rights and benefiting from the system. She says

“The other really interesting thing that I observed in the interviews with formerly enslaved people is that white women often owned twice as many female slaves as they did male slaves. When I would talk about this with scholars in the field, some of them would remark, “Oh, that makes sense, because if women are in the house, they need more female help.”

I said, “Okay, yes, that would be practical,” but what has also been important to recognize is that these women understood the law. There are laws on the books, during this period that ensure whenever a person owns an enslaved woman, if that woman gave birth, that person also legally owned her children.

And so owning an enslaved woman means that you’re not only reaping the benefits of this woman’s productive labor but also her reproductive labor.“[/quote]
It tended to be the Northern states which passed the earliest women's property laws in the US (especially Maine and New York, except for Missisippi which passed an early married women's property law IIRC) -- but most of the Southern states didn't allow married women full legal ownership of anything at all until either just before or after the Civil War. So I'm not sure why the article you've quoted thinks they owned more slaves than men!

It is only in the current modern era that women are owning slaves. Which depends on the country when women attained legal equality (although no women have de facto equality yet apart from the very rare few matriarchal societies).

So, a western madam trafficking and imprisoning females for sex trade...yes that is a woman owning modern day saves.

Here is ten article. I linked to it above as well.

www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/2019/8/19/20807633/slavery-white-women-stephanie-jones-rogers-1619

And this bit is also interesting. Does anyone in the know on black history have views on this?

“When you think about the fact that their relationship to slavery, to slave ownership in particular, begins in infancy, in girlhood, what you begin to realize is that their very identities as white girls, as white Southerners, as white women, is intricately tied to not only ownership of enslaved people but also the control of enslaved people, the management of enslaved people.

The other really important lesson that their parents, their family members, and even their girlfriends, cousins, female cousins, and so forth are also teaching them along the way is that the way the law is set up, you have this property. And when you get married, it will, if we don’t do anything about it, become your husband’s. And, if he is a loser, you’re going to lose. So, they essentially say, we have to make sure that does not happen.

So before these young women get married, their parents and sometimes female kin and friends will encourage them to develop legal instruments, protective measures to ensure that they don’t lose all of their property to their husbands. These legal instruments that they develop are very much like prenuptial agreements today. They’re called marriage settlements back then, or marital contracts, which essentially detail not only what property they’re bringing into the marriage but what kind of control their husbands can or cannot have over it.

These women are not stupid. They’re like, I’m about to get married, the law says that everything I have is going to be my husband’s. I don’t want that to happen. What can I do to prevent that from happening?

They are prepared, they are knowledgeable, and they work with parents and others who are willing to assist them to develop protective measures to ensure that the relinquishment of all of their property wealth and assets doesn’t happen once they get married.“

@cakedays

Exactly. If the poster is referring an interview of former US slaves, it cannot be true. Women had no property rights in the slave states until well after abolition. Even if on paper she “inherited” as a widow or heiress, all her property was legally in the hands of a male guardian. She had no authority. I blame the many quasi historical shows that do not show the reality but a fantasy.

So, we are at over 300 posts in. Has it been revealed yet how intersectionality or critiques of white feminism are actually helping anyone?

Are you able to answer any of the points about women's agency in American culture? Women didn't gain full property owning rights in the states until the 20th century. Before that there were gradual relaxations in legislation around ownership across different states - but slavery came to the USA in 1619 and the first relaxation of property rights relating to women and slave plantations was in the mid 19th century.

So, we are at over 300 posts in. Has it been revealed yet how intersectionality or critiques of white feminism are actually helping anyone?

I think it can help women of colour to better understand their experiences through a non-white lens; and indeed why white women can't be automatically seen as allies by black and women of colour.

I don’t even know why I am even asking tbh.

The core belief of critical race theory is that racism is never reduced; it just changes form. The purpose of intersectionality isn’t actually to improve anyone’s lives, which makes it irrelevant to most people’s lives.

The author of the study who is being interviewed is Jones-Rogers, an associate professor of history at the University of California Berkeley,

@Sociallydistancedcocktails

Ok, so if we are talking about US South during slavery, then yes there were marriage settlements and they did limit the control the husband had over the property the wife’s father was paying to him as her dowry, and if she were an heiress, the rest of the property on his death.

But only in the following ways. They usually limited the ability of the husband to sell or spend the property/money by establishing a trust fund for the children of the marriage...dowries for daughters and a guaranteed the first born son would have an inheritance. They often specified an allowance of pin money.,or vet small allowance the woman could draw on for buying small treats like a fan or pair of gloves or to but tea and cakes on social outings. Taking control away from the husband did NOT mean giving any control and very little actual income to the wife.

This is why most heiresses were married off young if need be, the father did not want her prey to fortune hunters after his death. He had to settle her with a man who would by marriage settlements be made custodian of the father’s property and fortune until their first born son inherited.

@Sociallydistancedcocktails
In addition, these contracts were discussed between husband to be and the brides father and executed by solicitors. The woman was not involved, her consent was not required and she had no right to even see or read the actual marriage settlement contract. Her information as to what pin money she could expect would be either told to her by her father or by the family solicitor.

I looked up Jones Rogers and I’ll have to read her book, to see if her research is any good or not.

@PlanDeRaccordement

I looked up Jones Rogers and I’ll have to read her book, to see if her research is any good or not.

Yes, me too. I'll be very interested to read it.

In contrast, educated women in the northwestern states were often heavily involved in abolitionist movements; and were often thought of, at the time, as vehicles for the abolitionist cause - eg. for convincing their husbands of the Christian necessity of abolition. In reality, enslaved people in the US were dominated ultimately by white men, in a social and political society that was also dominated by the rights and interests of white men. And white men were the ones who ultimately decided to abolish it. Any number of women weeping over copies of Beecher Stowe wouldn't have made a difference if it hadn't been in male interests.

As I said upthread; who ultimately benefits from turning women of different races and communities against each other or making them suspicious of each other? Men - either of that community, or men who dominate other men in the system overall - benefit in the end.

I am finding the discussion on historical slave owning in the USA a very interesting one particularly as I am currently living in the USA.

It isn't going to provide much historical background to the systemic racism in the UK however, which would presumably have to look at GB colonial attitudes towards race.

It is interesting to me that so much of the readily available literature to promote the concept of white feminism comes from another culture and continent.

I wouldn't expect any group of women to historically have been automatically supportive of another group of women because they were all women.
I wouldn't expect it today.
That doesn't mean that all groups of woman don't struggle in a patriarchal society.
Encouraging groups of women to turn on each other only benefits the patriarchy.

'Whilst slavery had no legal basis in England, the law was often misinterpreted. Black people previously enslaved in the colonies overseas and then brought to England by their owners, were often still treated as slaves. Some individuals who had formerly been enslaved got baptized, believing this would ensure their freedom. Others took advantage of being on English soil and absconded. Notices for 'runaway slaves' featured in newspapers during this period.'

From here

historicengland.org.uk/research/inclusive-heritage/the-slave-trade-and-abolition/sites-of-memory/black-lives-in-england/

I only know this because I read it 3 days ago in the start of the 'why I'm no longer' book.

And that's the whole thing really.

I'm English and up until 3 days ago I thought we didn't have slave ownership here we were involved in transportation and owning slaves in Caribbean etc.

I was wrong.

I thought I knew even though I'd never actually checked because I'm a white English person and I had never heard it before.

I was wrong though.

The fact I thought it was true and yes would have happily used it to argue this and that when in fact I was wrong was sobering.

I'm really looking forward to reading the rest

I'm not here to start a fight etc and this post is just because I saw that post but all my posts on here have just been saying what I think.

I also mentioned in my first post that the steamrollering of USA history culture etc being universal as cultural imperialism /cultural hegemony / insert preferred term.. and it's utterly infuriating and bizarrely ironic in discussions about this sort of topic.

We have enough history of our own to be going on with. This is a UK site.

I know that the UK both had a surprisingly large black population ( Dr Who covered this a few years back for dc) and obviously also benefited substantially economically from the slave trade.

It is however a very different situation to the one in the USA, where slave owning was normalized in considerable tracts of the country and then bled almost seamlessly into mass indentured prison labor as one example.

I think knowing our history is vital because it will enable us from the UK to assess both where the similarities and differences are with other more culturally powerful countries.

I don't think respectful discussions are picking a fight.

We're blaming women for slavery now.

What is the point of this?