‘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

I have read loads of stuff by various groups of women who have fought for xyz at the side of men, only to be put to one side when the fight starts to be won.

The idea that sharing a characteristic will mean the men with that characteristic care about the women is a mistake but one women of all types cling onto as to accept it's unlikely to work like that is just a really awful thing to face up to.

@Quaagars

The white tears thing is weird too. Tears and upset are a natural human emotion when someone feels attacked. Notably, it’s especially attributed to women. Men don’t tend to get accused of white tears.

Being upset and the concept of white tears are two different things, I think - of course people can get upset and it has nothing to do with racism.
White tears is more of a behaviour, rather than the fact you're white.
Amy Cooper is a perfect example of weaponising skin colour (yes, I know it's not in this country before anyone starts)
it's still a perfect example though.
I'm a bit if people (in general, not referring to any one poster) take offence and pick apart the wording or the phrase rather than think about the actions themselves.

So you are seeing it as a kind of metaphor. But don't you see that this means that you can give it any content that makes sense to you? And leave out anything that seems to be illogical or bad.

But that does not mean that other people are using it the same way. And maybe more importantly, it does not mean it's actually a very useful or accurate concept to be using when talking about something like racism.

This is something I have noticed a lot from some people, and it tends to be the same people who think this way across the board - they feel like a term or way of thinking or conceptualising abstract concepts should be used if it feels right. Especially if some of the "right" people think it feels right, captures a bit of their experience.

And somehow they also think that if others don't think these terms are accurate or useful, it is a denial of all the underlying realities the user is talking about.

But that is a loosey-goosey way to use language and that is actually really a problem when you are trying to think carefully about structural problems. I am all for metaphor, but abstract analysis can go seriously off-course when the language used is not careful and precise.

Many people do not simply accept, because it seems kind of right, the language or presuppositions of critical race theory or identity politics.Ideas like privilege, or white feminism, many of the other buzzwords it's supposed to include. I personally don't accept that language when it appears in feminist discourse either.

I will be very clear on this - not only do I think these constructions are inaccurate and lead to bad analysis, and are also to a significant degree are an attempt to maintain current exploitative power structures, I think that Critical Race Theory and identity politics are deeply racist at their core, and their acceptance over the last 20 years has actually led to an increase in racism and things like white supremacism. As well as concrete flawed approaches to social disparities that have just been ineffective or even disadvantaged people.

This is not a matter of people just arguing to be difficult, or wanting to disregard racism, or not feel bad, or anything like that. Not is it a POV that is somehow limited to white people, even in a place like the USA.

I think it is really a much, this kind of constant accusation or insinuation that opposition to this thinking is just reactionary or minimisation of whatever. I don't know if this comes out of some kind of real naiveté about analytical models or what, but Critical Theory really is not the only way to think about the world. I don't think that people who subscribe to it are all or even mostly racists, I think they are mistaken, and it would be nice to not have an assumption that anyone who doesn't toe the CT line must be a blazing racist.

@VladmirsPoutine

It happens not as infrequently as one would imagine. A white woman once cried in some kind of 'diversity' training as she couldn't deal with being called 'racist'. Thing is nobody was actually calling her racist, the training was designed to highlight unequal power dynamics within various groups - among them how white women can be allies but will ultimately use their whiteness when it suits them.

Given the content of some diversity training material, I am not surprised it would make people cry. It's utter crap.

🙄

People always like to throw up the "The UK is nothing like the US." There are huge similarities; and in many respects the US actually better i.e offers Black talent a better chance to succeed.

Upthread somewhere but it's lost. I am 100% convinced that smartphones are categorically the best invention since the wheel.

What does ‘having it easier’ mean on the level of personal experience? Is it easier to deal with being called names at school than a family member abusing you for instance? I feel exactly the same about male privilege. It’s helpful on a class level, not an individual one. I know that I have significantly more privilege than a homeless man with a drug habit. No, he won’t face sexism but so what when you take into account what else he faces? However, I know that women on average earn less than men and are often disadvantaged by their sex.

I think homeless men probably do face sexism for being men, they are looked at as problematic in a way homeless women aren't, whether or not that is really anything to do with them as individuals, and it affects them, materially, negatively.

This is an example of why even these categories that have some use aren't always applicable in every situation and there is a need to really be careful with our assumptions. Sexism isn't working in your favour as a homeless man.

diversity training

Famously, and systemically, used by Rotherham council to cover up the prevalence of racist organised crime gangs in the town.

No, you can't have it both ways here. On one hand, systemic racism presents in subtle ways often hard to pin down. I think everyone on the thread understands and appreciates this.

But on the other it's fine to say 'white women's tears' because the words themselves aren't that important and if you take offence at the term that's entirely on you?

Are words really meaningful and potentially hurtful, or aren't they? Up thread somebody mentioned coded racist language and gave the example 'thug'. Where I live, that word means a violent anti social person, usually male. It has literally no racial meaning at all, though I get that in other parts of the UK or the world, it may well do.

So I have to be careful of using 'thug', but not be so precious about 'white women's tears', a term which directly addresses me, a white woman?

This argument is going nowhere. Racism is everywhere, and nobody on the FWR has made any serious attempt to say otherwise. But the thread title is 'white feminism', not 'racism'.

Unless and until I see a meaningful definition of specifically white feminism that includes at least some practical steps that would address the issue, I am left thinking its an imported click bait concept with no application in feminist activism.

Unless and until I see a meaningful definition of specifically white feminism that includes at least some practical steps that would address the issue, I am left thinking its an imported click bait concept with no application in feminist activism.

Yep.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

I didn't even think that about It's a Sin, i haven't seen it yet but I know what it's about, and you're totally right that only a man writing a series about gay men would have got away with not being inclusive of other members of the LGBT.

I thought that too, thanks to froggy for highlighting this. Jill was a support human, exactly as RTD expects women to be. So true that when women create art in any form, they'd better be diverse af, while men can claim artistic license all day long, including casting women half their own age to play their love interests. Boak.

The wider point about women fixing all the problems is so true. I've had so many online arguments with sexist twats who are angry that domestic abuse shelters for men don't appear to exist. If you ask what they've done to address this, they are bemused. Apparently feminists should be fixing everything for everybody.

We're not the world's damn mum.

As pointed out upthread though, they're both linked. (White feminism absolutely can be a racist problem if it used to ignore women who aren't white, and their extra levels that comes with that.)
Are you for all women, or just the 'type' you're interested in?
As for thug, you're right, that's what thug means.
Can you really not see though it's the action behind Insinuating someone is a thug if they're black, even if they're doing exactly what a white male would do and wouldn't be called the same, that people sometimes automatically assume thug where they wouldn't usually?
There's the racism you refuse to see or accept.

Your overnight posts suggest you don't think white women experience racism @Quaagars
Are you denying the experiences of white Jewish women?

The thug thing has come up before.

Apparently it has racist connotations in the USA.

Here if someone says thug it would conjour up an image of an aggressive white man with a shaved head and a scary dog, that sort of thing. Group of thugs would be something like a gang of football hooligans. White ones.

So no I don't think that the implications in the USA are the same as here. It's used in the press for mindless violence and the vast majority of that is perpetrated by white men. I've also seen it used a fair bit about the police in certain circs.

Unless I see a meaningful definition
Also can mean unless I accept your definition, or my terms, I will continue to pretend it doesn't happen.
Nothing's ever good enough, however much 'proof' 'receipts' or definitions is it?
Feminists should fix things for everybody
We're all women, whether white or black so again, why see it as just to help some women?
You're either for equality for all women or you're not.

Here if someone says thug it would conjour up an image of an aggressive white man with a shaved head and a scary dog, that sort of thing. Group of thugs would be something like a gang of football hooligans. White ones.

Yes.

‘Are you for all women, or just the 'type' you're interested in?’

I am in favour of women’s rights for all women.

I am also in favour of providing support to women who are experiencing great disadvantage, threat and/or exclusion.

I am not ‘for’ or interested in additional ways of supporting female CEOs or other women with great power because I don’t really have any knowledge of their situations and don’t see them as a priority.

I do however think it important that female doctors and solicitors exist in great numbers to support their female patients and clients.

The word thug comes from thuggee.

Sorry quaagars it's not good enough to say. If you can't see a problem with this word you're essentially racist. And then refuse to engage with the fact it's not true general use of the word here.

I also note your lack of interest in discussing recent ish UK cases of black men who have died during contact with the police even though there is loads to talk about in both those cases and it's going to be something here that the mainly British women on this UK site are more likely to really understand from a social and cultural point of view.

I was wondering why thug was being used as an example of racism against black men rather than Indian men.

@LibertyMole

I was wondering why thug was being used as an example of racism against black men rather than Indian men.

Perhaps Quaagars was being racist - does she view all non white men as being the same, one homogeneous group of 'Not White'?

No of course I don't view all non white men the same.
At all.

I agree that we are struggling a bit for a clear understanding of white feminism might be. That’s partly why I was asking for some specific examples where white women and women of colour would have differing or opposing interests on some issues. Has anyone got any?

I didn't use thug to try to disprove racism. I gave it as an example of how an innocuous term can be used in a way that in some places, has a racist undertone. And yet, openly naming white women and their emotions is seen as fine and anyone who objects should stop getting hung up on words.

My point being, can words be hurtful? If they can, then you have to accept that your choice of words can hurt me too.

I am not sure I think it's a good idea to say the term thg is racist even in a US context.

The reason that it's been proposed as true by some activists there is that it was at one time being used by the media fairly often to describe men involved in gang violence, at a time when racialised gang violence was in the media a lot.

So in a way very similar to the reason a neo-Nazi or football hooligan might be the image conjured up by the word in the UK, a probably black gang member might be the image that came to mind in the US.This is how language works.

But I think it's pretty debatable whether people came ever came to assume that thug was a word that only applies to black men, nor was it never applied to white people in the media or common use. You could make a similar argument that in the US at that time, and maybe now, the phrase "gang-member" would also bring up an image of a black man.

Which is unfortunate in a lot of ways, and unfair that it might colour people's perception of black men generally, but not really a good reason to stop using the word "gang" when it's appropriate.

There is an approach to social justice at the moment that spends a lot of time telling us what words are bad: thug, cake-walk, lame, crazy, master-bedroom, etc. I really don't think this is an effective way to change anything though, it just eats up a lot of energy. Mostly it is about identifying out-groups.

I do think groups that are 'intersectional' as it were should really organise more amongst themselves because a LOT of energy can be wasted trying to explain your position to someone who has absolutely zero interest in listening or understanding you - but they're absolutely happy to leave you emotionally and mentally drained so that they deplete your resources.

Has anyone got any?
People on this very thread have given their experiences, and explained that not being white (whether that be black, or Indian, or whatever, before anyone makes another ridiculous assumption that means I don't care about any other non white people when I do) adds a whole other level on TOP of what women who are white don't have.
So there's one where differences matter.
Or is that not going to count either, because that's anecdotal or whatever!?
People can give examples all day long but they're never enough, are they...