‘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

[quote ATieLikeRichardGere]@Quaagars I think you might be misreading my tone there. I wasn’t asking in order to deny it. I’m on board with the idea that women of colour are always up against a racism dimension. But I’m trying to understand more, besides that, whether we’ve got other differences that mean that our feminism would otherwise differ? I was saying earlier that I associate white feminism with corporate culture and indeed the idea of feminism as professional advancement doesn’t do much for me! And I can imagine that white women trying to “liberate” Muslims from hijabs is probably not great. But what else am I missing?[/quote]
"Associating "white" feminism with corporate culture.. professional advancement"

... to me radfeminism must oppose the financial manipulation of capitalism. To me capitalism is supremely patriarchal. In the past trapping a woman financially was the norm. Fast forward to now and it feels like women are just trapped in a different way, amidst widespread ecological devastation carried out by unchecked capitalism. It is the very opposite of rad-feminist to me. I dont understand where this comes from.

I think we are going around in circles 😊
I think ‘white’ is a shorthand for socially dominant middle class. In UK and US that tends to be white.

White feminism is the middle class feminism that benefits from the race and class structure. The same structures that disadvantage women from other backgrounds

That was for @SmokedDuck

Trouble in the uk is that all classes are probably predominantly white , so it's not much of a description of middle class ness specifically

?

...I forgot to mention the prison system and its racial disparities, the death penalty, severe prison sentences for crimes such as marijuana possession, the welfare system, white racial subsets eg. Italian American, Irish American, Cajun and their associated hierarchies that don't exist in quite the same way in the UK, a different concept of 'class', treatment of Native Americans and the way they are excluded from American culture and history, the concept of 'The American Dream'... I won't fill up any more of this thread with this and would have thought all these differences were obvious, but apparently not if people are claiming American theories on race can be directly applied to a UK context without any consideration of how the two countries are completely and utterly different.

The middle classes in the UK and the US are a different kettle of fish. The US has a very small middle class, but it's wealthier than European middle classes and the UK has the poorest middle class, relatively speaking, in Western Europe. It is also small and shrinking - this has been observed for a while and probably exacerbated by the pandemic. So who exactly are you talking about? Is it a management class? A class of people who earn over a certain amount? The median salary in the uk is around £31,000. Is it the 10% of people who earn over £60k? There's no more nuance in pinning this on the middle classes than there is in racists = white feminists.

"The strange death of the British middle class"
www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-strange-death-of-the-british-middle-class

Is it the 10% of people who earn over £60k?

Is that correct? Only 10% earn more than £60k?

Are there terms for the problems around white people being rubbish at seeing outside their POV around some of the other characteristics that are protected/ considered in an intersectional analysis?

What is the word for the blind spot around race that white activists often have and don't realise it in

LGBT+ activism
Activism around disability
Activism around ageism

For example. I've not heard any. Has anyone else?

And there's no doubt that in those areas the concept of intersectionality in the original sense is important. People of different classes, ethnicity, sex, etc will have their problems that are different and/ or multiplied by the action of additional characteristics.

It seems to me that women get continually blamed and told off while men just carry on as usual.

In the end there's huge and massive hostility to women- anywhere and everywhere in the world and of all types- agitating for change for women.

There always has been. The slinging around of white feminism as a STFU mechanism is just the current incarnation of it. Because while the thoughts, opinions, ideas, essays, speeches, actions of those who formed these concepts are of immense value. The words have been co-opted and turned into shorthand for shut up you're a terrible person.

I've been accused of being racist on this thread. That's ok because I know I'm not overtly racist and I accept that in general strains of racism misogyny ablism etc are so deep in society in would be foolish to say I am someone l somehow magically immune. I listen I read I do my best.

The thing that really gets on my tits is the thing where again there's no actual reading thinking consuming discussing. It's that is not what you're supposed to say you're a bad person. And also therefore think this that and the other.

This is a UK talk board. To say oh yeah these countries are basically the same, come on discuss stuff from USA that I'm extrapolating to apply to the UK.

The USA has its own history and culture. It is very different to ours. Baffling.

The idea that women within the UK are the same culturally historically is wrong. So very wrong.

We have

England
Scotland
Wales
Northern Ireland

We have different languages. We have a long and very difficult history. I would never ever say or think that I can understand how it is to be Scottish Welsh. Northern Irish. Republican or unionist. No no no.

And yet the demand here is that women on these boards accept that their cultures are basically the same as the USA?

Really?

Let's talk about racism in the UK. Let's talk about the met (my force who are shocking) Let's talk about feminism in the different parts of the UK. I'm all for that.

Posting stuff like 'It actually makes me feel a little bit sick, to know that me as a white woman could turn on the tears and be automatically believed or defended.
Same goes with Central Park lady the other year (Amy Cooper) - she was in the "right" and defended, even though she was weaponising those tears on the other end of the phone, who would have no idea what was going on)
White tears is a thing.'

And then telling women they're racist if they say... I get the context with that in USA but we're not in USA.

@MissBarbary

Is it the 10% of people who earn over £60k?

Is that correct? Only 10% earn more than £60k?

"What is the Average UK Salary in 2020/2021?

According to the ONS, in 2020 the average UK salary was £38,600 for a full-time role and £13,803 for part-time role. This is an increase from their 2019 figures, which placed the average UK wage for a full-time role at £36,611 and part-time at £12,495.

The median salary for full-time work was also higher year on year, £31,461 for full-time work and £11,234 for part-time work.The median salary in the UK is a better number to compare your wage against, as it is less suspectible to being skewed by a few people earning a considerable amount of money. The median sits directly in the centre of all the wages, a true "middlepoint" against which you can judge your own earnings, rather than the average which is affected by the 10% who earn over £62,589+ per year."

How did COVID-19 affect the Average UK Salary?

In terms of the ONS' figures, not as significantly as you might think. It's the 2021 figures that will reflect the true impact of COVID-19 on our earnings, as the report is based on statistics taken between April and April (the UK tax year).
Whilst the UK went into lockdown and employees were furloughed it's thought that the biggest impact was felt between June and August 2020 when redundancies increased to almost 2008/9 economic crash levels (source: ONS labour force surveyy_).
Between June and August 2020 non-planned redundancies increased by 113,000 on the year to 227,000 overall. The annual increase was the largest since April to June 2009, with the number of redundancies reaching its highest level since May to July 2009."

www.findcourses.co.uk/inspiration/average-salaries-uk/average-uk-salary-2020-2021-19759

OECD defines the middle class as households with disposable income of between 75% and 200% of the median

Gerbil it's everywhere and the singling out of "white feminism" seems suspect when there are so many high profile issues running concurrently. It's something we need to address as a society certainly, it's about power and structures and barriers to progress:

Walkouts over racism at Pride in London...

"How queer people of colour are responding to racism in LGBTQ+ ‘safe spaces’"

Read more: metro.co.uk/2021/03/26/queer-people-of-colour-are-facing-racism-in-lgbtq-safe-spaces-14233565/?ito=cbshare
Twitter: twitter.com/MetroUK | Facebook: www.facebook.com/MetroUK/

www.itv.com/news/london/2021-03-23/pride-in-london-wave-of-walkouts-as-race-row-engulfs-organisation

Parakeet yes agree with your posts.

I had never come across what I think is meant by 'white feminism' until the other day when I visited the WEP website the other day. Fucking hell! I mean what are they thinking. I'll post their main blurb in a sec. Utter wank.

It's libdems/ funfems that I really find just incomprehensible. If we're looking to bitch about feminist types I mean!

@Sociallydistancedcocktails

OECD defines the middle class as households with disposable income of between 75% and 200% of the median

The middle class in the states and the uk are not the same. The US middle class is wealthier. Taking the OECD approach - you're saying that those on an income of around £21,000 are included in the "dominant middle class"

'About the Women's Equality Party
Equality for women isn't a women's issue. When women fulfill their potential, everyone benefits. Equality means better politics, a more vibrant economy, a workforce that draws on the talents of the whole population and a society at ease with itself.'

They had ONE JOB. fucks sake. What a bunch of arseholes tbh.

So it's lovely careers for all and being happy and living on a cloud or something.

Fuck off.

Ironically, I doubt there racist. I'm sure they are more than happy to support well educated women to get into super jobs in finance and politics, no matter what their background

Some time ago I commented on a thread about a woman who sued an airline because a flight attendant asked her, on behalf of 2 Jewish men, if she could change seats. The men did not want to sit next to her, a woman they were not related to, due to their religious beliefs.

I commented that whilst I completely understood the woman's anger, I had also faced similar behaviour (I grew up in a Hasidic Jewish area) and personally I was more offended when a racist White man screamed "I'm not sitting next to that n***" at me on a train once. I stated that I found that racist abuse far worse than any sexist comments I've experienced.

Well my comments really didn't go down too well. The vitriol that came my way from white women on the thread who were outraged at the suggestion that my experience of racism was worse than sexism was eye-opening. I was called a fucking idiot, a hand-maiden, accused of playing oppression olympics and apparently I had internalised misogyny.

To be clear, I was simply describing my own personal view as someone who has experienced both racism and sexism. I was not attempting to speak on behalf of all Black women or pit one form of oppression against the other. However it seemed that challenging the opinion that white women face the same levels of oppression as Black women is really not the done thing.

White feminism is certainly a thing.

Ofgs. Of course racism is a problem and of course women can be racist. Structural racism within our institutions can prevent Black and Ethnic Minority people reaching their potential. It has a huge impact on their ability to earn and have an influential voice. I just do not understand how comparing white Americans with their complex and completely separate history of race relations is helpful here? And how singling out women is the most useful means of affecting change?

I would say that you've proven that some people who consider themselves to be feminist are racist, Eastie. And I'm horrified that that happened to you, both the original incident and the comments online.

Still disagree with "white feminism" to describe it anywhere outside of black feminists talking amongst themselves, though. I'm white. I'm feminist. I've been told I'm a "white feminist/racist" because I think sex and gender are different. As many others on this thread have pointed out before me, something is going a bit wrong with "white feminism" as a term out in the wild. It's a bit like "woke" - it meant one thing to black Americans a few years ago, but has been turned into something else on Twitter.

I don’t think £21,000 would be included because it wouldn’t leave you with much disposable income, which is what is being compared.

Household income is different from individual wages anyway.

Women are disproportionately the poor, so are less likely to be middle class.

I am not convinced that white women are disproportionately middle class so I don’t know why white feminism would mean middle class women. Or why middle class people are worse than the rich.

In general, yes , how should we make change, what change do we need is far more important than how shall we label people , which I suspect hinder change

Same with history , it's only really interesting if it tells you how to do things better

I don’t think £21,000 would be included because it wouldn’t leave you with much disposable income, which is what is being compared.

It's 70% of the median - I was responding to OP's post.

@Eastie77 Oh I'm much the same. Give me a misogynistic slur any day of the week than a racist one! Absolutely would rather be called a dumb b-word than a dumb n-word - though neither would be better.

So, I think one definition of white feminism that we are coming up with is white women claiming other feminist causes as they simultaneously deny the experiences of women of colour. Another definition is that it’s feminism enacted by the dominant middle class who are probably white. And there could be crossover between those in practice.

I’m still not sure if it’s generally just white women denying the experiences of racism by women of colour or if it’s also more to do with white women not understanding the experiences of women of colour more generally - experiences that aren’t so much linked to racism, and more linked to difference.

It isn’t 70% of median disposable household income though. It is 70% of the full time wage I thought?

@LibertyMole

It isn’t 70% of median disposable household income though. It is 70% of the full time wage I thought?

Ah yes, quite right. Would have been better off reiterating that the US middle class and the UK middle class are not the same. It is unhelpful to say "the dominant middle classes" in both countries as a description of where "white feminism" comes from both here and the US.

Eastie77
Sorry for your experiences. From what you described, 'white feminism' in your experience was down to a prioritising of women's rights over racism, which is insensitive when this is being expressed by women who will never be called n-word themselves. I think where this may come from is a defence mechanism, because women's rights often seem to be lower down the list of priorities by politicians and society as a whole than racism. This is because men are included in racism, and men have greater status than women. For example, blackface is seen as abhorrent yet we are constantly having drag pushed at us as a progressive and inclusive art form. (I'm not really trying to have that discussion here or make a case/excuses, just trying to understand what might have happened).