‘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

@HecatesCatsInFancyHats

Well it's impossible to tell isn't it?

I suppose, however the comment was about the poster having in question finding other women disagreed with her about it.

I wasn't really responding to that post.

It is interesting that people try to defend the indefensible by saying perhaps these nurses were ‘foreign’ and somehow lacking the appropriate skills.

Rather than racism and that they were othered because of prejudice. Often by their white female colleagues and superiors. I guess it doesn’t fit with the sisterhood

Racism isn't a mechanism, it's a label for an effect where there is a disparity. There still has to be a mechanism for the disparity, a material cause.

It could be racial prejudice meaning people made more complaints, that's a possibility, but isn't the only one by any means. Ethnicity and race correlate with all kinds of different demographics and that is particularly true I think in the health care sector.

There are lots of ways racial disparities can come to exist. Which is why it's so important to really look at the data beyond just saying, there is a disparity when we collate this by race.

Who wins when a proper analysis is seen as a problem? Who is that really about?

I posted this the other day, about how important it is to do proper statistical analysis and how not doing so can lead to incorrect conclusions, and I'm going to again because if you want to actually do a proper socialist class analysis, as many posters here claim, you actually have to look at the material reality and the mechanism. Otherwise it's just farting in the wind. I realise it's an academic article but worth reading:

socialistregister.com/index.php/srv/article/view/15650

It takes a grouping of 20 women before they are confident enough to say anything.

I wonder if just one or two white women would have been written off as having white tears?

They would be accused of racism

Misogyny is all alive and well in all racial and ethnic groups and if cases like Rotherham have told us anything it should be that all women deserve to be listened to.

They won't be listened to in the counties of Greater Manchester, West/South Yorkshire i can assure you. All have very high numbers of convictions and cases still going through the courts of GG. I'd say approximately three quarters of all convictions are in these places. Some of the towns there have had 4 or 5 gangs separately convicted. These 3 counties have a combined population of about 7 million. But what is happening is still being covered up and I will tell you how, and it is outrageous.

When you google 'grooming gangs evidence' the results will come up with various newspaper articles on a recent Home Office report. This report says there is no evidence that non white CSE gangs in the UK are no more prevalent than white CSE gangs. This is an important factor, because many of the victims (white) in places like Rotherham, Rochdale, Bradford, Keighley, Manchester, Huddersfield, Halifax, Sheffield, Oldham and so on in GM/WY/SY, reported that they had been racially abused while being gang raped, tortured, trafficked for forced prostitution, subject to repeated mock executions (petrol, guns eg), in some cases murdered.

OK you might think reading the report, no evidence that these are in any way racially motivated crimes, the Home Office says so, that's the end that. Or so you would think

But what the newspaper reports don't tell you is that the 5 towns/districts chosen for the study are in places like North Wales, and quote 'a north London housing estate', in Bristol, a region in Scotland. I think only one town in the North of England (pop 15 million) but crucially somewhere out of the way on the coast.

Not one single town or region chosen for the study was in Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire or South Yorkshire (combined pop about 7.5 million). The 3 counties where these crimes are rife. So it doesn't exist. The millions of woman and girls still at risk in those counties do not exist and never did

I am not saying they don’t have the skills. I am saying that a great deal of avoiding a disciplinary is following the policies and procedures of the NHS.

That isn’t a greater skill level; it is just a different organisation.

If the NHS underfunds proper management of staff trained in other countries who will have an additional training lead as they have come from another system, it leads them vulnerable to disciplinary proceedings.

It is a really bad faith argument to claim that implies medical staff from other countries are less skilled.

I have just moved jobs. If I am not trained on the policies and procedures of my new organisation properly, I would be at risk of disciplinary, even though the fault would be my managers. I am not less skilled than other workers, but I have moved from a different organisation with different rules.

U.K. trained midwives train in the NHS.

And failing to train foreign qualified medical staff in NHS policies and procedures properly is racism.

In fact it would be institutional racism which left staff who qualified abroad at greater risk.

Looking at rape in the UK, NO women are taken seriously:

"In the year ending March 2020, 99% of rapes reported to police in England and Wales resulted in no legal proceedings against alleged attackers."

https://news.sky.com/story/99-of-rapes-reported-to-police-in-england-and-wales-do-not-result-in-legal-proceedings-why-12104130

"Rape convictions fall to record low in England and Wales
Prosecutions and convictions have more than halved in three years while rapes have risen"

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jul/30/convictions-fall-record-low-england-wales-prosecutions?CMP=ShareiOSAppp_Other

So that analysis says:

“Overall, six factors were identified as underpinning the disproportionate representation of black minority ethnic staff in disciplinaries: closed culture and climate; subjective attitudes and behaviour; inconclusive disciplinary data; unfair decision making; poor disciplinary support; and disciplinary policy misapplication”

Some of it seems like it could translate quite directly into racism, obviously like “unfair decision making”.

“Subjective attitudes” seems to be about what happens when staff attitudes didn’t conform to expected norms, but noting that they didn’t get the chance to learn about those norms, and also that they were being misinterpreted. So this seems to be about failed cultural bridging. I think. With the onus placed on the culturally incompetent managers. I think I’ve been close to this in my own experiences.

It seems to point to a BME staff always being entered into formal rather than informal processes. I thought that was really interesting. On the one hand, that could be really sinister, and I’m sure it sometimes is. On the other, the report points to evidence of fear of getting things wrong on the part of HR/management when they perceive an added race dimension and hence always going for a formal, process led, recorded scenario.

The quotes in this are really worth a read and illuminating:
www.magonlinelibrary.com/doi/full/10.12968/bjhc.2018.0062

As a white feminist then I guess I should try to be aware of not perpetuating similar issues? It’s hard to know how to respond. I feel quite powerless really.

‘It is interesting that people try to defend the indefensible by saying perhaps these nurses were ‘foreign’ and somehow lacking the appropriate skills.’

This is perhaps the goadiest thing so far on this thread. It really isn’t speculation that the NHS relies on staff trained in foreign countries. Nobody suggested they were less skilled.

If you don’t want any consideration of how the NHS then accommodates and supports people trained under different systems, you can’t look at one of the major factors that is going to influence the outcomes of a disciplinary.

I mean, it is one of the strongest defences; I followed the policies of my organisation. Thus the organisation is at fault not me.

@VladmirsPoutine

I wonder if just one or two white women would have been written off as having white tears?

This is very crass but I can assure you - white women tears win out because they are white. Black women are oft depicted as undesirable, unfeminine, strong, 'mammi' types. Black women's tears are usually only worthwhile when extracting trauma from them about their 'hard' lives.

In the case of Noel Clarke I very much doubt white women's tears would have won out.

White women's tears 'win out' in what specific UK situations that will be recognised ie not one off stories?

I don't see that women are believed here much tbh. And the main differentiator in how much both men and women are taken seriously is class/ wealth/ power. With men at each level being given more credibility than women from the same group.

If it's racism in UK we're talking about, misogyny etc. And the police. I mentioned two deaths in custody. Seen the most upsetting story in the news today. Fucking fucking met. Warning- this is upsetting. www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-56950484

Children are a group who are regularly ignored/ seen an unreliable/ fobbed off in general, thinking about it.

That's a massive problem.

It is interesting that people try to defend the indefensible by saying perhaps these nurses were ‘foreign’ and somehow lacking the appropriate skills.

I don’t think this is fair. To try to explain the mechanism is not to defend the outcome. The report itself includes at least one example where a member of staff being foreign was significant. Doesn’t make it her fault, and doesn’t make it ok. Does help to explain how the situation arose and what could be done differently. Also doesn’t exclude more direct racism as a factor.

@NiceGerbil, that’s horrific. The poor child

Looking at rape in the UK, NO women are taken seriously

I agree but tens of thousands of girls and women in West & South Yorkshire and Greater Manchester, have been, and still are being regularly racially targeted by multiple organised crime gangs, not just for gang rape but for forced prostitution and trafficking, forced heroin and crack cocaine addiction, mock executions, murder, and this specific organised crime is being covered up. Some of these girls are 11 years old. In one case a girl had her tongue nailed to a wooden table for trying to escape.

These 3 counties, in close proximity to each other, combined are about the same population as London. If this was happening in London to black girls by white gangs, then it would not be covered up. But because the victims are in the north and are white, it is.

Who is the more privileged. A white girl in WY, GM, SY or a black girl in London. Who is the least privileged and most at risk of being a victim of a racicially aggravated rape or racist gang? Who would be believed. Who would be accused of having privileged 'tears'. Who would have their perpetrators with male family networks in the local police, local council, local politics, local business, housing, in a city like Bradford for example

This is why the word 'Rotherham' keeps being brought up, not just by me but others as well. OP would you like to address why Rotherham keeps being brought up?

Flax, What happened in Rotherham is so utterly sickening. Those poor girls.
They have been so badly let down by individuals and institutions who should have protected them.

And of course men oppress women across race. No one has said that’s not the case

And women can oppress women too - and that’s the point I was trying to make.

Flax, What happened in Rotherham is so utterly sickening. Those poor girls.

But part of my point is that it is happening all over the urban north, Rotherhm is just one place of many. 'Rochdale' and 'Rotherham' are metaphors for a much wider problem

They have been so badly let down by individuals and institutions who should have protected them

Do the tens of thousands of victims have 'white tears' ? Are they more privileged, including racially privileged, day to day than black girls from council estates in south London?

' If this was happening in London to black girls by white gangs, then it would not be covered up. But because the victims are in the north and are white, it is.'

I don't agree with this at all. It's conjecture.

And my feeling as a Londoner is that no one would be interested here either if the girls were from the same socio economic group.

This is where I feel that the original intersectionality is lost. And it's back to Olympics and assumptions.

There have been loads of organised sexual abuse scandals carried out by white men. In the church, in children's homes, in sports teams, amongst celebrities.

The way the men in the northern cases were organised and what they did was a different mode of operation to what white men usually use. But all groups do this shit.

What the victims have in common is vulnerability. Could be to do with age, poverty, lack of opportunities. Issues at home. Boredom? Insecurity? Power differential. How could good God fearing men, men who volunteer their time, upstanding men, famous loved men do that? And the child is an unreliable witness for .

In the end the USA has massive problems and their own culture history etc. I'm more than happy to listen and read what feminists of any race/ religion etc say.

There is no point in exporting those concepts wholesale, or even just the labels. And asking women in another country to explain themselves. The stuff about white women being automatically listened to does not translate to the UK.

I have lived with the met for most of my life. They have a litany of scandals under their belts. Really awful stuff. In my opinion they are institutionally, fundamentally misogynist, racist, clasist. You name it. They look after their paymasters and the things that matter to them. That's been my view for years. I have had so many arguments on here about it.

So as an English woman I have more chance of trying to do something about that. Not sure what. But it's immediately relevant to me and millions of other Londoners.

Having to explain why I don't think stuff from USA often works here, and then being accused of racism when I do. Helps nothing whatsoever.

Gerbil

I don't disagree that there some white CSE groups. I disagree that there are 'loads' or on the same scale as in the north.

But apart from that, I'm specifically wanting to discuss racially aggravated organised crime in GM, WY and SY. Why are white women and girls in these areas considered to be more privileged than black women and girls in London?

These are both highly populated regions, with historic large scale immigration and so I think a good comparison. Though I would say in the north more economically deprived

Are the white northern girls in GM, WY, and SY more privileged than the BAME London girls yes or no? If the answer is yes they are more privileged, then why?

I was working as a child protection social worker in a town close to Rotherham when this first started seeping into professionals awareness.

A large meeting was held to discuss concerns about girls in care particularly being sexually exploited, lots of people attended, social workers, police, residential care workers, eows, all sorts.

After the first meeting no more were held despite clear plans being made to do so, senior council officials were concerned it would inflame local racial tensions.
In this case between the taxi driving Kurdish community and the working class white community.

Much later when the horrors of Rotherham came out I remembered that meeting and the way it was firmly shut down.

I know that these men also abused woman and girls in their own communities and that most sexual abuse is carried out by white men.

But in the area I worked in senior council leadership was more concerned about race relations than vulnerable white working class girls on that occasion.

It is another reason to question the white tears narrative being relevant in the UK.

Yeah women and girls are better off in London...

www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/london-prosecution-rate-domestic-violence-worst-uk-cps-b924635.html

I don't disagree that victims of grooming gangs have been very badly failed. However, it's definitely nothing to do with favouring London women and girls (whatever their race or skin colour).

You also seem to be under the impression that there are no white female Londoners Flax There are. Loads of them. Lots of whom absolutely are underprivileged and/or working class.

I don't disagree that victims of grooming gangs have been very badly failed. However, it's definitely nothing to do with favouring London women and girls (whatever their race or skin colour).

But this topic IS about skin colour but this topic until now only favoured discussion on London and the USA, as if those are the only places with racially diverse demographics.

You also seem to be under the impression that there are no white female Londoners Flax There are. Loads of them. Lots of whom absolutely are underprivileged and/or working class.

But I'm asking about white privilege. Why are white women and girls in WY, SY and GM considered to have white privilege and to be crying white tears?

I live in one of those counties in the north and I'm trying to understand what is meant by white feminism, white privilege and white tears. I'm trying to put it into the context of where I live.

'Why are white women and girls in these areas considered to be more privileged than black women and girls in London?'

Well they aren't by me.

That question needs to go to OP and quaggars etc.