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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

‘White’ Feminism

999 replies

Sociallydistancedcocktails · 26/04/2021 16:07

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

OP posts:
ArabellaScott · 26/04/2021 19:07

we have ended up with 'white feminism'

I'm not convinced we have ended up with white feminism. So many of the wonderful women involved in fighting for women's rights today in the UK are not white, it would seem to be a rather narrow view of the situation to call UK feminism 'white'.

Marimaur · 26/04/2021 19:07

@JaninaDuszejko

Might be useful for people to read this thread as a comparison. White feminism might an insult used by misogynistic men but it's also a phrase that clearly has meaning for a lot of black women as well. Having said that I do agree that there were black and asian women who were prominent in the first and second waves and that needs recognising by all sides. Maybe we have ended up with 'white feminism' for the same reason we have ended up with Tory women PMs before Labour, the campaigns that were successful are viewed as 'white feminism' because they were the changes that were most acceptable to the pale male and stale people who really run the country.
Interesting read, thanks for posting!
Trixie78 · 26/04/2021 19:07

Oh the old divide and conquer 🤦‍♀️

stumbledin · 26/04/2021 19:08

I think one of the problems is that what was Women's Liberation was based on networks of small groups that met based on something in common, which could be area lived in, race, sexuality etc.. And what was discussed in groups would be shared and things in common noted. But no one group was ever thought to represent all women, let alone speak for all women.

However, the context in which this was happening didn't like this, respect it, or understand it. And it is the patriarchy's need to have leaders, to classified and create professionals and leaders that has eroded this process.

This isn't to excuse white women, or women who have some privilege within the system of exploiting their conections to become one of these artificial spokeswomen. ie a lot of grass roots feminists were only too happpy to create univeristy courses as though somehow you could teach other women's lived experiences as a theory. (And as we know the patriarchy destroyed whatever radical potentil there might have been in such courses by closing women's studies and creating gender studies. Such is the price of collaborating with the enemy.)

Unfortunately the publishing of so called leading feminists had litttle or nothing to do with what activists were engaged with and reflected those with the power to choose who had a voice and who didn't. Hence the growth in media feminism, which again might have had a roots in political practice, but over the years has just become a competition to get male approval. And that is what it is because men control the media, social media, publishing, education.

A lot of this is actually irrelevant tomost women, because it is about an elite group who certainly in the UK are more likely to be middle in not upper class and white. (I am not surprised that in terms of a career a Black woman would experience racism in the UK.*)

In some ways I cant help but think that not just the overt MRAs behind TRA, but also the context of having to appeal to men / male structures to be acknowledged is part of what is sapping real feminist activism.

WLM failed because it could work out how to knit together the genuine voices from a multiplicity of groups into a working politics.

But what is happening now in social media and published feminism has no basis because it is learnt from sources that are the ones that men allowed.

So whichever catch phrase is the currently acceptable one in either old or new media is no more than a word game.

I dont know how we stop this as we are so far down the cul de sac of misdirection by the patriarchal context we live in, with women more interested in competing to be the most feminist voice, that I dont see how we can get back to a place where women's voices and experience are equally heard and listened to.

(*) It is noticeable that the majority of Black Women's Organisations in the UK focus on employment and advancement. They dont bother with competing for most feminist theory or catch word, but on practical solutions.

Footnote: I've left out the malign / male line of funding and how that has corrupted and misdirected women's politics. As we know many of the women's groups that continue to exist do so because they colluded with their funders to distance themselves from the concept that women irrespective of race, class or education are the ones best able to direct what needs to be done. Not the well paid experts who get a secure job and are happy to appear on platforms to make men seem to be listening to women - whereas they are listening to their paid puppets.

stumbledin · 26/04/2021 19:15

As an example the refuge movement in the early days was very much based on women creating save spaces for themselves, and was largely created by Black women and white working class women.

The funders demands that "qualified" women need to manage the money they were kind enough to make available - on their terms.

Qualified being a euphamism for white middle class university graduates.

cakedays · 26/04/2021 19:19

In some ways I cant help but think that not just the overt MRAs behind TRA, but also the context of having to appeal to men / male structures to be acknowledged is part of what is sapping real feminist activism.

It isn't surprising then, that the kind of feminism young women believe is allowed, is one that primarily says: don't listen to older women because their feminism is pale, stale and transphobic. Because older women are far less likely to feel they have to either suppress their experiences OR to appeal to male approval. Isn't it a coincidence, hmm, that young women are led to believe that they should be rejecting older women's feminism, just at the point where women were starting to gain some genuine financial and social power?

mollythemeerkat · 26/04/2021 19:23

You said it better than I could @cakedays

Yes exactly - originally this came from a Marxist analysis of class (structural) oppression - in which social class, sex, race, sexuality etc. were all "classes". But these often have different social axes, so the idea emerged out of the "intersections" of different forms of structural oppression. It was originally part of theories that recognised that tackling structural oppression demands radical social change, e.g. that it all goes down at the root to the economic structures of capitalism itself, and the economics of property ownership and labour.

Now, though, it floats around disconnected from the original structural Marxist analysis it was part of, which was about how race, social class and sex are all related to the economics of production. So it sort of recirculates the discourse but without the deeper connection to social change (largely because modern Anglophone societies do not want to think about Marxism and they certainly don't want to think about any solution that might run counter to the idea that you can have both social change and all the capitalist things you like as well).

Flaxmeadow · 26/04/2021 19:26

We don't often hear about the racism/class prejudice/sexism working class white women face, however, because it's considered taboo or 'racist' to talk about it.

Taboo and yet those girls and women, by giving evidence against terrifying organised crime in dozens of court cases, have done more for womens rights, especially in the North of England, than any feminist or anti racist organisation I can think of in the last ten years. But yes we are not allowed to discuss it or even name it

SmokedDuck · 26/04/2021 19:43

This isn't to excuse white women, or women who have some privilege within the system of exploiting their conections to become one of these artificial spokeswomen. ie a lot of grass roots feminists were only too happpy to create univeristy courses as though somehow you could teach other women's lived experiences as a theory. (And as we know the patriarchy destroyed whatever radical potentil there might have been in such courses by closing women's studies and creating gender studies. Such is the price of collaborating with the enemy.)

While I am totally with you on the need to have small grass roots groups - and this should be the basis of all party politics IMO - I am not sure we can pawn off blame for gender studies departments on "the patriarchy". Women's studies became gender studies because many of the women involved accepted a pretty extreme type of social constructivism.

Charley50 · 26/04/2021 19:45

@ArabellaScott

we have ended up with 'white feminism'

I'm not convinced we have ended up with white feminism. So many of the wonderful women involved in fighting for women's rights today in the UK are not white, it would seem to be a rather narrow view of the situation to call UK feminism 'white'.

I agree. There are a significant number of high-profile black women fighting the feminist fight in the UK, both for all women, and for issues more specific to black women.
HecatesCatsInFancyHats · 26/04/2021 19:49

Isn't it a coincidence, hmm, that young women are led to believe that they should be rejecting older women's feminism, just at the point where women were starting to gain some genuine financial and social power?

I think about this a lot Cake, well put.

stumbledin · 26/04/2021 19:55

Women's studies became gender studies because many of the women involved accepted a pretty extreme type of social constructivism.

And why did they accept it?

Just as with funding once some (and it only needs to be a few) women accept a paid position that allows them a life styly beyond the means of most ie being able to take on a mortgage are then trapped into that life style by the need to continue to get maintain that.

It is well known that the CE on one of England's supposedly representative groups for the women's sector took the job to pay her mortgage and get her daughter into university. And the group survives not because it represents the voices of less prestigious women's groups, but because it serves the purposes of the funders to have a tokenistic group they can then present as them being in touch with women's needs.

Interestingly the start of the concept of funding women's groups (and also Black led groups) was part of Ken Livingstone's red labour GLC. The motivation being that once you "owned" a group through funding it you then controlled it.

I am sure there are still groups doing "good work" but it is very much in the style of the lady of the manor dispensing largesse to the poor.

Nowhere is is allowed that the women needing support are the ones who run the service.

And the media loves the lonely heroine narrative. ie everyone thinks that Erin Pizzey (an anti feminist) started the first women's refuge in the UK. Whereas in fact is was a local Black Women's Group in Brixton that create the first "refuge" for women.

Worth remembering that the concept of conciousness raising, that formed the basis of the network of small groups that was Women's Liberation, was a concept created by the Black Liberation Movement in the US.

cakedays · 26/04/2021 20:06

HecatesCatsInFancyHats yes, and the thing at the moment that is new, in my experience, is that young people really don't want to engage with anything that goes against the tribal opinions they read on social media. So any attempt to share a wider context or history, or to suggest that something could be thought differently, is met with "ur whiteness is showing" or "op is a terf" and so on (oh, I've been on Tumblr Grin)

Now, I wonder who this benefits? Who ends up winning when there's divide and rule? It's really convenient for all of our market overlords if identity politics is all about pointing out other people's failures, buying woke brands and arguing with people on Twitter; and doesn't have anything to do with things like employment protections, childcare provision, funding maternity services, prioritising women's healthcare needs, changing police and CPS cultures around rape, training social workers, funding legal aid to women discriminated against by their employers, and all of those kinds of inconvenient things that would actually help women of all races and backgrounds.

And there's a hell of a lot of mileage for patriarchal capitalism in persuading women that they shouldn't band together to demand any of those things, because they aren't like other women, and other women don't like them either, so make sure you cling to the men in your community because they are the ones who can best look after your interests.

FightingTheFoo · 26/04/2021 20:07

@GrumpyHoonMain

I’m Indian origin and yes I do believe white feminism exists. For example white feminism believe in the right to work, but only if you do it like a white person. If you need to care for extended family / spend 2 hours a day to make your hair presentable / are raised to be softly spoken and centre your working and personal life around family you’re told you have no ambition and aren’t working hard enough.

All of that is on top of the double discrimination on account of my skin colour and sex which white women wouldn’t understand, even if they lived in non-white countries because it is really negative discrimination. I routinely get ignored by white men and women in favour of my husband despite being dressed in a similarly western way.

I don't understand: what does "working like a white person" mean?

And are you really suggesting there are no white women who need to care for extended family in addition to their work commitments?

And that there are no white women who need 2 hours a day to make their hair presentable?

And there are no white women who have been raised to be "softly spoken and centre their working and personal life around family" and consequently are told they have "no ambition and aren’t working hard enough"?

Also, where do Jews fit into this? I look white. I don't consider myself white. My lips and nose and hair aren't "white". As it happens, I need about 1.5 hours a day to make my hair look presentable. It falls short of your 2-hour quota. Does that mean I'm white?

cakedays · 26/04/2021 20:11

[I must say though, as a gloss to my previous post, that actually even thought tumblr is a nexus for the anime-cat-ears-kink-porn-op-is-a-terf version of identity politics; there is also a thriving young radfem and gender critical community on there too, doing good work in pushing back against this stuff -- where there isn't so much on other youth platforms. Probably because of the anonymity on tumblr that allows young radfems the confidence to resist it.]

LibertyMole · 26/04/2021 20:18

A large part of the problem of intersectionality is that it rests on standpoint theory- this idea that what someone has to say carries more weight if it is based on their own ‘lived experience’ of being in a minority group, rather than on rationality.

HandInGlove85 · 26/04/2021 20:23

And that there are no white women who need 2 hours a day to make their hair presentable?

I really don't think there are tbh. I am a white woman with exceedingly difficult hair, but I've never spent 2 hours a day on a regular basis on it (although maybe that is why my hair looks so shit - my lack of commitment)

LibertyMole · 26/04/2021 20:23

Also the argument that people cannot understand something unless they have experienced it.

Well there’s no point discussing it then, is there? The whole point of discussion is to communicate with other people. If you believe your experiences are incomprehensible to other people, why mention them?

In reality even truly horrific experiences like POW camps are actually comprehensible to people with empathy and imagination.

Sociallydistancedcocktails · 26/04/2021 20:25

We are united in some aspects (eg laws around rape) but divided in others, eg progression in the workplace.

For example, any woman fighting to increase safety for women on the streets is fighting a feminist cause. Irrespective of her race or social background.

But a white woman being appointed to a position of power in her profession. Well great for her and I wish her the best. But why is that being positioned as a victory for all women? As a woman of colour, I don’t see it as anything to do with me or of benefit to me. ( in my experience, Ive been supported in career advancement by white men and woc and bullied by white women and ethnic minority men in the workplace). These things are more complex

Just as I would hardly think that my career advancement is a positive for all women. No, it benefits me and others like me, but I wouldn’t virtue signal that it somehow means that a woman who is over here as a refugee will benefit from my career progression.

OP posts:
JustSpeculation · 26/04/2021 20:25

@RaveOnThisCrazyFeeling

Intersectionality, as articulated by Crenshaw, is hugely important.

But the concept has been appropriated and is now used, along with the concept of 'white feminism', as a way to minimise and even dismiss the existence of sex-based oppression, by holding the position that sex based oppression isn't a form of oppression in its own right, and only matters insofar as it intersects with what misogynists on the left accept as 'real' oppression (i.e. that which is based on race or sexuality or gender identity).

Today, so-called intersectional feminists don't even acknowledge being biologically female as an axis of oppression for women - they reposition it as 'cis privilege' instead, which tells you all you need to know about their motivations and priorities (hint: it's not feminism).

Recognising that women who are not white, straight, and able-bodied will face multiple forms of oppression which can exacerbate their oppression and marginalisation is important. Ensuring that the voices of those women is uplifted and their concerns brought to the fore is important.

But feminism is about liberation from sex-based oppression. So-called intersectionality that doesn't even recognise sex (as distinct from gender identity) as its own axis of oppression, and therefore shames white women for calling out the ways in which sexism impacts their lives, isn't feminism .

I think this is very true, and a good argument. Very clearly put.
WeRoarSometimes · 26/04/2021 20:26

@HecatesCatsInFancyHats

Girls who entered the care system are amongst the most vulnerable women in society and also most invisible when it comes to safeguarding, and policymaking.

LibertyMole · 26/04/2021 20:32

If we lived in a society where there were no women in positions of authority, particularly in the legal and health professions, women’s rights would suffer as a consequence.

I am never going to be in any senior role but of course it benefits me that there are female doctors, solicitors, senior police officers etc.

Imagine how women would be treated as clients and patients if it were all men in powerful positions.

MissBarbary · 26/04/2021 20:38

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.

Let me know if Emma Watson ever says anything worth listening to.

Sociallydistancedcocktails · 26/04/2021 20:49

We need diversity - men and women of different ethnicities, religions, socio-economic backgrounds , disabilities, sexual orientations and life experiences.

Just having a vagina is not enough to represent women. Just as having a penis doesn’t mean that a bunch of white men in positions of power represent or protect the interests of black men

OP posts:
HecatesCatsInFancyHats · 26/04/2021 20:56

Just having a vagina is not enough to represent women.

Only women have a vagina. But it would be great if men could stand up for us too.