‘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

Cultural and moral relativism is a slippery slope and can be used to justify all sorts of behaviours.

@Gorgeouslilgirl It currently is being used to justify all sorts. Just have a look at the current 'culture war' on the so called 'woke'.

"Slavery was awful, and the selling of men, women and children is not more culturally palatable when it was done by women"
From what I gather from the comments posted pages back by those more knowledgeable than myself, women had no rights to own slaves, property etc in the time of slavery, so this is a moot point.

There isn’t a culture war on the woke. There is a culture war between left and right in the USA.

@Novelusername

"Slavery was awful, and the selling of men, women and children is not more culturally palatable when it was done by women" From what I gather from the comments posted pages back by those more knowledgeable than myself, women had no rights to own slaves, property etc in the time of slavery, so this is a moot point.

Just to clarify. White women in North America did own enslaved Africans.

In actuality wealthy women inheriting enslaved people from their deceased parents was often an important part of marriage assets.

For example the enslaved fourteen year old girl, Sally Hemmings, whom Thomas Jefferson raped and impregnated 6 times, was owned by his wife. (This was an area of deep focus during my history MA degree so I do know. I've read the primary sources.)

I often feel that too many people, including historians, struggle to see the past as it really was, believing that if they had lived back then, they would have somehow been exempt from subscribing to the prevailing injustices and beliefs.

It goes further than this I think. People don't realise how really differently people conceptualised things, thought about the world.

I had a conversation once with someone, a university educated person, about slavery in the ancient world. I had pointed out that it was completely ubiquitous, though most societies didn't depend on a large slave class, almost all had some slaves and didn't really consider it a controversial social arrangement. "Except the slaves" this person said.

Well, actually, no. Not that people wanted to be slaves, but that is not the same as thinking it is illegitimate, most of them would have happily owned slaves had their situations been reversed and former slave owners who were freed did often own slaves if they could afford it.

People no more thought that the institution was illegitimate than they thought having a class based system was illegitimate. People who thought differently were rare as hens teeth, almost weirdos, and nowhere near as common as it became moving into the modern period.

People just can't seem to imagine people thinking about things so differently, but it is inexcusable in a history professor.

I forgot to add that owning slaves as an unmarried woman, typically as a result of inheritance from a deceased father (when there were no sons to bequeath to) was a VERY important way for white women to become independently wealthy from men in the antebellum era.

This independence would, of course, mean that they were no longer forced to marry a man to survive, or could marry for love. So owning enslaved people was a very important part of the early white feminist story in America.

For me this is what encapsulates white feminism. Ruby Bridges - same age as my mother as it happens. Had to be guarded by US marshalls - first black child to attend a white school in the south and the white women who hated it.

I know it's the U.S etc etc but it's not as though white women were somehow unfortunate victims of the time. These women depicted here are now someone's grandparent, parent, teacher, nurse, whatever. These things didn't happen eons ago so now we should all move on. It's still here front and centre. Fundamentally why I think white women - feminism or not - are not part of the 'sisterhood'.

What sisterhood? That's a bit of a sweeping statement. Feminism is about women's rights. It isn't primarily about race.

And no, of course I don't agree with segregation or Ruby being protested against for attending school, nor do I think they are what feminism stands for.

Whilst it breaks my heart to see that picture of a little girl having to be escorted like that through a baying mob, lets not forget her white female schoolteacher, Barbara Henry. From my perspective, human beings are herd animals and a minority think deeply on any issue, trying to overcome their own personal prejudices or the ways they have been trained to think by the society they live in. White women are guilty of this, but I don't believe that they are more guilty than anyone else.

chalkboardchampions.org/barbara-henry-the-teacher-who-helped-ruby-bridges-integrate-a-new-orleans-school/

Some women will embrace the concept of sisterhood and some won't, it was the same in the past.

Some white women were able to see past the structural racism they were born and raised in and others couldn't.

That doesn't invalidate all feminism engaged in by white women in all countries.

American feminism may have its own raced based issues to address but I still don't see the relevance of that to the UK.
Even in America race relations were very different in different parts of the country.

The UK has its own issues to consider the role of women in the Southern United States during the desegregation of schools really isn't one of them.

I am also very unsure that those women would have identified as white feminists, or indeed feminists of any kind.

@VladmirsPoutine

For me this is what encapsulates white feminism. Ruby Bridges - same age as my mother as it happens. Had to be guarded by US marshalls - first black child to attend a white school in the south and the white women who hated it.

I know it's the U.S etc etc but it's not as though white women were somehow unfortunate victims of the time. These women depicted here are now someone's grandparent, parent, teacher, nurse, whatever. These things didn't happen eons ago so now we should all move on. It's still here front and centre. Fundamentally why I think white women - feminism or not - are not part of the 'sisterhood'.

What on earth makes you think those women were feminists?

@Ereshkigalangcleg You are right: it isn't primarily about race. Ergo why I find the term 'white feminism' useful. Because I am a feminist. But I am not a white feminist.

In 1960, little Ruby Bridges enrolled in the school. Barbara volunteered to teach Ruby, but the decision prompted white parents to remove their children from the class. For more than a year Barbara taught Ruby as her only student in the classroom

The bolding is mine- parents, not mothers.

I expect Barbara Henry will be accused of being a white saviour.

I'm not sure labeling works if it means giving other people labels they don't want and don't recognize.
I am a feminist who is white.
I accept that my race is one of several attributes that will influence the way I view the world.

I would not describe myself as a white feminist, not least because I don't think my race is the most influential part of my feminism.

I would object to anyone else placing that label on me.

Yes, it's a bit like saying all 'Muslims are terrorists', to claim that the most fervent racist white women protesting outside a school are representative of all white women of the time, let alone calling them 'white feminists' or relating it to our own times. There were lots of white people involved in the civil rights movement, as you can see from this footage of the march on Washington.

I don't see what those women particularly have to do with feminism though? We don't even know what they thought of feminism. Maybe some were racists and feminists, but there is no particular reason to think that. Some might have been anti-feminist.

It's kind of like saying, some women like stupid comedy, and therefore there is a kind of feminism that supports stupid comedy. It seems very random.

Not caught up- in response to novelusername about the equalities form.

That's the standard govt template, areas can and I'm sure do tweak them according to their local population and what demographics are important to their area.

So adding white - polish would be a good idea and councils etc could do that if they had reasons to capture that information. EG engagement with services, not being registered with GPs and stuff. They aren't usually capturing it just to know- the census is more that.

And like I say it's area specific. We have people from all over Europe- lots of people from Greece, Turkey, Romania, Poland, Croatia etc etc (I mean more recent immigrants). Oh and Ukraine, Albania. A fair amount of people from Albania now I think of it.

So it depends on where you are iyswim and what reason you have to collect the data.

My last sentence or two, "feminist or not" is to pretty much say that ultimately white women will be your ally up to a certain point - the point at which their womanhood no longer serves them. That is to say, e.g. you'll have a lot of white women who are for 'women's rights' but the whole point of 'white' feminism is the point at which they will abandon that allyhood because the whiteness serves them more.

That is not to paint all white women/people with the same brush stroke. Half of my family is white so I don't think I could legitimately even make that argument. But the point is that white feminism is not some divisive trope. It does serve a purpose. If the shoe doesn't fit then don't wear it.

Fundamentally why I think white women - feminism or not - are not part of the 'sisterhood'.

christ on a bike

worst explanatory example ever

That is not to paint all white women/people with the same brush stroke.

which is literally what you did in your previous post

make your mind up

The main thing that concerns me is not examining the areas where 'white feminism' falls short of meeting the needs of WOC - that I welcome. It seems to be a trend to blame white women for all society's ills and this is dressed up as a kind of postmodern reckoning, but where does it overspill into nothing more than misogyny? Of course, men will be happy to do this, as it gets them off the hook. It's all very well to say 'If the shoe doesn't fit then don't wear it', but making bold statements that label white underprivileged women from the UK as being the same as a segregation era racists from the Southern states is just racist in itself - suggesting we're all the same on account of skin colour. By all means criticise the faults that exist, in our society in the here and now, and by all means look back on British history in order to see how we got to where we are - the Windrush scandal, for example. You can trace racist attitudes here by looking at the British past, but these bullshit comparisons to white women in the antebellum South seem to be attempts to make all white women everywhere guilty of some sort of original sin on account of the mythical holy land of America which we must all answer to.

Hold on s minute.

Women all over the world do awful things and always have! We're not like some kind of infallible species or something :/

I mean just off the top of my head there are women are involved in

Human trafficking
FGM
Assisting in/ being all for 'honour' crimes
Working as or with pimps
Fraud including of vulnerable people
Violence/ neglect of vulnerable people
And on and on

Some women are horrible. Obviously.
We all live in societies that were set up by men for the benefit of men.
Yet over and over women are the ones who the shock is expressed about, and somehow over and over most things that are seen as bad, that are bad, that men do too, often worse...

The example above.

'For example the enslaved fourteen year old girl, Sally Hemmings, whom Thomas Jefferson raped and impregnated 6 times, was owned by his wife' is an interesting example. Seems to imply she could have stopped him? Or was complicit? And why is the fact she owned her worse than what he did?!

And why why why are we talking about the USA AGAIN?

Is it because the set list of arguments about why white women are the worst people on the planet all about the USA?

There's more than enough in the UK to discuss. In our history and now.

The idea that USA and UK address basically the same is nonsense. Religion, guns, ideas about freedom and what it means, what the relationship between govt and people the main views of the political parties, guns, different class system, prisons, etc etc

We share a language but that's about it.

I would not say that English culture was basically the same as Scotland, Wales or NI. And we are their neighbours and share borders and are all UK!

It's a very big claim indeed seemingly by those who want to focus on things that go on thousands of miles away and their history.

Our culture is way closer to France Germany etc than USA.