Feminism as Racist Backlash

[IwantToRetire]

Just in case you weren't aware that women are to blame for everything, now you can learn how feminism is an extention of racism! (Although it implies that 21st Century Feminism is not driven by Racism?)

How Racism Drove the Development of Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Feminist Theory - part of the University of Sheffield Faculty of Arts and Humanities Decolonisation Series

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/feminism-as-racist-backlash-fah-decolonisation-series-tickets-522058409757?aff=ebdssbdestsearch

Here's more on this from the chap giving the talk:

www.research.ed.ac.uk/en/publications/feminism-as-racist-backlash-understanding-how-racism-drove-the-de

To be fair, there is truth to the argument that the extension of the vote to women in America was in part argued for as a counter to concern about giving black men the vote. But that only applies to America whilst doubtless there was/is racism in the UK people weren't ever denied the vote on the basis of their skin. So whilst that history is undoubtedly interesting in its own right it doesn't really relate to the progress of the UK suffrage movement at all. Just an example of the way in which "American history" is read as being world history.

Cheeky bugger. Feminism came about after women who fought for the abolition of slavery thought - “hang on a minute, we are chattel, what about our rights?”.

If I wanted to paint feminism in the UK context as bad/regressive I would concentrate in the interest in eugenics some of the women's rights campaigners in the 19th and early 20th century had. But that would ignore the fact that pre WW2 not everyone understood the horror of where that would lead. And also of course the fact that the eugenics movement originated in California and was considered at the time to be the height of progressiveness. Thank goodness people over there no longer think sterilising mentally ill or "inverted" children/adults .puts them on the right side of history....

From that page:

By looking at the primary racial target of feminist thought and activism over the centuries, the Black male, I argue scholars can more accurately trace the theories feminists used to derail Black American’s struggle for civil rights.

An unusual take. But then he is professor of Black Male Studies, not professor of Black Female Studies, so that will affect his approach.

I would have thought that the primary racial target of feminist thought and activism over the centuries, if 'a primary racial (rather than sex class) target' could be argued to exist, would have been the white male, given that the societies where most feminist theory was written down were populated by white people and ruled by white men.

Feminism had and has racist elements, just as anti-racist movements had and have sexist elements (Stokely Carmichael's comment etc.), but this take really is extremely weird, and entirely US centred. Feminist theory was created in many countries.

I see. He writes about misandrism a lot...

I've heard hostility towards white women as part of discussion of racist violence in the US. White women are sometimes blamed for inciting lynchings, such of that of Emmett Till.

This guy proposes that the Black Male is a specific target of white women.

So many questions, so many assumptions...
This is not coming from a place of rigorous enquiry and objectivity.

I don’t think race was a huge factor in feminism the U.K. itself simply because of demographics.

Historically many feminists in the the U.K. had an interest in family planning - an obvious feminist issue - that sometimes overlapped with the eugenics movement. The idea of ‘breeding out’ disability and criminal tendencies through sterilisation was popular. There was definitely a clear divide between educated, privileged, middle and upper class feminists and the vast majority of women they sought to ‘help’. Many of those pushing for votes for women wanted votes for the right kind of women e.g. who met the voting property requirements. In keeping with Victorian attitudes, a lot of feminism was ‘paternalistic’ for want of a better word. Things should be done to improve the conditions of the working poor, but they couldn’t be trusted to know what was best for themselves.

I noticed this started in around 2010-ish and blossomed into ‘Karen’ hating. It’s misogyny. Blaming women for everything, blaming women for racism. Since you can’t blame black women for racism, it’s got to be white women to blame.

What this really reminds me of is where a professor in a niche "grievance study" discipline needs to have a new take on something to get published and maybe even make some cash writing a popular book.

Have to admit I didn't really do much background check but just posted the link based on the title.

I have tried to find out but cant see if in fact he is American, and so is writing from the US experience.

If so I suppose the parallel in the UK would be whether feminism was a backlash against working class rights(?)

But having read a bit more about the speaker it seems he is making the assumption that the role of women in society is as though they are free agents. ie in many instances women are expressing views that they hope will cement their position on the male dominated class, sector, religion, that they depend on. Not that women cant think for themselves but most were reliant on being accepted as the daughter, wife, mother of the male leaders of their social group. Which isn't to say that women who were enthusiastic followers of Hitler, or the women who implement with vigour the politics of the Taliban may have those views, but as dependents on male patronage say and take actions in a way that is different from the men in a position to instigate. (Or even in terms of class and extreme example could be that it was primarily the women in the royal family who contrived the arranged marriage between Charles and Diana.)

This is a quote from his bio:

My current research investigates the processes through which Western nations create civil society through racial phobics. I am particularly interested in understanding racism as a kind of misandric aggression used by modern democratic societies to recreate the ethnological category of the brute that legitimizes the criminalization and extermination of racialized (outgroup) males. My research also focuses on the use of sexual violence and rape against racialized men by police and within war and genocidal conflicts.

I am not questioning that this doesn't happen, but it happens in all areas of warfare, where there is no difference in terms of race. The use of rape by men to humiliate other men also happens outside of warfare.

As women know, rape isn't about "sex" rape is an act of violence and domination.

Will be interesting to see whether MNHQ will decide as they did with another thread I started that contributors to FWR aren't able (allowed) to talk about racism, and will banish is to the pink and girl "chat".

A lot of people are lining up to chuck feminism under the bus. First it's transphobic, now it's racist. It won't be long before young, blue-haired women are chanting ,"Down with feminism!" while chucking Emily Pankhurst's statue into a river.

He is also arguing that it is misandrist, at least based on some of his publications? One of them is about The Color Purple and Alice Walker's views which he deems misandrist, too.

He is tricky to categorise, but I sense at least some MRA aspects to his framework.

I must admit that I wasn't aware of Marie Stopes background in eugenics, when I quite easily could have been if I'd done any research. Her interest in birth control was not to benefit all women, at all.

But this lecture is not about Stopes and UK eugenicist feminists, it seems to be totally focussed on US history and US race relations.

I must admit I dont know much about American history (if any via Hollywood so not reliable!) but I thought many women in the Suffrage movement were also part of the anti slavery movement.

An unusual take. But then he is professor of Black Male Studies, not professor of Black Female Studies, so that will affect his approach.

Does anyone know if his uni (edinburgh I think) has a professor of ' Black Female Studies'?

I’ve always preferred Sylvia.

It’s interesting to see white women being blamed because white men have historically considered black men a threat/competition for white women.

This. And this was openly acknowledged very early on in America - Henry James wrote a novel about this in the 1880s. The talk described above is a load of provocative bollocks and fucking insulting to the many women of the abolitionist movement, who fought to end slavery and then also became women’s rights activists. Just fucking offensive anti feminist bollocks really.

Yes. Some early feminists got their feminist awakening in the Abolitionist movement, and both black and white women were active in the Abolitionism, especially Quaker women.
www.abolitionseminar.org/women-and-abolitionism/

It is accurate to say that many US suffragists were involved in the movement to abolish slavery, and that the relationships between white US suffragist women and black US abolitionist men was complicated and fraught. I'm not an expert in the area so won't weigh in at length on that aspect.

In today's context, I think the speech on misogynoir by Lorraine Nowlin of WDI USA at the national convention in September 2022 is relevant:

lorrainenowlin.substack.com/p/wdi-usa-convention-speech

The whole thing is really, really worthwhile. Here is the conclusion:

Lynching was used to shape my perception of White women as liars not to be trusted. I am stretching my thinking about White women; will you stretch your thinking about me and other Black women? Consider that Black women were victims of sexual terrorism by White men while working as maids in White homes during Jim Crow. It makes me wonder if White women were taught not to see Black women as victims of White male sexual aggression but as loose women. It is likely that we were both given carefully crafted exaggerations about each other by our “grandparents” which in turn influences how we perceive each other. Again, we must stretch our thinking beyond what we were taught in order to Reignite the Women’s Liberation Movement.

Faculty of Arts and Humanities Decolonisation Series, I wonder if they'll be considering the numerous men now colonising women's spaces.

Okay, the piece is about American Feminism, they should have left that in the title.

"By looking at the primary racial target of feminist thought and activism over the centuries, the Black male" - I'm very interested to know how feminist thought had/has a racial target. As nepeta says, the primary target would have been white men, not because of their race but because they wielded all the power.

the primary racial target of feminist thought and activism over the centuries, the Black male

Way to centre feminism around men.

A reminder: it's not just white women who want equal rights.

GrinitchSpinach

"It is accurate to say that ... the relationships between white US suffragist women and black US abolitionist men was complicated and fraught."

You can imagine the grief they would have got to be seen fraternising with black men (probably quite dangerous for the men too).

I don't understand why white women are the enemy. When I look out across the world at the brutal subjugation of my black & brown sisters in the global majority, I feel nothing but fury & solidarity. And if they look up, it's not a woman's boot on their neck, it's a man's. United we stand, but divided we fall.