Why is it socially acceptable to stereotype and vilify white women as a whole?

[TheTERFnextDoor]

I've seen this a lot recently, often from other white women bizarrely, and I don't understand why it's socially acceptable?

I think it goes without saying that in most groups, you get good and bad people. White women are surely no different in that respect? Yes, many of them are privileged, and they don't face the discrimination that other categories might. I accept that. However, that doesn't change the fact that they aren't some homogeneous mass of people, surely?

I am genuinely trying to learn here, so I'd appreciate all responses, particularly those that disagree

It's not OK to do that to ANY group. Even one you belong to. If replacing the name of the villified group with "black people" would make you uncomfortable then you're probably being prejudiced.

My perspective as a white MAN is that white women seem to be getting more of this lately - the whole "Karen" thing, for example

I think it’s the social justice movement. To be white is to be part of the oppressor class.

It's a get out of jail free card for misogynists. It's about trying to paint women as privileged by association and therefore legitimate targets. Interestingly, it's usually white men who do it too.

Have you read “White Women’s Tears” and heard about Race to Dinner? Might open your eyes to the racial perspective here.

It’s referring to white people/women as a class rather than saying every individual white woman is bad. Exactly the same way that we as women and feminists talk about men. There are a lot of examples on here of white women telling black women that actually that racist thing they experienced isn’t racist, and making themselves victims/saying they feel attacked when racism is called out, rather than listening to what black women are saying.

People chuck it in as shorthand for privileged. So if they're having a go at eg middle aged women, it feels even better to say 'white middle aged women' if they're trying to make them look blinkered and unaware.

It's most often used by people who are white themselves.

True, but men are white too.

In an honesty, most of the time I see this, it's not about race at all. That's a genuine discussion, but there are definitely a lot of men just using it as an excuse to call women bitches and the like.

Thank you. I'll have a read of these.

Well, white men get slagged off as well sadly. (I say that as a matter of fact rather than to undermine the OP's complaint which I have every sympathy with.)

This whole idea of lumping people together based on race/sex/whatever creates massive division and dysfunction

I agree that that (white women saying that racism isn't racism) happens a lot on here, and it isn't acceptable. However, is it really fair to blame that behavior on all white women?

…..is it really fair to blame men’s behaviour on all men?

same difference, unless you actually caveat everything you say about men with NAMALT.

Jellycats4life · Today 18:16
I think it’s the social justice movement. To be white is to be part of the oppressor class.

my take: if you are white, heterosexual, happily married, hard working and minding your own business ALWAYS, at some point you will be vilified by all the others who do not like Europeans, our culture, our morals and our genuine humanness.

As a Black woman I can honestly say when I read articles where White women are criticised or described in disparaging terms, the author is usually another white woman.

It's just a way to mask blatant misogyny.

You can't say women are awful, you can say white women are awful.

Exactly the same happens to gay men in TQI+ spaces. You can't say I hate gay men, you can say I hate white gay men.

I think a distinction needs to be made between class analysis (white women suffer under patriarchy but are privileged due to race) and the almost vitriolic hatred of white women coming from the US.

Tbh I don't think it's not a million miles away from the hatred shown to GC women because it's a group of women it's OK to hate. No need to temper or mask your hatred. Just let it all out. 'Karen' is just the latest iteration.

Absolutely there are issues to do with the status white women have had due to racial hierarchy in the US. Having power in some respects but in the grand scheme of things, very little power overall. After all it is men (obviously mostly white men) who have truly wielded power.

Other white women jump on this bandwagon the same way people from other marginalised groups will, because it seems safer.

Yep.

An article on Race to Dinner, which was mentioned earlier:

amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/03/race-to-dinner-party-racism-women

Im sick of hearing and seeing the word privilege and sick of seeing things prefaced with 'white' this or that

Its utterly lazy and I instantly switch off

There has been a development of a narrative that one is either an oppressor or the oppressed and those categories change dependent on the argument being made.

So if the discussion is about racism, its black oppressed and white oppressor. If the discussion is about sexism, female oppressed, male the oppressor and so on and so on.

Its unhelpful, offensive, inaccurate and regressive. It does nothing to examine situations and events and problems/solutions as they are in reality.

The political Left is obsessed with dividing people for political gain. Majority vs minority. Black vs White. LGBTQRTSU+*- vs straight. Immigrant vs native. Muslim vs Jew. Above all, ‘oppressor’ vs ‘victim’.

Those awarded the status of ‘victim’, be they Palestinians, illegal immigrants or trans women are sanctified, regardless of any other consideration. They are awarded special status and given special entitlements, as long as they are not the ‘wrong’ sort of minority, of course, such as black or Asian Conservatives.

White women are now considered to be the hated ‘oppressor’, because some of them are demanding to preserve their private spaces from predatory men in dresses.

As a left winger this is unfortunately true. I hate it

I agree with some of these things but I have heard more black women say, that they experience more discrimination on account of race, than those that say gender is the dominant factor in their experience. I think it’s very easy for white women to close our ears to this because it implicates us. But I have seen posts on Mumsnet that cross over the line into telling black women what they should be concerned about.

So I think it’s enormously important to make the distinction between black women saying ‘actually we do have an issue with white women’s behaviour’ (yes, generally meaning not all white women, but why should they have to spell it out?) and men using it as an excuse for more misogyny. Which absolutely is happening.

Because it's much easier to be horrible to white women than white men. In the whole, we have no actual power other than our skin colour. And we don't present a threat of violence.

This is also true

It’s interesting that you say “white people/women as a class”. It obviously looks wrong there, on the page, to write it without the ‘people’ qualifier.

What possible justification is there for plucking white women out for particular scrutiny and vilification?

If you look at class analysis, there is a hierarchy of dominance so you can say in a broad and sweeping way, but with some truth, if you think globally, that ‘white people’ as a class have dominance of certain other groups. You can say that ‘men’ as a class have dominance over ‘women’ as a class. You can say that ‘upper class’ people have dominance over ‘working class’ people. You can also think about these dominance hierarchies intersect, eg - someone who is both working class and female is going to experience both upper class people and male people as being dominant over them.

However, you can’t do an oppression pick ‘n’ mix.

In that example, the working class woman would experience oppression by men (as a class) and upper class people, both men and women (as a class). She would also share a common oppression with the upper classed woman, of being oppressed by men.

There can only be dodgy grounds for singling out upper classed women, or singling out exclusively working class men for criticism and responsibility for the oppression of working class women.

There’s no moral or ethical justification for picking on an oppressed group in that way. In the former it would simply be fuelled by misogyny and in the latter it would be driven by hatred of the working class.