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

We’ve come full circle back to the OP, @MissLucyEyelesbarrow

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

Because they probably won’t retaliate and no one wants to defend them. If they do retaliate, just shout them down and call them names.

I'm not sitting back. I am actively reading the thread and considering my response. There's lots of interesting points being made from all angles. I certainly don't see the "bun fight" youve mentioned?!?

You're right, it hasn’t turned into a fight.

What’s your response to your original premise- why is it socially acceptable to stereotype and vilify white women as a whole?

The post I was responding to specifically said this individual would have power in the system, because it was made by and for white people.

I asked for specific examples that would apply to that individual. Not some kind of statistical statement which, even if true, is absolutly and completely meaningless with regard to an individual.

I suspect that you can't actually suggest any way this particular person would hold "systemic power" because he clearly doesn't.

You are wrong though too that his statistical outcomes are better. Poor white males have, as a group, statistically shitty outcomes, in many cases worse than many other groups in society. And that's only with the most general of generalizations about race. If you break race down even more, say into groups from different places, or at different education levels, you would find the picture is even less clear.

Racism, systemic or otherwise, only exists if it exists materially. You can't say that someone has an abstract advantage when clearly they are materially without advantage.

Well, I think it's right that a white man criticizing white women is likely misogyny, whereas black women criticizing the centering of feminism on white women is not. Second wave feminism is focused on certain lifestyles, ones that white women are more likely to follow.

Basically, we do need to separate the insults from the legitimate criticisms here.

I didn’t double down on anything

I explained to you what had happened and you said "Your narrative doesn’t fit the facts." and then restated your untrue version of events.

I was only wrong as to why she had rented it for one minute because I did not see the bike docked during the video I saw.

Well, you were wrong about her booking the bike (I think you can't actually book NYC citi bikes in advance though could be wrong), arriving late, about being able to commit fraud by hiring a bike for 1 minute and then riding off (?), and needing to use a phone to end your session.
That's fine, but maybe don't act so sure when you're not.

You then said this:The video also proves the woman wasn’t harassed at all as one of the supposed harassers (the man in purple) kept telling the other man to let her have the e-bike and then actually gave up his ebike for her
which is just absurd and a completely different argument to the one you're now giving for her not having been harassed.

And now this: if anything it is a case of mistaken bike serial #
No. By both his family's account and hers, it isn't this.

I would argue that being physically prevented from leaving on the bike she has just hired (which, by his own account, he was not hiring at that point, and which he does not leave on until 35 minutes later, with most of that time spent with the bike not connected to his account), being told repeatedly that the bike she has just hired isn't hers, having her session forcibly terminated, and having someone tell her her baby is gonna come out "retarded" probably does constitute harassment, but there seems little point in arguing with someone who so obviously isn't interested in checking the validity of her own arguments.

@Qazwsxefv that's an excellent post, thank you. One of the key points for me is that importing a US-centric lens through which to view the UK is not helpful, as it ignores the vastly different histories of the two countries, which are not remotely comparable and leads to assumptions like one we saw from a previous poster who was shocked at the conviction rates data - I suspect that the US figures are often assumed to be a global truth and that is very clearly not the case. Likewise the extreme risk from police/law enforcement isn't going to exist in a country where most police officers are not armed - and before anyone jumps on me, I know that issues can and do exist in terms of how the police relate to minorities in the UK, but it's simply not the same circumstances as a country where many people, and all police, are heavily armed.

Black women are more likely to die in childbirth than white women. So are their babies
Black women are more likely to be mocked/belittled/treated as a threat for showing normal human emotion (anger etc) than other women (and also obviously men)
Black women are in many cases victims of prejudice/ill treatment by the police specifically because of their race and sex.

I could go on... But where there is a problem. I think it is right to name the problem and the group that are most affected. But also where a specific group of people are the ones causing a particular problem it is right to name it (be it men as a group, SA men in the Rotherham grooming scandal, women or white women specifically etc etc etc). And its always better to get issues out in the open than bury them. But that is NOT the same as vilifying an entire group of people or picking on individuals within that group (e.g. blaming all South Asian men for grooming gangs, accusing a man minding his own business of cis het male privilege, calling all white women Karen). Its completely counterproductive and makes people defensive, which in turn leads to more bad things happening unchallenged, which leads to more vilification.
I don't know how to stop the one turning into the other. But I don't think the attack mentality on social media or the viral videos help.

@FrostyFifi

amp.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/18/stunned-then-shocked-race-adviser-tasered-by-police-is-targeted-again

This happened in my hometown in 2018.
Not once, but twice.
The police in this country are as shockingly racist, ignorant and trigger happy as their US counterparts.
I work in a sector related to criminal justice and I see it.

I am wondering if people are actually disagreeing that racism is still endemic in the UK? Because if so surely that is a bigger thing to cry about than feeling lumped in with the oppressor class?

unless you disagree that racism is endemic the question then follows about who needs to fix this - unless and until the demographics of peoples at the top changes it needs to be the white people in charge. This is what the white ally movement is all about.

the comparisons with misogyny and patriarchy are striking. Would you prefer a man - any man - to stand up and go ‘yes I am part of the problem’? Or should they start threads on social
media being cross about being lumped together lazily into a homogenous category of ‘men’, instead pointing over there at the real aggressors and oppressors, all the while ignoring their inherent entitled misogynystic ways of thinking and causal sexism

Racism is different from prejudice. Racism involves one group having the power to carry out systematic discrimination, eg in employment, through policies and practices. If you believe this to be true, as I do, then White people in this county may be the victim of prejudice but not racism. Black people do not have sufficient power to to wield systemic discrimination against the dominant culture/white people.

This might be true in the UK but it certainly isn't true across the whole of white majority countries as has been suggested by other posters. Travellers in Ireland do not have any power to carry out systemic discrimination. Obviously you believe that they do in the UK and you live there so I will believe you on that.

I feel strongly on this because my neighbours are travellers and I have watched what their family and their children have gone through as they've all come of age. People denying that they are the victims of systemic discrimination or pretending that they hold any power to carry out systemic discrimination is really damaging. Every country has it nuances, to lump all white majority countries together without actually knowing how society functions there is ill advised.

So much this.

It's not as if white women cry acid tears, is it?

Yep.
Why are we focussing on white women being there occasionally labelled as crying complainers?
Why make it about yourselves?
Racism is the issue.

^This is exactly how to say you do not know what white tears are without saying you haven’t the faintest clue while simultaneously gaslighting all we Black posters on here by claiming they do not exist.

Yes. Blaming white women for the plight of black women is as absurd as blaming black men for the plight of black women.

White ‘people’ as a group (in ‘white’ indigenous countries or former colonies), have white privilege over black people, men, as a group, have male privilege over women, in most societies.

To blame/zero in on women - to hold responsible for the oppression of other women is misogynist. Just as it would be racist to blame/zero in on a particular race/ethnicity of men for the oppression of women.

Have you considered your excessive focus on what other women do could be misogyny?

Not the case, I admitted the why as to the 1 minute rental was incorrect the second I saw the uncropped version of video you posted. Uncropped as in the screen was larger showing more, not as isn time of video.

You don’t seem very interested in all the facts of the situation as you are ignoring her aggressiveness towards the man and refusal to even speak with him (probably because he is Black imho).

Secondly, my argument has always been she was not harassed and both videos show that she was not harassed. The man contesting the bike spoke to her calmly and reasonably. She was screaming her head off in his face, pushing on him and snatching away his phone. She was acting aggressively towards him. What she was screaming “Help!.” “Help me!” And “Get off me!” Even though he was not on her and she was in no danger was white tears- weaponised to try and get violence to occur to correct the uppity Black man daring to contest the e-bike. So a couple snide comments in return said mildly do not constitute harassment.

Yes it could have been a serial # mixup. I know she got the right bike, but he thought he did too and that it was on his account. That’s what he is saying on the video that the bike is on his account. But she doesn’t deign to speak to him and try and sort things out, all she does is scream for help like she’s being attacked and go into white tears damsel in distress mode.

It’s a thread about women that I did not start. You’re here, I’m here. If I’m excessively focussed, then you are too. So if you think that means misogyny then you’re pointing the finger at yourself.

I am excessively focussed on women because of my solidarity with my own sex.

You seem to have a very different motivation.

Ah right, I should just accept your claims, even though you can't prove any of them, because of your identity? That's a big, fat nope from me.

We are told that white women's tears are killing black men in the UK. That's a huge claim. So far the only evidence provided has been:

1. a white woman falsely accused a black man of theft but no action was taken against him
2. a white woman assaulted a black child and was (quite rightly) prosecuted, albeit after some police faffing.

If you make serious accusations about systemic manipulation of the justice system by any group, you need to be able to prove them. Otherwise, you will not be believed.

refusal to even speak with him (probably because he is Black imho)

See this I find really unfair. This women in a nurse in a NY hospital (or was!), what are the odds of her being such a raging, out and out racist that she literally won't even talk to a man because of his skin colour?
It's such an unhelpful, bad-faith assumption.

The colour of the people in this video should be irrelevant.

Any women trying to assert herself when surrounded by a group of men, one of whom is physically trying to take something off her, would feel intimidated and overwhelmed.

It's disgraceful behaviour from that man. Particularly disgraceful as the video was then used to publically attack her for 'white tears'.

This is a situation of a man intimidating a women and then using her colour to further attack her.
If this isn't a clear enough example of why this White Women's Tears trope isn't dangerous and hate filled then I don't know what would be.

This is just another in the centuries-long procession of reasons why women should put themselves second.

Not now, women - it will be your turn after every other injustice has been put right. In the meantime, shut up and accept your role as scapegoat. If you're really good, and never ever mention your own rights, we might award you an Ally badge.

Not only is that unacceptable as a woman of any race, it is self-defeating for black women. If you are oppressed both because you are black and female, you cannot ease that oppression by making misogyny worse. It a con trick. Young women on social media are being sold the same lie that they have always been sold: "If you do as men tell you, then you won't be like those other boring/frumpy/middle-aged hags over there and you can share power with us". But they are lying.

Every woman who colludes in the lie that women are responsible for male violence is an ally of misogyny.

Regarding all these shaky video footage things, I don’t think society as moved forward in a healthy way, where we are all becoming judge jury and executioner from the comfort of our sofas.

So I don’t tend to watch them - a lot is staged, a lot is cropped. I am also often sceptical- who is the person filming? They aren’t seen, but are they influencing the situation in some way off camera?

With the ‘bike mix up’ footage, as soon as I heard she was pregnant- I give a woman some leeway to be fearful and irrational. Again I didn’t watch- someone showed me a bit but I couldn’t make out what I was looking at. I think men should remember that they are bigger than women, stronger than women, have louder voices than women, and that it is threatening for a woman to be in close proximity to a male stranger, men should be genteel and polite towards women and play down their body language - it can be really triggering for a woman to have a man physically close.

I think it is extremely unsisterly for a woman to judge a pregnant woman for being fearful and panicked when she is amongst men who disagree with her.

Every woman who colludes in the lie that women are responsible for male violence is an ally of misogyny.

By this logic a black womanly standing up for her son is a misogynist.

There’s a lot in this thread about lazy homogenisation and then an incredible amount of lazy homogenisation.