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

regarding the book white fragility being zeitgeisty or not. These things go in cycles: 2011(build up) 2012 (crescendo); 2015(build up)2016(peak); 2020. On a 4 year cycle to be precise. Odd....

Giving money to people won't solve racism
It likely make it worse

Giving money to deprived areas to improve education and opportunities and health
Money to root through every organisation and identify how and why it discriminates
Money to support talent
All likely to be much more useful

No, but I think humans should, or at least have it as one of several guiding principles. But how do you achieve that matters. e.g.:

Men currently die more from suicide than women. I have seen self proclaimed "anti-feminists" suggest that women don't want equality in that. (Equality to them means more women committing suicide). Personally I would support less men committing suicide.

Black women are 5 times more likely to die in childbirth than white women. I am not going to self flagellate for not dying in childbirth or advocate we raise the maternal mortality rate for white women (which would technically be equality). I do think we should put more resources into reducing maternal mortality for black women and have a thorough enquiry into how black women are treated in healthcare settings.

If a woman has suffered comparatively less on account of her race then being aware that others faced more challenges is fine. But feeling guilty/bad for not suffering what no-one should suffer is pointless.

Sone of this "guilt and sin" vibe - do you think it's partly a result of the strong Christian nature of the US?

I would imagine that the majority of posters on this thread believe in making the world a fairer/better place, otherwise why the feminism in the title of the board?

However there is some disagreement about how to do it.

One school of thought seems to be “tell people they are awful, tell them to destroy anything which may me advantageous for them in penance, and to flagellate themselves daily, repeating “I am worthless” for the crime of having had it good”.

The other school of thought seems to be: “Yup, shit happens and has always happened, sometimes it works in our favour and sometimes works against us. And the cruellest thing is that favour seems to follow favour and lack seems to follow lack. What can we do to move forward?”.

Unless you conform to the first school of thought you are racist and fragile if you are white, apparently.

Assuming we are animals and therefore should act like the lowest ( hum bad term - animals do vary in how they act, socialise , treat older animals ) animals seems at odds with humans generally putting themselves above animals - civilisation - culture - arts - free will - morals

Black women are 5 times more likely to die in childbirth than white women. I am not going to self flagellate for not dying in childbirth or advocate we raise the maternal mortality rate for white women (which would technically be equality). I do think we should put more resources into reducing maternal mortality for black women and have a thorough enquiry into how black women are treated in healthcare settings

Of course we should. We will likely never achieve complete equality of outcome, but we should still try to address inequality as far as possible.

Re-litigating the injustices of the 18th and 19th centuries is a distraction from that. There are millions of black Americans who are not thought to be descendants of slaves, but all black people are affected by the staggering racial wealth gap, as are Hispanic people. Financial compensation to individual descendants of slaves would cost trillions of dollars, and do nothing to help the millions of black and Hispanic people who are not descended from US enslaved peoples.

Following the #BLM scandal of the use of the monies - ie- instead of the millions being spent on improving black American lives collectively, it went on vastly improving the lives of a select handful of African American lives - ie- the woman who started the crowdfunder and her cronies, it makes me a little sceptical about the usefulness of reparations.

In countries needing aid, it is often the corrupt blokes who end up controlling it and using it to exploit the needy.

With these specific reparations, it’s just pardoners taking payment for forgiveness of sins and allowing your ancestors to be freed from purgatory. Payment to be absolved of ‘white guilt’. Big money spinner.

Sure, if certain areas are deprived, yes, plough money into those areas to have great public services and so on, to give people the best chances, incentivise businesses to set up there to provide people with decent work, etc, etc. Randomly throwing money around at people who can provide spurious ‘proof’ of their ancestral entitlement- you know it is going to be corrupt before you even begin.

yes, I'm sorry, it's something I'm mulling over and haven't quite got to the bottom of, so I'm probably not being consistent or expressing myself clearly. How annoying.

However, although I've seen posters on here deny it, I would say that it is a self evident truth that we are animals. I would also say that in addition we are humans with incredible minds and complex inner lives. Much as I love my cat, I don't think he agonises much about fairness.

so no, I don't think we should act like animals. but I do think we should be aware that we inhabit animal bodies, and that will affect the way we think and behave.

I seem to have got a long was from Karens and white women's tears. oops

Men currently die more from suicide than women. I have seen self proclaimed "anti-feminists" suggest that women don't want equality in that. (Equality to them means more women committing suicide). Personally I would support less men committing suicide.

Black women are 5 times more likely to die in childbirth than white women. I am not going to self flagellate for not dying in childbirth or advocate we raise the maternal mortality rate for white women (which would technically be equality). I do think we should put more resources into reducing maternal mortality for black women and have a thorough enquiry into how black women are treated in healthcare settings.

Yes.

so no, I don't think we should act like animals. but I do think we should be aware that we inhabit animal bodies, and that will affect the way we think and behave.

Kathleen Stock made this point to Ed Balls when he accused her of "not allowing" males to be women.

Kathleen Stock made this point to Ed Balls when he accused her of "not allowing" males to be women.

Lol he actually used the word "allowing" didn't he? 😂

He did

Prof Stock, hoarding all the vulvas. The meanie.

Black women are 5 times more likely to die in childbirth than white women. I am not going to self flagellate for not dying in childbirth or advocate we raise the maternal mortality rate for white women (which would technically be equality). I do think we should put more resources into reducing maternal mortality for black women and have a thorough enquiry into how black women are treated in healthcare settings.

Speaking of which, I was surprised to learn the other day that these shocking statistics are not disaggregated for immigration status, which means there are glaring structural inequalities which could be fixed tomorrow if the will was there:

Amy Gibbs, chief executive of Birthrights, said: “Our inquiry heard multiple accounts of black and brown women being too afraid to access antenatal or hospital care, facing intrusive questions about their immigration status during appointments and receiving demands to pay thousands of pounds for routine care when they can’t afford basic essentials. Failure to provide adequate interpreting services compounds these barriers. This is structural racism in action.” Evidence shows that women from Black and Asian backgrounds – which includes many migrants – are more likely to die and have poorer outcomes in childbirth than white women.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/mar/05/revealed-scandal-of-nhs-charges-putting-pregnant-migrant-women-at-risk

Maternity Action has a lot of information about this and a template letter for writing to your MP - a far more productive use of our time than self-flagellation for whiteness.

https://maternityaction.org.uk/campaigns/nhscharging/

@LangClegsInSpace I mean.... we could fix it as a country. Or we could run around holding expensive lunches where we "admit we are the problem" and then all gang up on Sandra because she's so much worse. And then the day after we can take some cocaine together and the day after that we can lament the number of inner city black children being caught up in the drug trade. Much much more worthy than actually doing anything constructive.

Well, quite.

Yup. If I'm culpable for colonialism, then black (and all) Americans are culpable for the Vietnam War and Iraq etc etc, and so it goes on in a lovely circle of accusation and counter-accusation. Meanwhile, very little attention is paid to the 50 million people currently enslaved.

We are all responsible for challenging racism and prejudice now, and doing all we can to end them. Colonialism has a long shadow. But individuals do not inherit the guilt of their ancestors.

Who do you think paid the $160bn that went to Iraq and Afghanistan? All US taxpayers of all ethnicities paid for it.

You are wrong, the US DID in fact pay to compensate both Iraq and Afghanistan for war losses and damages. These are not paid to individuals but between nations governments.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/much-of-60b-from-us-to-rebuild-iraq-wasted-special-auditors-final-report-to-congress-shows/

In the case of the US, the payments were voluntary. They did not wait for the UN to levy a debt on the US. That is why calls to the UN to levy a debt on the U.S. have fallen on deaf ears. Technically war reparations are an official debt levied by the UN or victors on the defeated country for the costs of the war.

No one is saying you are personally culpable, but that the US as a whole is culpable and should rectify the injustice it caused. It can be done. And so what if it costs trillions of dollars? And so what if if doesn’t fix all the racism wealth inequality gap, it would at least narrow the wealth gap. Progress is still progress.

Modern slavery is yet more whataboutery to justify doing nothing.

Those weren't reparations: they were the money that the US spent after both invasions to allow it to run the post-invasion administrations for its own benefit and under its control.

If you are going to call those reparations, then the infrastructure that the British built in the countries they colonised were also reparations.

This is true and also happens the other way.

And so what if it costs trillions of dollars?The entire Federal revenues were under $5 trillion in 2022. Covid spending and the reduction in revenues during Covid have put the US in a precarious position.* *There was a $1.38 trillion deficit of revenue raised in 2022, compared to spending. Total national debt is growing rapidly.

The US is on course to be unable to pay its existing benefits within the next decade (link). The population is ageing, and revenue will fall as costs increase. Who do you think is going to be worst hit, if the US has to cut back on benefits? It will be all the poorest in society, which will disproportionately be black people.

No, the US didn’t colonise Iraq and Afghanistan. Again, reparations are technically a debt levied by the victor on the defeated country or by a larger international body like the UN.

As the US won the wars, reparations cannot technically ever be paid for those wars. You were the one mis-using the term reparations from the outset and I went along with it because I thought your meaning was clear in terms of funds paid to make good damages caused by one country to another country in time of war.

The purpose of reparations IS to repair the damage caused by a war, which is also exactly what the $160bn was used for in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was not for the US to run “post invasion administrations” those were separate funds and fell under the DoD budget for DoD personnel stationed in those countries. The $160bn went to building water systems, treatment plants, sewer systems power plants, roads, hospitals, airports, schools, electricity grid, ,communications networks, food supplies, medical supplies, and so on. Yes much of this infrastructure before the war, and the US bombing destroyed it, which is why the $160bn was needed to rebuild it and repair the damage for the benefit of the people of Iraq and Afghanistan.

the money did exactly what reparations money would do if it was a situation where reparations would be due, but again technically reparations are paid from defeated to victorious country or levied by the UN and that’s not the situation here.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/reparations

No, the US didn’t colonise Iraq and Afghanistan

Oh, come off it.

As the US won the wars, reparations cannot technically ever be paid for those wars. You were the one mis-using the term reparations from the outset and I went along with it because I thought your meaning was clear in terms of funds paid to make good damages caused by one country to another country in time of war.

Not true. Reparations are payable under law for a breach of an engagement and for the infliction of injury. All things being equal, they should usually be made by whichever side was the aggressor, unless the reason for starting the conflict was regarded as lawful under international law. In reality, this usually only actually happens if the aggressor then loses the war, but that is just an artefact of political reality, not of the legal position.