On White Feminism
On this bright Feminism Sunday, let's talk about one of the most misunderstood terms in feminism discourse today: White Feminism.
Let's start with what White Feminism isn't: It's not the feminism of all white people, or all white women. It's not "feminist" + "white" = "white feminist." It is also not "you are trash."
White feminism, or cis white feminism, is the version of feminism that is willfully ignorant of intersectionality. Feminism that is down for the fight for cis white women, and not for the specific issues faced by women of color, women with disabilities, queer women, and so on.
Amy Schumer has often been accused of this attitude. Lena Dunham certainly wants to be intersectional, will say that it's important, but has often been accused of failing at it. And also at actually being a feminist.
You'll notice that say "been accused." This is not me being unable to commit to a position. It's just that criticizing white feminism is not my lane, for the reasons outlined in my previous posts. For that reason, I deliberated whether to write this post. Is it my place to explain this issue? Probably not. Point me to a steemit post by a woman, preferably a woman of color, explaining this, and I will happily make it the first thing people see in this post.
Image source: Clker-Free-Vector-Images on Pixabay
But I also know I am likely to get a lot less crap for it than a woman of color, and I know it's incumbent of me to take some of the load.
So if you've been accused of white feminism, or of being a white feminist, remember that it's not just about the color of your skin. You can't be a white feminist without being white, but you absolutely can be white and a feminist without being a white feminist. Know that your tribe is bigger and more diverse than you may think.
So what can one do about one's own white feminism? It's about awareness. If your making a list of important feminist voices, and it's all white, consider reading some Audre Lord. And then dig deeper. Because no matter what MRAs say, feminism is about freeing all of us from patriarchy.
" In our work and in our living, we must recognize that difference is a reason for celebration and growth, rather than a reason for destruction."
Audre Lord
Disclaimer: I am not an authority on this topic. I am not a scholar of feminism. I'm just a dude trying my best to understand and do better. I am very open to informed corrections. I am much less open to corrections from MRAs. If you come at me from the "feminism is bad, yo!" position, I'm just gonna mute and move on. Cool? Cool.
Previous posts on feminism:
Ban Men
Let's talk intersectionality
You Are Not An Alpha
I Don't Want Ally Cookies
Thank you for this. As soon as I find the posts you mentioned you'd like to see, I'll send them your way!
Thank you so much!
@sumsyyahsaidso perhaps you could write one??
I have to be honest. I struggle with this. I am a white feminist and that has meant that i had to willfully engage in the internal and external work of becoming antiracist. Most of us are born and raised into this same system and it is that system that creates our distorted hierarchy of appearance based privilege.
Every day we need to look at this concept of white feminism and look and see how we have failed women of color and lgbtq even! Not to cry about it but to plan how to do better. So yes, imo it does kinda mean that we are trash in as much as all of us have benifited from the system and very few have lifted women of color up with us... in fact quite the opposite. Acknowledging that is imo, the first step to becoming free but one that must be takin over and over--- like a daily prayer.
Sadly, I'm not really one to write these kinds of things. I never know how to compose myself long enough to be coherent and link facts and statistics. But thank you, @limabeing for doing the work to better yourself and drag some of your peers along with you.
Thank you @didc really nice to hear this being discussed and yes it is about awareness, we always need to keep ourselves informed and stop with all this under the counter segregation.
Hey @didic, I love how you explained this.
For me, especially as someone who was marginalized from the jump (female-socialized), I have noticed that the overall difference in how "feminism" (or any other ism really) cannibalizes itself for lack of empathy.
As soon as we in the community are marginalizing one another and excluding/finger-pointing, I think we pretty much lose our case for feminism.
I'm certainly no expert or scholar on the topic, either. Just a guy here who has witnessed this from a specifically polarizing angle of it and so happy to be amongst my tribe.
It's also the read I side-eye people like Rose McGowan and Miley Cyrus. Both had many missteps in their activism and have yet to admit or apologize for it.
It's not my lane to criticize someone like McGowan, but I'm certainly not gonna say some criticisms (especially with regards to trans issues) aren't valid.
Badass, @didic. As a presumably white woman, when I first heard the term "white feminist" I felt doomed. I felt like no matter what I did, the color of my skin would diminish my efforts and my struggles. Learning about intersectionality and the plight experienced by all leagues of femme-identifying individuals helped me to understand that I'm only a "white feminist" if I think, act, and engage like one. 💪🏼
I would argue that you can be a white feminist without being white. Heaven knows there are always people of color ready and willing to leap to the defense of whiteness and white women over women of color, especially Black women, especially dark-skinned Black women. Maybe people will think I'm being petty or messy for saying this publicly, but I'm not about to give a free pass to anyone who reveres whiteness, even people of color.
This is where me not being USian comes into play, I guess, as apart from, like, Stacey Dash or Omarosa, I've not seen that. But, then, most of my experience has been on twitter, and my feed is well curated to be full of awesome activists.
Ah, yes—I have a pretty curated Twitter feed as well. And perhaps I am more aware of the issue, being a Black activist myself and involved in the discussions. We (the Black community) tend not to air this kind of thing in mixed company, for reasons I go back and forth about personally.
Very true.
We also really need to change society so that a woman of colour can write an article like this and not get crap for it. It shouldn't be that if a man posts something like this, he will be taken seriously (or more seriously than a woman). Sorry, no criticism of you at all, as I consider you a true male ally, rather my frustration with how things are.
Oh, there's no need to apologize. You're absolutely right.
I think it is great when everyone can equally get crap for writing articles online.
Pointing out who are true or untrue "male allies" is that you're also giving crap for people and not willing to take others seriously based on various things. You're just like the rest of us, giving crap for different reasons.
It's all about awareness - and on intersectionality. So I'm curious about this part:
"the specific issues faced by women of color, women with disabilities, queer women, and so on."
I'm not saying "WELL WHAT ABOUT MEN" but if it's all about women, where is the intersectionality and equality?
It's about lifting up the marginalized so all can be free. I talked a bit about that in my post about intersectionality. We focus on women over men, because women are more directly oppressed by patriarchy. Which is not to say men aren't. We are, but more indirectly. We focus on POC because of racism and the history of , colonialism and slavery. We focus on the disabled because of ableism. We focus more on those whose oppression is intersectional.
Few things though, it's easier to pick women on focus and ignore men because women dominate the "oppression" assumption. People assume women are more oppressed and this leads that only women are allowed to experience oppression.
In addition to this, treating "white people" as a single group is belittling. There are many white ethnic groups which have been oppressed harshly in the past and now are carrying the burden of blame for being white, while they come from oppressed cultures. There are plenty of cultures in which white people were sold as slaves too and their countries invaded by foreign cultures, but now instead quite many POC are only getting the focus because of the past of slavery and colonialism.
So you are saying "what about the mens" and "what about the whites." Which, well, is not the discussion I'm interested in having.
Of course you're not.
You are happy to close your eyes from real intersectionality and picking only the "easy" ones and belittling the suffering of others.
People like you are the reason why feminism is not about equality.
Oh and in addition, if you have any interest in topic, you can start with stuff like this:
https://mikedashhistory.com/2015/01/15/blonde-cargoes-finnish-children-in-the-slave-markets-of-medieval-crimea/
Don't treat white people as a single group.
Another fabulous post, @didic. You've been resteemed as a part of the #LadiesofSteemit initiative!
Keep up the great work. 🎈