Some quick thoughts on feminism as a "white girl thing"

I learned from Amanda that today is "Blog Against Racism" day.

I've touched on race many times in previous posts, but I've been stumped trying to think of ways to address the topic this morning.  I'd like, I suppose, to marry the issue to my favorite secular topic, feminism.

I've been teaching women's history here at PCC for a decade.  During those years, the percentage of the student body identified as "white" has dropped from around 25% in 1995 to just over 15% today.  I've noticed the change in my classes; I had one section of History 1B (Modern Europe) last year where every single one of my students was either Asian or Latina/o.  No whites, no blacks.  But I've always had a diverse mix in my women's history courses, though whites have never constituted an outright majority.

I write this because, over the years, I've read in countless student journals that feminism is "a white thing."  Time and time again, I've heard from young women of color that their peers and families associate feminism with "trying to be white".  Over and over again, my Latina and African-American students report being told by male peers in particular that their time and energy ought to be flowing towards building ethnic solidarity, not a "sisterhood."  In a majority-minority setting like Pasadena City College, this perception of feminism as being a movement for white middle-class women is one of the most destructive myths I have to combat in the classroom.

I'm quite honest about the fact that in the past, there has been a racist tinge to certain strands of the American feminist movement.  All one has to do is look at the post-Civil War split among suffrage activists over the issue of granting votes to black men, and it becomes evident that the women's movement has played the "race card" from time to time. 

But the real racism of the contemporary women's movement lies in the perceived contempt of mainstream feminism for traditional culture.  For example, on more than one occasion in my classes, I've had to intervene as white female students launch sweeping denunciations of Latin or black men.  There's an oft-spoken assumption by many of my white students that white men are "less macho" and thus "more evolved".  Many of my female students of color are thus put in the awkward position of "having to choose" between solidarity on the basis of sex and solidarity on the basis of culture and ethnicity.  This forced choice is not something their white sisters often understand.

Here on campus, we have a Black Students Association.  We have MEChA.  We have countless organizations for various Asian groups.  But on a campus that is 56% female, we do not currently have a viable women's group.  I've seen many of my best and brightest female students, young women of color, pour their time and their energy into ethnically-based activities while showing little or no interest in doing gender-based work.  I ask them, again and again, whether they consider racial discrimination or sexual discrimination to be the greater obstacle in their lives.  Most say racial discrimination, even after I point out that as women, they have an infinitely greater chance of being sexually assaulted because they are female than they do of being lynched by the Klan because they aren't white!

It's clear that feminists and their pro-feminist allies need to do a better job of reaching both young men and young women of color.  We do have to be brutally  honest about both the overt and the subtle racism that has tinged the movement in decades past.  And above all, we have to be very careful not to put women in the position of being forced to choose between their culture and their sex!  Too often, the message that my students hear sounds like this:  "You can either live up to the expectations of your culture, or you can be a feminist, but you can't be both."  Faced with that false dichotomy, most young women of color will choose their cultures; after all, doing so means staying in relationship with their families and men of their own ethnic background.    Too often, we make feminism sound like a life of lonely isolation from one's family of origin.

We who do feminist work, particularly in majority-minority settings, need to listen to the unique frustrations of young women of color.   Those of us who are white and do this work, as I do, must be especially mindful of our language -- it is all too easy for me, I know, to seem casually dismissive of traditional values that are of particular importance in certain cultures!  We must constantly tinker with the feminist message, not to "dumb it down" or weaken it, but to make it more appealing to those who don't feel represented and included in the feminist story.  And, while never compromising our bedrock convictions about women's equality and dignity, we need to become more mindful of the great value many women of color place on their unique cultures.  If we're going to do a better job of reaching an ever-more diverse group of young women, we must stop presenting a message that demands a "false choice" between embracing feminism and embracing one's heritage.

Comments

[Vacula]

"I point out that as women, they have an infinitely greater chance of being sexually assaulted because they are female than they do of being lynched by the Klan because they aren't white!"

That, to me, is a profoundly disturbing tactic to take. For someone who claims to be a part of a struggle for equality, to emphasize or even mention personal, physical risk as a primary motivation seems alienating and extremist. If you take less extreme experiences, in ordinary daily life, which is more likely to limit your opportunities and choices in this country, being a woman or being a minority? Obviously, there are many other factors and I wouldn't want to equate generalizations about socio-economic background with race, but I think they're probably right to choose to work for racial empowerment over female empowerment. If feminists were fully committed to the ideals of justice and equality, I think they too would be focusing much more on racial equality and global justice.

Women have made great strides in our country. Around the world, that isn't necessarily so. You're right that when feminists ignore or deride elements of other cultures that don't fit with their image of "empowerment," they demonstrate ignorance and fall short of their ideals. But that just proves again how difficult it is to promote universal ideals for people from such different backgrounds. It's more troubling to me that you seem to be saying it's a case of "your cause" vs. "my cause" (as in you join my movement). That tactic demonstrates the limits of your ideals and proves to them that it really is a "white" cause.

[Vacula]

I guess all I wanted to say is that it would seem less a "a "false choice" between embracing feminism and embracing one's heritage" if the feminists first demonstrated their committment to racial justice and empowerment issues.

[Hugo]

Vacula, if I simply made that sweeping statement in a vacuum, you'd be right. But I make the statement about rape and the Klan in response to the firm assertion by some women of color that the only way in which they are oppressed is racially and ethnically.

There are subtle ways to do this, too. I often ask my students to ponder why it was that black men were given the vote sixty years before women were (compare the 13-15th amendments to the 19th!) Most are stunned to realize that a considerable number of white men in this country were far more comfortable extending the franchise to black men than they were to their own wives and sisters.

[Vacula]

Still, if you're talking about organizations and time committments, I think minority students are justified in being alienated when feminists aren't spending time working towards racial equality but want minorities to be involved in groups working for gender equality. If it's important for men (as beneficiaries of a patriarchal society or whatever) to pursue feminist ideals, it's even more important for whites to pursue racial equality.

[Chris Clarke]

Thoughtful post, Hugo.

It's not just white women who criticize traditional cultures for being patriarchal or sexist. It's just that white women - as whites - tend to get such criticisms wrong much more often than the women inside the culture do.

A very good, if dated, resource on this topic is This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color edited by Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua. The book certainly turned me around when I read it half a lifetime ago.

[Caitriona]

{I wrote the following and have gone back through it to try to figure out how to edit so that it doesn't come across as closing too harshly, but I can't find a way to write what I'm thinking without it seeming so harsh.}

My problem with this is that there *does* seem to be a tendency to denigrate traditional/cultural values and roles that don't "fit" into what is perceived as the "feminist agenda." Often one statement is made saying that the goal of feminism is to bring women the freedom to live their lives however they wish, whether traditional or ultra-modern; then another statement is made that particular parts of traditionalism are "bad" or "wrong."

Women have enough baggage and guilt-trips to deal with without all that garbage added to it. If a woman is a great medic, or a great doctor, or a great lawyer, or a great homemaker, what's the difference, so long as she's doing what *SHE* is meant to do. (Of course, I just don't understand women bullriders, but that's their choice of lifestyle.)

Why is it that some people talk down to those of us who choose to be SAHMs? Why do some people talk to us as if we are "less than" because we choose to dedicate larger amounts of time directly to our children than they have chosen to do? Some of us choose to spend more time in the "work force" while others of us choose to spend more time on the "home front." That shouldn't negate the amount of work that is done of the "home front," nor should it negate the amount of love for family felt by those in the "work force." We all make our choices of what to do based on the best information we have at the time.

None of us are going to have the same priorities as everyone else. For some of us, preserving traditional or cultural heritage and values is going to be far above the issues of the feminist or MRA movements. There is much there that is too valuable to lose; much that we all can learn from traditionalists.

In the long run, I find that comments such as your "I point out that as women, they have an infinitely greater chance of being sexually assaulted because they are female than they do of being lynched by the Klan because they aren't white!" to be very much a part of the problem about which you've commented. It comes across as "MY issues are more important than [snear]your[/snear] issues." Although you are saying that you must be careful not to force a choice between culture and gender, that is exactly what that comment does.

[Mr. Bad]

Hugo, Vacula hits on a very important point: You're using extreme examples to try and make your point. The fact is, the Klan is for the most part inactive now, and so your example of lynching is a scenario that is statistically and probably literally non-exstant and thus amounts to blantan and laughable hyperbole; same thing with your example of "oppression of women," at least in modern U.S. culture. I and others have repeatedly challenged you to provide example of this "oppression" and you've consistently been unable to do so other than the weak example related to body image. On the other hand, racial discrimination, while not as bad as it was in the past, is still very much a problem in our society, and IMO is even moreso because this type of discrimination includes whites; re. racial discrimination, it has been getting worse, not better.

If you really want to evaluate these types of problems in an accurate and legitimate manner, you have to control for things like race, gender, SES, etc. When you control for race, you see that for all racial groups men are doing less well on average than women are; this is especially true for African American brothers. Thus, feminism is irrelevant for most all women except privileged white women who have nothing left to complain about. In other words, for minorities the realits of life trumps ideology because IMO members of minorities have to be more realistic about life and have more important and pressing issues other than 'being too fat' to worry about.

[Mr. Bad]

Sorry for the 'rough draft' offered above, but I'm in the middle of an important project and don't have the time to refine it. I'll try and do so later when/if I get the time.

[Hugo]

Cait and Vacula, I hear you. As usual, I blog in haste and reflect in leisure. (Unlike most other bloggers, I leave up what I put up rather than hide my indiscretions!) The Klan reference is an extreme one, and it has the unfortunate effect of obscuring the very serious ways in which women of color suffer "dual oppressions" or double burdens. And yet, as the late Shirley Chisholm (first black woman to run for president) always maintained, the burden of sex weighs heavier than the burden of color.

I suspect that this post may not have been in keeping, entirely, with "blog against racism" day!

[Hugo]

Oh, and Chris, the Anzaldua/Moraga book is marvelous; I took a Chicana Writers class from Cherrie Moraga when she was adjuncting at Berkeley many years ago.

[evil_fizz]

Thus, feminism is irrelevant for most all women except privileged white women who have nothing left to complain about. In other words, for minorities the realits of life trumps ideology because IMO members of minorities have to be more realistic about life and have more important and pressing issues other than 'being too fat' to worry about.

But the prioritizing of issues doesn't mean that the stuff that gets ranked lower down don't exist or is irrelevant.

It also doesn't mean that issues of race and gender aren't related. Body image and weight, for example, are heavily tied in with racial and/or cultural expectations. (See, for example, Venezuelan and Columbian news articles which talk about how "their women" are far more beautiful than women of other nationalities. Or the NY Times article the other day which said that Eastern European women don't really object to being objectified. That's a pretty damning statement.)

It also assumes that body image is the only thing that women face that men don't. There have been a lot of changes regarding gender roles in the past 80 years (the right to vote, access to professions, etc.) but that doesn't mean that one morning we woke up and everything was perfect for women. Without starting a contest over who has it worse, I would argue that a lot of sexism is just now more subtle. (This is also true of racism: we don't have whites only water fountains any more, but getting rid of the most obvious inequalities doesn't mean by any stretch that all the rest just vanished.)

Feminism, IMHO, has a lot to offer women of all races. Whether it appears to you that the hurdles presented to you are more a product of gender, race, sexual orientation, etc. has a lot to do with the examples of discrimination you see, hence your level of activism.

[djw]

Not to pile on, but another problem with the KKK analogy is that it's not analogous to violence against women, because the latter don't have a political organization or secret society. Wife-beaters and rapists are just men who hit and rape--that such practices have a similar effect as the KKK (re-enforcing patriarchy/white supremacy) doesn't mean they're fundamentally different.

A better analogy would be the uneven policing and prosecuting of crimes, drug laws and their enforcement, etc. This is a very real (and violent--imprisonment is a violent act), everyday form of racism that imposes a culture of fear and reenforces racial dominance. And unlike the KKK, it's stronger than ever.

(for the record, I take no side in the question of which is worse for women of color, sexism or racism, I think it's an enormously complicated question--I'm sure your right that many women of color you interact with have serious misconceptions about feminism, but I think they also might have some insights into racial discrimination that you don't--and in some cases probably can't--see)

[Hugo]

If the KKK bit is the only thing folks are going to comment on, maybe I should remove it. The point of the post was about how rarely white feminists really see the difficult double bind faced by women of color.

[evil_fizz]

Okay, going to jump on that issue then, Hugo.

I think that feminism has historically been the province of white women. It has some pretty racist overtones at times. I think the problem has become self-reinforcing. Women of color think that feminism has been dismissive of their concerns or outright racist (not necessarily a misperception). They assume that the movement doesn't have anything to offer them. Their lack of participation allows white feminists to avoid seeing the issues that don't affect them directly. It's quite the cycle.

[Caitriona]

Hugo, I think your focus is still too narrow, regardless of the KKK comment. It's not just women of color who are on the outside of feminism. Women of color face *more* of this problem, IMO, but women on the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum also feel this dilemma, as do *any* women who opt to stick more closely to their traditional/ethnic/cultural roots.

A large part of feminism (and pro-feminism) seems to come from the ranks of upper-middle-class to upper-class, as opposed to lower-middle-class and lower-class. As Mr. Bad said (ACK! You have me agreeing with him again!), "the realities of life trump ideology."

[Hugo]

Agreed, evil -- which is why white feminists have to do a better job of evangelizing, but doing so in culturally sensitive ways. Really, it's a lot like modern missionary work. Just as modern missionaries strive to put the Gospel in language that is relevant to the specific cultures they encounter, those of us in the largely white world of academic feminism and pro-feminism have to find ways to "reach the unreached" by adopting more inclusive and sensitive language. We also have to listen to the unique concerns of women of color,and begin to do a better job of valueing their contributions to the broader movement. That's the feminist "Great Commission."

[Hugo]

Caitriona, we cross-posted -- I take your point, and offer my previous comment to your concern.

My goal in blogging is always to create unity; when I can get you and Mr. Bad on the same side of the fence, how can I not consider it a job well done?

[evil_fizz]

Catriona, I agree with you that there are a lot of women "outside" feminism and this needs to be addressed. However, in the context of "blog about racism" day, I think the focus is a bit more understandable and forgiveable. =)

I do wonder, though, about the interplay of race and socio-economic status in this case. Given the correlation of the two, perhaps part of what makes feminism seem white is not just race but the class divide as well. Just thinking out loud here, but I can't imagine that they're completely unrelated...

[Caitriona]

I think you're onto something there, evil_fizz.

[Q Grrl]

"Thus, feminism is irrelevant for most all women except privileged white women who have nothing left to complain about. In other words, for minorities the realits of life trumps ideology because IMO members of minorities have to be more realistic about life and have more important and pressing issues other than 'being too fat' to worry about. "

Um, yeah. Because poor women or women of color (or shocker! women in other countries) aren't concerned about rape, birth control, access to abortion, child care, competitive wages, access to education, the right to vote, etc., etc. What planet do you live on again?

[Mr. Bad]

evil_fizz said: "I do wonder, though, about the interplay of race and socio-economic status in this case. Given the correlation of the two, perhaps part of what makes feminism seem white is not just race but the class divide as well. Just thinking out loud here, but I can't imagine that they're completely unrelated..."

You're definitely on to something here e_f, but I think it's even a bit more complicated because I believe that it's quite possible that racism is also related to SES. For example, I suspect that the poor black woman on the south side of Chicago experiences a heck of a lot more racism than her uptown African American neighbor, e.g., Oprah Winfrey. Same race and gender, same town, different SES.

As for the comparison between Klansmen (and Klanswomen) vs. wife-beaters and rapists, I think it's more applicable than you think. All three varieties of misanthropes are very, very rare in our society, despite feminist dogma and rhetoric. So when talking about them we have to remember that they're extreme exceptions to the rule vis-a-vis ordinary people.

[BADTEETH]

Um, yeah. Because poor women or women of color (or shocker! women in other countries) aren't concerned about rape, birth control, access to abortion, child care, competitive wages, access to education, the right to vote, etc., etc. What planet do you live on again?

Rape is illegal and has been for quite some time. Birth control and access to abortion are legal. Child care, competitive wages, access to education, the right to vote... which of these do American women not have? Face it, aside from the glass ceiling and the ongoing restrictions on abortion and morning after pills, most of the big battles are already won. So when upper middle class women major in women's studies and write papers on "the male gaze" and "objectification and commodification of femal sexuality in Maxim magazine", non-upper-middle-class women are going to look at them like they have three heads.

[Mr. Bad]

Q Grrl, I'm referring to U.S. society, the society where the vast majority of Hugo's students come from. The thread is addressing that society primarily. Now, if you want to compare the relative plight Arab vs. African ethnicities in, say, Sudan, fine, but let's keep it to comparing apples to apples, Ok?

My point is that from experience talking with black women (shocker - I do talk with black women, many of whom are my friends), they see most feminists as spoiled middle- and upper middle-class white women with cushy lives and thus nothing to complain about and too much time on their hands to spend complaining about trivialites. Most of those women (and their brothers) have a lot more to worry about than, e.g., being allowed to be members of Augusta National Country Club, so feminsits like Martha Burke and her pals seem like spoiled whiners (which IMO they are).

[Mr. Bad]

BADTEETH, the "glass ceiling" has been shown time and again to be a myth.

Just wanted to clear that up.

[Q Grrl]

Mr. Bad, you explicitly said that feminism is an elitist upper class ideal. I'm saying that women of all races and classes have benefited from feminist politics, which you too admit. So I'm confused as to where your blind spot is?