Nobody cares!… And they will continue to not care if we don’t break down the specifics of these issues.
At first, when I heard the term “feminism” I was very enthusiastic and excited about what it meant. Every time there was an open conversation about feminism and equal rights for everyone especially women I wouldn’t really look at the whole macro concept of things. As a women, of course, we tend to look at things from only the gender perspective when in reality feminism is overall equal rights for everyone regardless of a person’s situation or what racial group they represent. I would mostly relate this feminism perspective to my mom because I grew up seeing her as the one who would put the majority of input in keeping our family together. As the common wife, my mother would work, sometimes having two full-time jobs at a time, and still had to come home to do her housewife duties also known as the second shift. I grew up seeing that and developed this hate or dislike towards it that’s why the concept of feminism really engrave in me and made me look at this with such a passion. The problems that feminist were fighting for were at a macro level and all I would capture from this term was the superficial problems women face in society, in home, and within the patriarchal system (or at least how I related to the concept to).
As I was reading and hearing how Beyoncé’s new song “Formation” and her super bowl half-time show received a lot of backlash because of her insensitive performance of “inciting bad behavior and endangering law enforcement” really made me realized to what extent the so called feminist community will go to critique her performance. It’s not her performance or her what I’m interested in discussing about it’s the micro problems feminist have within their own pro-equality organization.
The new term white feminism is a newly brought up concept that discusses the issues of white feminist women who try to focus only on one problem; the patriarchal and unequal system that oppresses women. Sure! There’s a lot of problems in the United States from gender, to race, to socioeconomic status, prejudice, sexual orientation and others. But as the Unites States of America, we are a huge melting pot of diversity. So it’s almost impossible to not include intersectionality into the major problems the majority of us face. In the article “To White Feminist Who Don’t Want to Discuss Racism: Here Are 7 Things You Need to Know” the term white feminist as described by Britni de la Cretaz “white feminism is a form of feminism (usually, but not always) practiced by some white people (usually, but not always, women) that sees gender as a separate issue from all other identities.” Unfortunately for the feminist this is not the case.
White feminist try to separate the issues of race and gender to focus on only one issue disregarding the fact that racism is a huge problem in the United States whether white people don’t like to hear it or not. These issues need to be talked about at a micro level so true equally can even exist within the feminist movement. When white feminism tries to disregard these other issues like race, socioeconomic status, prejudice against people with sexual preference (LGBT community for example), or even disable/handicap bodies, feminist are already creating an oppressive establishment. Take in consideration the article of how white feminist react to problems not concerning gender. Britni discusses that whenever a person expresses a problem concerning race feminist often take the defensive role. For example, she gives a scenario of a black couple being treated differently at a restaurant for being black and a feminist perspective often looks to segregate race from feminism outlook which often times they end up replying with,
“Wait, how do you know it was because you were Black? I think you’re being paranoid. It was probably just because the server was having a bad night.”
Like Britni says, “We don’t get to determine what’s racist” especially if a person of a white background has no idea what the POC has been through. Often times, feminist try to be “colorblind” when they say,
“I don’t see race!”
Feminist need to include intersectionality into every problem that arises. Feminist theory includes discrimination, but I think it should include not only discrimination based on gender it should also include discrimination of race as well.
As Kimberle Crenshaw in her book titled, Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color, she explains the importance of bringing these other external issues that are being separated from gender to be actively included in the feminist perspective. She argues that, “Race, gender, and other identity categories are most often treated in mainstream liberal discourses as vestiges of bias or domination- that is, as intrinsically negative framework in which social power works to exclude or marginalize those who are different.” At the same time, if feminist, who are often white and in good socioeconomic background, want to work towards equality for all, they should allow these other issues to intersect with each other because generalizing that all women go through white male supremacy is only giving the story of one specific group. On the other hand, black women have to go through a much more oppressive problem when they are faced with anti-blackness, being a women, and a lower socioeconomic status.
As Crenshaw explains, “the context of violence against women,” is different for everyone “fundamentally because the violence that many women experience is often shaped by other dimensions of their identities, such as race and class.” These other issues should be part in feminism discussion because “when practices expond identity as woman or person of color as an either/or proposition, they relegate the identity of women of color a location that resists telling” creating an oppressive establishment and ironic gesture to do when feminist are fighting for the same thing; oppression from white privilege men! To create equal rights, we must include every concept of inequality.
