RACE AND FEMINISM
Dear feminists, Stop Saying “Women” When You Only Mean “White Women”
Not all women are white and not all Black people are men.
This year marks the 100th anniversary of women’s right to vote in the United States. A historical moment, only that it is not totally accurate. It is the 100th anniversary of white women’s right to vote. Black women in the US were only able to vote when the Voting Right Act passed in 1965. After getting the right to vote in the beginning of the twentieth century, white women did not vote differently from white men, and this has stayed constant throughout history. This may also explain why the majority of white women (53%) supported Donald Trump. White women advancement does not necessarily mean a direct benefit to Black women or other oppressed groups.
Extrapolating white women’s advancements to all women is a fallacy, which unfortunately is also present in the Black community. I’ve talked to enough Black men to know that many of them don’t know much about the Black female experience. Our Black brothers still have some homework to do in that aspect. I was talking to a Black male colleague about the challenges faced by Black employees when trying to grow in the corporate world. He mentioned that this is a long-term challenge, something I agreed to. Then he put as an example how it has been in the last twenty years approximately that women are getting more senior roles in organisations. “White women” I replied. To which he claimed Black women are also being more represented. This is by far false. There are no Black women serving as a Fortune 500 CEO. And Black people only account for 3.2% of senior leadership roles in large companies in the US, which makes Black female representation in leadership almost insignificant. Even if there are some Black women popping up in my colleague’s LinkedIn feed, this does not necessarily reflect a significant societal change.
This discussion triggered me to reflect on why people assume that “all women are white” and “all Black people are men”. It led me to think about the role of feminism in promoting the racist belief that “mainstream-bourgeois-lean-in-glass-ceiling” feminism actually reflects the needs of all women in general and Black women in particular. This is historically incorrect. Becoming CEOs is not the only problem women have in the world.
“White feminism” is feminism that ignores where oppression intersects.
There are different ways to call it: “white feminism”, “mainstream feminism”, “bourgeois feminism”, “glass ceiling feminism”, etc. the name is less important, the impact is what counts. “White feminism” is a type of feminism that uses the white female experience as a starting point and extends it to all women. It assumes that the needs of white women and the way they experience misogyny are universal for all women.
Not all feminists who happen to be white are white feminists. However, it is usually white women who tend to be it because of their lack of familiarity with other forms of oppression, like race. For example, an important struggle for feminism is the wage gap. In the US white women are paid an average of 79 cents for every dollar of their male counterpart. For Black and Latin women this is 62 cents and 54 cents respectively. Income inequality across racial groups is also a feminist issue. White feminism ignores the role of race in equality.
The fact that white women are often the face of feminism is concerning. It may help reassure white men in power, because they are used to seeing white women. They probably also want their daughters to reap the benefits of (white) gender equality. However, it is worrisome for non-white women, who are still dealing with feminist issues that are not related to the white community. White-washing feminism means being oblivious to feminist struggles in other racial groups. It means ignoring the fact that Black women are more likely to: be sole wage earners in their households; never marry; divorce; be widowed young; be single mothers; live in inadequate housing; be unemployed; suffer of hypertension and diabetes; die of breast cancer; be poor; have a poorer quality of life.
There is no such thing as an universal female experience. Historically, the white female experience and struggle was not a reflection of that of other groups. Words like “woman”, “mother”, and “housewife” were made synonymous with female inferiority. Women were to be protected and relished. However, it was white women who were going crazy with boredom and banality at home when they started to demand the right to work and to earn their own money in the nineteenth century. This boredom is what white women relativised as their own slavery. This situation, on the other hand, did not apply to Black women. Black women have always worked; either as slaves or as domestic workers. The title of “housewife” was a luxury that Black women didn’t have.
Women of colour cannot afford to be supporting characters in White women’s rise to the top. We can also not wait for White women’s success to trickle down to the rest of us. We need to realise that white women achieving parity with their male counterparts has not helped other communities. Their fight for women’s rights and their political agenda was founded on preserving white supremacy. This is documented in History of Woman Suffrage: “the South will be compelled to look to its Anglo-Saxon women as the medium through which to retain the supremacy of the white race over the African”.
“I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man — when I could get it — and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman?”
— Sojourner Truth (1797–1883): Ain’t I A Woman?
‘Misogynoir’ and ‘Womanism’. Two new words for white feminists
The double oppression Black women experience in society (i.e. misogyny and racism) has recently gotten a new term: “misogynoir”. The term was coined by Professor Moya Bailey in 2008 to talk about the anti-blackness and misogyny that Black women experience. Misogynoir has many faces. Its most evident one is Eurocentric femininity and beauty standards. These standards exclude and stigmatise aspects that are inherently Black. Portraying Black women as either undesirable or hypersexual or exaggerating their sexual organs are all forms of misogynoir. Hip-hop videos are particularly expert on promoting this stereotype.
Misogynoir is also reflected in the fact that Black women are expected to adjust their behaviour as a way to counter the racist, classist, and sexist stereotypes other people might have of them. Structural disadvantages that Black women experience are also part of misogynoir. According to research Black women have less access to education, higher rates of underemployment, poverty, and disease.
The term ‘womanism’ was coined by writer Alice Walker in her book In search of Our Mother’s Garden, in 1983. Walker describes womanism as an “intense form of female-centered identification and action most often exhibited among women of colour”. Womanism scholars take the Black female experience as their starting point. They take inspiration from historic figures such as Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, and Rosa Parks. They emphasise the connection between faith, strength, and struggle as drivers of the Black women’s narrative.
Although focused on Black women, womanism overlaps with the problematic concept of the “strong Black woman”. Womanism assumes Black woman’s strength as a given, and therefore it reinforces the false belief that this strength is natural to them and that it always produces a victorious outcome. This assumption puts the burden on the woman and liberates society from any consequences of the expectations of such ‘strength’, which actually has a tremendous impact on women’s physical and mental health. Even though there are many Black women who have the resilience to fight oppression, there are many more who just stay oppressed.
Black women have learned and taught each other to be strong across generations. At this point it may seem natural, but it is not. It is just necessary. Appearing confident and strong are just ways to counter the weight of sexism, racism, and patriarchy.
If Black men understand the racist struggle, why the sexism?
I can count on one hand the number of Black men that I’ve met with whom I could have a sound conversation regarding race and equality. Our Black brothers can be very open about their experiences with racism and police brutality, but when it comes to Black women they seem to not have a clue what is happening. They also fall in the mistake of generalising Black women’s experiences as if they were the same as their white counterparts. However they are happy to benefit from the hard work Black women have historically put in social causes.
It’s difficult to admit, but it seems that exclusion is only a problem when it affects them directly. They tend to undermine how internalised racism affects the women in their own community. They are quick to disrespect us, abuse us, and blame us for the systemic injustices we endure.
The reason why Black men don’t challenge sexism is because female inferiority is, consciously or unconsciously, considered normal. They also stand on the convenient side of oppression.
The male-female relationship within the Black community did not always conform to this gendered relationship, especially during slavery. As Angela Davis puts it: “Black women were equal to their men in the oppression they suffered; they were their men’s social equals within the slave community; and they resisted slavery with a passion equal to their men’s”. They suffered the same kind of oppression, and even worse, because besides the lynching and the whipping, they were also victims of rape and sexual crimes.
As Black people started to participate in the political sphere at the end of the nineteenth century, the gender dynamics also changed in the Black community. Black men’s political participation was not easy and they found themselves excluded by white people. Because of lack of respect elsewhere, the Black men use Black women submission as a way to make up for what they could not receive outside their household. That was the moment and the way for them to feel respected. They did not want to share their power and authority with women. This still happens today. For many Black men, often the only place where they might experience respect is in their family.
Despite these gendered forms of oppression, Black women were resilient and committed to fight an exploitation that did not make gender distinctions. Thus referring to the female experience as an universal one and using the white experience as default ignores that Black women are women too. Indeed they are, but their experience with slavery set them apart from their white counterparts.
In order to stand up against racism we need more than inclusion
The cause of feminism is a cause for equality. Challenging white feminism is not about invalidating white women’s experiences. On the contrary, it’s about addressing equality as a multidimensional issue. Because uplifting white women to become CEOs or presidents is not the same as uplifting all women.
Angela Davis said: “The hallmark of feminism today is intersectionality. [Not only about the] interrelating character of identities, [but about the] intersectionality of social justice struggles”. If feminism is about giving more privileges to those who are already privileged, then how is it relevant to the rest? Feminism is not only about helping women who have been able to ascend to the top to break the glass ceiling; this is irrelevant as long as there are women still at the very bottom.
Changing the current state is not an easy task, especially because it’s not about reforming a system that is designed to be excluding. You cannot reform slavery. Trying to do so will result in making the shackles of wood instead of metal. A feminism that doesn’t challenge the hierarchy imposed by patriarchy is superfluous and does not fight for equality.
Diversity and inclusion may be enough for White women who want power without challenging patriarchy or white supremacy. But diversity and inclusion are not enough for Black women. We do not need to be included in a racist and patriarchal society. We need to build a new one.
