We fortunately live in a world where a lot of people within marginalized communities are finally being given voices. Yes, there is still a lot of work to do, but we are moving towards a better world. However, one of the things that is holding us back from our full potential is white feminism and the lack of intersectionality within in it. White feminism is a brand of feminism that leaves out and ignores the experiences of women of color. The lack of intersectionality excludes the struggles of Trans women as well. Therefore, by definition white feminism isn’t feminism since feminism is the belief in total equality.
Sadly, a lot of racism can be found at the roots of feminism. Famed suffragist, Frances Willard, was notoriously racist, refusing to give her support for the prevention of lynching of black people in the South because she strongly believed that all black men were drunken menaces who were all guilty of raping white women. During a lot of the suffragette parades in Washington D.C., black women were constantly asked to march at the back of the parades. This both physically and symbolically pushes their issues to the back of the conversation, erasing its importance.
People of color already live a different life than white people here in modern day America. Women of color have it even worse with, for instance, according to a study by americanprogress.org, black and Hispanic women making only 70 cents and 61 cents respectively for every 77 cents. Women of color also make up 33 percent of the female work force, yet are twice as likely as white women to hold low wage jobs in the service industry. These are jobs that keep the poor in a cycle of living check to check where there’s no real financial gain and chance at social mobility.
White feminism isn’t just stuck in the past. We live in a world where one of the most famous people on the planet heavily perpetuates white feminism: Taylor Swift. Now there’s a lot of evidence of her subscribing to this dangerous brand of feminism, but perhaps the most shocking to me was her “Bad Blood” video. The video features only 2 or 3 women of color, one of whom (Selena Gomez) is just as problematic due to her dabbling in cultural appropriation. Everyone else in the video is thin and white. Taylor champions herself as a feminist hero but has yet to represent the vast spectrum of women that live in this country.
Another instance exemplifying her white feminism promotion was Swift’s feud with Nicki Minaj about the VMA nominations for both of their music videos.
Swift releases a video with girls in revealing clothing, and she’s applauded. She’s said to be bringing in a new wave of feminism and then nominated for video of the year, as well. Nicki Minaj releases a video of the same variety and not only is her video viewed more, her single is actually more widely received. Yet, Minaj is criticized as being a bad influence on women and receives no nominations for her video. Swift then goes on to say “maybe one of the men took your spot,” which in and of itself seems to suggest Taylor thinks only a man could produce work good enough to go up against her own. See the issue?
The issues doesn’t stop with Taylor Swift. You have people like Lena Dunham, a feminist with a large platform, creating a show about independent women in New York and not including a single woman of color in the story line.
Transgender women of color are also facing these issues. The gay liberation movement was largely started and fought by transgender women of color, yet we see in movies like Stonewall Uprising where the champion of the movie is a cisgender, white male. It’s disrespectful and inaccurate to ignore the contributions of wonderful women like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera as they played a large part in gay liberation and American history.
The worst part of white feminism, in my opinion, is that it can lead women of color to not consider themselves feminists. They don’t see themselves in the film and literature that supposedly speaks for the equality of the sexes, so can they be expected to identify? The white feminism movement comes off as something that can only help white people and address white issues. Issues that people of the white community face, due to an inherent privilege, are more often than not totally different from the issues faced by people of color and Trans women in this country.
We all have a duty to make feminism as inclusive as possible. The patriarchy is doing enough to keep the modern female down. Who are we to single some women out and deny them their place in our fight? That place being one they and their ancestors have earned.