"feminism, activism, politics: the trouble with white feminism"

Jessie Daniels, PhDHunter College and The Graduate Center, CUNY

FemSem YWCANYC - Columbia University - July 14, 2016

“Feminism, Politics & Activism: The Trouble with White Feminism”

Twitter: @JessieNYC

introduction

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7

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situating myself

epistemology of lived experience

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2009

“Without an explicit challenge to racism, white feminism is

easily grafted onto white supremacy and

useful for arguing for equality for white

women and possibly for white gays and lesbians

within a white supremacist context."

17th-19th century

how have white women

& white feminists

been connected to racism

historically?

active participants in & beneficiaries of slavery

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a tiny handful of white women

resistors & advocates for social justice

abolitionists & (pre)-feminists

early suffragists split from abolitionists

Susan B. Anthony

“I will cut off this right arm of mine before I will ever work or demand the ballot for the Negro and not the woman.”

“You have put the ballot in the hands of your black men, thus making them political superiors of white women. Never before in the history of the world have men made former slaves the political masters of their former mistresses!”

~ Anna Howard Shaw

Black Women Suffragists

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“Suffragette” (2015)

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More Reading on This• Louise Michelle Newman, White Women’s Rights:

The Racial Origins of Feminism in the US (Oxford UP, 1999). http://digital.library.upenn.edu/ebooks-public/pdfs/0195086929.pdf

• Ware, Vron. Beyond the Pale: White Women, Racism and History, 2nd Ed., (Verso Books, 2015).

• Wilson, Midge & Kathy Russell, One of Divided Sisters: Bridging the Gap Between Black and White Women (Anchor, 1996)

20th century

white womanhood& white feminism

Or, what happened after suffrage?

‘flapper’ girls & consumerism as feminism

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“lynching central to American culture”

white women active participants in lynchings

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“defense” of white womanhood used to justify lynchings

millions of white women organized

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a tiny handful of white women resisted

Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching (ASWPL)

Read More About This• Blee, Kathleen. Women of the Klan.

(University of California Press, 1991). • Giddens, Paula. Ida: A Sword Among

Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching (Harper Paperbacks, 2009).

• Hall, Jacquelyn Dowd. Revolt Against Chivalry. (Columbia UP, 1993).

economic depression

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World War II

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post-World War II

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Read More About This• Coontz, Stephanie. The Way We Never

Were: The American Family and the Nostalgia Trap. (Basic Books, 1992).

• Wilkerson, Isabel. The Warmth of Other Suns. (Vintage, 2010).

Civil Rights Movement

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millions of white women

supported segregation

a tiny handful resisted

3 Evils: Militarism, Racism & Economic Exploitation

Gender Trouble in Anti-War & Black Power Movements

Read More About This• Nelson, Alondra. Body & Soul: The Black

Panther Party and the Fight Against Medical Discrimination (University of Minnesota Press, 2011).

• Wu, Judy Tzu-Chuh. Radicals on the Road: Internationalism, Orientalism, and Feminism during the Vietnam Era. (Cornell University Press, 2013).

“second wave” feminism

“the problem with no name”

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white women & ERA

Read More About This• Marshall, Susan E. "Ladies against

women: Mobilization dilemmas of antifeminist movements." Social Problems (1985): 348-362.

• Roth, Benita. Separate Roads to Feminism: Black, Chicana and White Feminist Movements in America’s Second Wave (Cambridge University Press, 2004).

Read More About This• Collins, Patricia Hill. Black Feminist

Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, 2nd Ed. (Routledge, 2002).

• hooks, bell. Feminist theory: From Margin to Center. (Pluto Press, 2000).

• Lorde, Audre. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. (Random House LLC, 2007).

2016

3 Case Studies

white feminism #epicfails

Case Study: Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In

the critique

“Sandberg uses feminist rhetoric as a front to cover her commitment to western cultural imperialism, to white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.” ~ bell hooks

Case Study: “Slut Walk”

“It’s painful and embarrassing for white feminists to be called out around race and racism, but the

obligation to learn how to deal with those emotions productively is a

cost of privilege.”~ Jaclyn Friedman

Case Study 3: Carceral Feminism

White Women & ‘Central Park 5’

Prosecutor

District Attorney

Politicians

Carceral feminism + white womanhood

Read More About This

• Bernstein, Elizabeth. "Carceral politics as gender justice? The “traffic in women” and neoliberal circuits of crime, sex, and rights." Theory and Society 41, no. 3 (2012): 233-259.

• Davis, Angela Y. The meaning of freedom: And other difficult dialogues. City Lights Books, 2013.

how are WOC resisting &

reshaping &

hacking (white) feminism

Restorative Justice

Mikki Kendall (@Karnythia)

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#SolidarityisforWhiteWomen

#BlackLivesMatter

a movement, not a moment

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“The Charleston Imperative”

“As antiracist feminists of every color, we refute the patriarchal, racist practices that endanger Black people across the nation.” ~ Kimberle Crenshaw

“black feminism does not exist”

epistemological activism

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Twitter: @JessieNYC

Thank you!

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