cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/my_mouldy_memes/t/310874
THE FUTURE OF FEMINISM
IS ONLY AS POWERFUL
AS THE FUTURE OF ANTI-RACISM
CLEO WADE
Why?
this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2023
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Honestly, I'm surprised that OP is being so obtuse about this. It's clear once you're familiar with intersectionality, but I think it could do well to be explained at least a little bit for those who aren't.
Essentially, the argument is that feminism, while a good force, needs anti-racism to maximize it's potential, just as it needs support for LGBTQ+ rights, since a lot of people are impacted by racism, homophobia, transphobia etc. Focusing largely on cis-het white middle-class women does help them, but we need those other elements too to be able to truly liberate people
I personally don't see this as the strength of the intersectionality argument. To be clear, I am not saying that your point is incorrect. I agree with you completely.
My point is that to people not familiar with the concepts of intersectionality might find this to be a bit of a flimsy position. I could be wrong and I am willing to discuss why in more detail if you like.
I personally think the incompleteness argument is more persuasive. Proponents of individual movements are already aquatinted with the inequalities of their own individual movements and getting them to recognize what their movement lacks is easier than getting people to recognize that integrating other movements will produce better results.
It also, explicitly, forces people to "say the quiet part out loud". They don't get to hide behind platitudes. I.e. the j.k Rowlings of the feminist movements get to out themselves as terfs or racists that much easier. When you get someone to admit that there are more inequalities faced by black woman than either movement alone covers and their reaction isn't immediate recognition of the problem... You have found your problem.
My point is that to people not familiar with the concepts of intersectionality might find this to be a bit of a flimsy position.
Reminds me of a saying:
"You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink"
Others can handle the horses that won't drink water, but that shouldn't hinder me from preaching intersectionality.
Lol I'm not being obtuse, I'm trying to get them to admit the quiet part of their objection out loud
Because it widely breaks down to the same sort of discrimination. Feminism without anti-racism means that the discrimination we see towards women won't disappear, it'll just be shifted towards people of color. How successful is your movement if all you did was export the bad shit to other people so it's not your problem anymore?
If the response to "Women shouldn't have to do housework" is "Yes! Juanita should do the housework!" Then something failed.
This seems to assume that there's a certain fixed amount of "bad shit" that must be placed on one minority or another. If I eliminated all police brutality (which in the US disproportionately is aimed at black people), does that somehow make things any worse for women?
It doesn't assume there's a fixed amount of bad shit. It's saying that if you talk exclusively about oppression against one group, you miss out on the bigger picture. The oppression experienced by black women is similar, yet different to the oppression experienced by black men or white women. Intersectionality came out of the experiences of black women who felt they weren't being heard or recognized in civil rights movements about women and movements about black people. In the women's groups, they were marginalized because of racist attitudes that many in the movement tolerated. In black liberation groups, they were sidelined by misogyny.
These intelligent black women recognized these challenges and worked to address this by promoting intersectional thinking in civil rights spaces. They highlighted how there's no single black experience or single woman experience. There were commonalities, yes but there were also differences. The civil rights movement is diverse, with there not being a single universal experience among them. There are many ways to experience discrimination, so instead of creating cliques of similarity, civil rights movements should embrace the diversity within their own movements.
If you eliminated all police abuse, it would be amazing. It would certainly help things. However, there are still other things to consider in parallel to that. For instance, is abuse in the private sector being addressed? Are companies hiring thugs to intimidate rather than using cops. Are we also trying to end other forms of abuse by the state, like imperialism. If you ended police brutality, it might not even lead to increases in those things, but they would still need to be addressed. Basically our work is not over until all unfair hierarchies are addressed. Police are only part of the hierarchy, and we should listen to those who are victims of other parts of it.
Do... Do you think Black women don't exist?
Are you just not even making an attempt to understand my point? In this scenario, of course black women would benefit, as they'd experience no police brutality. My point is that this magical elimination of a racial inequality problem would not make a gender related issue (e.g. the wage gap) automatically worse somehow, which seemed to be Leylaa's point if I'm understanding that correctly.
You missed the point.
Intersectionality isn't that there is a fixed amount of bad things or that fixing/working on one of them is a problem. Your example would obviously be a good thing.
Intersectionality is that there are more bad things than one or the other individually. The sum of the parts is less than the whole.
The point is that even if you fixed all of the racism/inequalities faced by each group individually there would still be inequalities left over that the people at the intersection of those two groups face.
I see, thanks for clarifying. Where I was confused by Leylaa's comment was when she said that getting rid of one type of discrimination would merely "shift" it to another group, which does not sound like the same thing you are saying here.
I see, let me add some words.
Feminism without anti-racism means that the discrimination we see towards women won't disappear, it (The discrimination that currently affects all women) will just be shifted towards people (women) of color.
(Or the difficulties that women of color face that don't affect white women won't be addressed at all, and this the discrimination that is left over is shifted solely to black women).
As an example, feminism of the 30s and 40s was only for the promotion of white women.
Feminism today suffers these same problems. As I have said elsewhere, JK Rowling is a feminist. She is also a terf. Feminism, without the inclusion of trans rights, will result in actions that will exclude the rights of trans women. Without the knowledge that terfs are a thing terfs would 100% silently advocate for the removal of trans women's rights from the feminist movement.
The same thing happened, and is happening, to black women.
We (the royal we) like to say that feminism is for all women... But is it? Is it for women if black women's issues(which are unique to black women) are not included? Is it feminism if black women aren't included?
That's the point.
They said it in a slightly incorrect way. It's not like there's an unaddressable amount of discrimination that gets shifted over. It's that other forms of bigotry can fester in a movement if diverse voices are not part of the conversation. Intersectionality is about praxis: not just theory, but how movements practically function as well.
Why do you think?
This isn't exactly a helpful response. The two movements are different in myriad ways, and I see no reason to believe that the failure or success, however that may be defined, of one would cause the other to have the same fate.
Mostly because the roots of every discrimination are basically the same, and if you focus on only one aspect of it, you will not succeed no matter how much progress you think you're making. For example, both racism and misogyny is based on the old entitlement, on the old white men's unearned sense of superiority, and if you don't target that, you will never have an egalitarian society, even if you make them pretend that they aren't overtly misogynistic anymore. It's like TERFs teaming up with white supremacists to harass trans people, only to be incredibly surprised that white supremacists hate women too.
Kinda sounds like in that example, the reason for humans that are not white old men to be racist is those white old men. Sorry if I'm being ignorant here, but I always though racism is common among every demographic. I though it's more of a thing that's imprinted onto you and just not challenged because you don't interact with enough people you have prejudices against. I don't want to misrepresent your point, but from what I see, a racist black woman can exist without the white man to be the reason for that
And if we were living in the black matriarchy, we would be having a different conversation. But we live in the white patriarchy, so we are having this one.
But regardless, sexism, racism, homophobia, and every other types of descrimination have basically the same root, so there is no real way to get rid of one without getting rid of the rest.
Sorry, I'm just not that informed on that subject, but what is the same root? The old white men? So if we locked all of them up we would be living in a utopia?
Lmfao, and I get called obtuse... How about do even the most superficial research in to racism and sexism and why they exist before you demand other people do the work for you, that you promptly disregard to continue pushing your own deliberate misunderstanding of the subject you clearly care so little about ? Sealions be sealioning, while those who can spot you miles away and refuse to feed your bullshit get called obtuse...
It's more than this. It isn't that there is only a common source. In fact, black women specifically suffer because the source is not single sourced.
To paraphrase, Black women suffer the problems of women, because they are women. They also suffer the problems blacks face because they are black. But they also face problems that only black women face. The source of problems they face as blacks and women individually may well be white men... But they also suffer the inequalities imposed on them by black men, which are different than the inequalities placed on them by white men. And they suffer the what white women impose on them that is different than what is imposed on them by black men.
The problem is that discrimination is multifaceted, and movements that only seek the liberation of one group often harbor the oppressors of another.
A simple, explicit example. J.k. Rowling is a feminist. She is also a terf. She wants the advancement of the people she deems women while simultaneously seeking the exclusion of a group she hates.
More bluntly, there are racists in the feminist movement who want to see black women suffer and those racists are not just white men.
And why is that?
Do you just have nothing to say
Lmfao, I'm just waiting for you to explain to me how either feminism or anti-racism can succeed if the other fails.
I don't feel like I need to; the burden of proof is on you to explain why both must simultaneously succeed or fail
Lmfao, of course *you * think you shouldn't have to. But you do! You asked why, to explain it to you, I need to understand what you're struggling with.
You refusing to say the quiet part out loud just confirms to me what I knew from that first comment - that you're not genuinely interested, and that I have better things to waste my time on than on providing an education to someone who clearly doesn't want it.
If I make a meme which asserts that a giant Blahaj in the sky controls the American government, and you call it into question, is the burden of proof on you to explain what it is about the meme you don't understand, or on me to show you why I believe it's true?
To put it in less sarcastic terms, the answer is that what I'm struggling with is the whole thing.
You have put very little to no effort into your why question, and it was very effective at making the op mad, so if your goal was trolling I suppose it was effective.
If you are serious, then you don't have a good grasp of intersectionality and it isn't ops responsibility to teach you... Particularly when you are aggressive about your lack of knowledge being a good place to argue from.
I am not trolling, but was hoping for somebody, OP or otherwise, to explain why they believe the message of the meme to be true, so that I or other lemmings could learn a bit more about the subject. I'm glad that the community has stepped in to share their knowledge. My intent was not to be aggressive with my comparison to Russell's ~~teapot~~ Blahaj, if that's what led you to your judgement of my attitude, but to show OP that the burden of proof was on them to show why the two movements are as interdependent as they claim.
I would recommend you go figure out what sea lions are in this context. Hopefully it will help you understand why the attitude you brought is aggressive. If not I can answer that for you.
I think we first need to define “failed….” The cat’s been out of the bag on both of these issues for a while now. Racism and misogyny will still be around, but the pushback from the past makes it kind of hard to believe that we’ll all just go back to the standards of the 1800’s or something…
So you're claiming racism and sexism are what, an inevitable part of (white male) human nature we just have to put up with, while you get on with your oppressing? Yet if I said men are shit I guarantee you'd reply with "not all men".. Gtfoh you racist sexist ass.
…what? That’s not at all the point I was trying to make
I meant that ever since humanity started to grow more aware of the fact that racism and sexism can be so damaging, that that knowledge is kind of hard to forget or bury, and I don’t believe that either one of them will go back to the “dark ages” of the 1800’s. So with that in mind, especially with the internet available, what constitutes as racism or sexism reforms “failing?” Is it failure to achieve perfect extermination of these outdated ideals? Or is it something more extreme, like society undoing changes that have already been made towards rights and awareness?
Full disclosure: I am a US citizen, so much of my knowledge on racist and sexist societal reforms are framed with this in mind, I can’t speak to other countries
https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/combahee-river-collective-statement-1977/
The tl;dr is that independent movements leave or create additional issues. The example I have used elsewhere in my replies on this post is jk Rowling. She is a feminist. She is also a terf. Feminism, by itself, doesn't solve the problems of other excluded minority groups. If feminism was the only movement we considered, Rowlings position might not have ever been exposed and the bigotry that trans women face wouldn't be addressed by the feminist movement because terfs would silently exclude them.
In the 30s and 40s a major problem with feminism was the racism that infected it. It was for women's rights, as long as it was white women. This problem still exists today. Is feminism, feminism if black women are left behind? Are black women not women? Are trans women not women?
With the context of the other comments on this post, I have a much better understanding of what I think you’re trying to say, which is that (and correct me if I’m wrong) in order for these movements to succeed completely, they must work congruently with each other. Rather, it’s not about a movement “failing,” but about individual movements not maximizing potential for benefit without adjacent ideals. Does that sound about right?
In other words, feminism hasn’t “failed,” but it won’t “succeed” if TERFs are the primary figures, for example
Correct, which from the point if view from a trans woman may be failure.
But they didn't post it. What came to mind, for you, when you posted it?
Oh, you're not even the same person lol
If you want to know my feelings feel free to scroll through my magazine.
Until then, get out of the way and let the person I was replying to explain to me why they see an issue with this post.
ITT: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/1575588
I've blocked the sealions, but since I'm on 196 and not my own page I can't fully ban them, so if you want to keep trying to educate them, be my guests more power to ya, but I'm out lol
I'd like to thank the folks who invested their time in providing some really great answers, and also to point out how clearly uninterested the trolls were in actually understanding the meme, since they all seem to have vanished now they can no longer feign ignorance.
This feels very white savior-y after checking out that wiki
What is white savior-y about a black woman talking about black women problems?
Cleo Wade is not a person of color
to a white mother, Lori Rockett, and black father, Bernardo Wade.
What?
Wow. Just.... Wow.
Lmao you fucking libs/lefties/commies/SJWs/etc are hilarious, trying to kick a mixed race person outta the POC club 🤣
This is why you will never win
Says the white person who upvoted pretty much every single comment opposing it (sorry, pretending to misunderstand).
You're the equivalent of an incel calling any man capable of respectful interaction with a woman a white knight (which they do not because they want to be able to respectfully interact, but because they see respet as transactional).
As always, once you peel back the pseudo intellectual bullshit, it's projection all the way down.