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White feminism
White feminism is a term which is used to describe expressions of feminism which are perceived as focusing on white women while failing to address the existence of distinct forms of oppression faced by ethnic minority women and women lacking other privileges. Whiteness is crucial in structuring the lived experiences of white women across a variety of contexts. The term has been used to label and criticize theories that are perceived as focusing solely on gender-based inequality. Primarily used as a derogatory label, "white feminism" is typically used to reproach a perceived failure to acknowledge and integrate the intersection of other identity attributes into a broader movement which struggles for equality on more than one front. In white feminism, the oppression of women is analyzed through a single-axis framework, consequently erasing the identity and experiences of ethnic minority women in the space. The term has also been used to refer to feminist theories perceived to focus more specifically on the experience of white, cisgender, heterosexual, able-bodied women, and in which the experiences of women without these characteristics are excluded or marginalized. This criticism has predominantly been leveled against the first waves of feminism which were seen as centered around the empowerment of white middle-class women in Western societies.
While the term white feminism is relatively recent, the critics of the concepts it represents date back to the beginning of the feminist movement, especially in the United States. The label has recently increased in use, as intersectional theory has entered more mainstream national conversations in the US since the late 2010s. Others question the label, claiming it is used to attack white feminists, whether or not they are inclusionary of minority women.
At its origin, feminism in Western societies was represented by white educated women primarily focusing on the right to vote and political representation. An example of this focus is found in Mary Wollstonecraft's text, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman published in 1792, where Wollstonecraft advocates for moral and political equality between men and women, however only addressing members belonging to the middle-class.[citation needed] Similarly, in France, Olympe de Gouges advocated for women's rights in her Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen as early as 1791. White feminism aligns itself to white supremacy by attempting to hide white women's participation and function in white supremacy by seeing them as victims because of their gender but not holding white women accountable for their part in it when women of color are excluded.
Kimberlé Crenshaw, Columbia scholar and Professor of Law at the University of California, Los Angeles, has championed Black feminism movements and provided the foundational framework for the idea of intersectionality. In Crenshaw's words, intersectionality is "a lens through which you can see where power comes and collides, where it interlocks and intersects". In her 1989 article, "Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: a black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory, and antiracist politics", Crenshaw illuminates the compounded nature of Black women's experience of discrimination and injustice.[citation needed] As race and gender intersect, Black women are subjected to racist and misogynistic treatment, simultaneously. This article serves as the foundational literature for implementing a multi-axis framework analysis of race and gender.[citation needed] Crenshaw argues that historically, Black women have been excluded from both the Civil Rights Movement as well as Feminist movements, despite their unique presence in both identities. The intersection of non-white ethnicity and female gender identity compounds the harmful, unjust, discriminatory actions against members of these groups; women of color. Applying a single-axis framework of analysis, Black women in the twentieth century were excluded from social justice campaigns as white women dominantly represented the feminist movements while Black men represented the Civil Rights Movement.[citation needed]
Crenshaw's application of an intersectional lens to analyze the experience of Black women remains relevant and useful in considering the presence of white feminism in activist movements today. Without this lens, women of color are "theoretically erased" from both feminist and antiracist analyses. Intersectionality has been increasingly embraced by feminist movements around the world as a direct challenge to white feminism's shortcomings. According to Bonu Rosenkranz, systems like racism, colonialism, and economic injustice are linked to gender-based violence through movements like Ni Una Menos, feminist strikes, and rallies in places like Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. In contrast to white feminism's emphasis on gender and individual oppression, these initiatives prioritize the experiences of marginalized women and place a strong emphasis on collective action and structural critique.
According to academics Ashlee Christoffersen and Akwugo Emejulu, many feminist groups, particularly in the UK, have embraced the terminology of intersectionality without making the structural adjustments it calls for. According to their research, intersectionality is frequently applied in an "additive" way, treating characteristics like race, class, and transgender status as distinct things rather than as interconnected oppressive systems. As a result of this strategy, trans women and nonbinary individuals have been excluded from feminist organization, exposing the shortcomings of white feminism's intersectional participation. Christoffersen and Emejulu claim that this type of feminism frequently revolves around a universalized concept of "womanhood" that favors middle-class, cisgender, white, able-bodied women.
The first wave of feminism began in the late nineteenth century, and focused on the equality of political and economic rights. The rights women were fighting for were women's suffrage, access to education, ability to hold political office, equality in the workforce, and legal rights in marriage. This wave officially started with the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention in Seneca Falls, New York, towards the end of the Industrial Revolution. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was one of the main organisers of this convention and went on to oppose the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The goal of this wave was to open up opportunities for women, with a focus on suffrage. It was a movement predominantly organized and defined by middle-class, educated white women, and therefore concentrated mostly on issues pertaining to them.
While some women of color were part of the first-wave feminist movement, such as the Indian suffragette Sophia Duleep Singh, on the whole the first suffragist movements remained primarily white; for example, there has been no historical evidence pertaining to the participation of Black British women in UK suffrage movement.[citation needed] In 1893, New Zealand became the first region in the British Empire to grant women of all ethnicities the right to vote; this was met with anger from some suffragists, including Millicent Fawcett, who expressed displeasure that Māori women in New Zealand were able to vote, while women in Britain were not. American suffragettes Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton fought for white women to get the right to vote in the United States, which led to white women gaining the right to vote before Black American men had their right to vote protected by the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
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White feminism
White feminism is a term which is used to describe expressions of feminism which are perceived as focusing on white women while failing to address the existence of distinct forms of oppression faced by ethnic minority women and women lacking other privileges. Whiteness is crucial in structuring the lived experiences of white women across a variety of contexts. The term has been used to label and criticize theories that are perceived as focusing solely on gender-based inequality. Primarily used as a derogatory label, "white feminism" is typically used to reproach a perceived failure to acknowledge and integrate the intersection of other identity attributes into a broader movement which struggles for equality on more than one front. In white feminism, the oppression of women is analyzed through a single-axis framework, consequently erasing the identity and experiences of ethnic minority women in the space. The term has also been used to refer to feminist theories perceived to focus more specifically on the experience of white, cisgender, heterosexual, able-bodied women, and in which the experiences of women without these characteristics are excluded or marginalized. This criticism has predominantly been leveled against the first waves of feminism which were seen as centered around the empowerment of white middle-class women in Western societies.
While the term white feminism is relatively recent, the critics of the concepts it represents date back to the beginning of the feminist movement, especially in the United States. The label has recently increased in use, as intersectional theory has entered more mainstream national conversations in the US since the late 2010s. Others question the label, claiming it is used to attack white feminists, whether or not they are inclusionary of minority women.
At its origin, feminism in Western societies was represented by white educated women primarily focusing on the right to vote and political representation. An example of this focus is found in Mary Wollstonecraft's text, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman published in 1792, where Wollstonecraft advocates for moral and political equality between men and women, however only addressing members belonging to the middle-class.[citation needed] Similarly, in France, Olympe de Gouges advocated for women's rights in her Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen as early as 1791. White feminism aligns itself to white supremacy by attempting to hide white women's participation and function in white supremacy by seeing them as victims because of their gender but not holding white women accountable for their part in it when women of color are excluded.
Kimberlé Crenshaw, Columbia scholar and Professor of Law at the University of California, Los Angeles, has championed Black feminism movements and provided the foundational framework for the idea of intersectionality. In Crenshaw's words, intersectionality is "a lens through which you can see where power comes and collides, where it interlocks and intersects". In her 1989 article, "Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: a black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory, and antiracist politics", Crenshaw illuminates the compounded nature of Black women's experience of discrimination and injustice.[citation needed] As race and gender intersect, Black women are subjected to racist and misogynistic treatment, simultaneously. This article serves as the foundational literature for implementing a multi-axis framework analysis of race and gender.[citation needed] Crenshaw argues that historically, Black women have been excluded from both the Civil Rights Movement as well as Feminist movements, despite their unique presence in both identities. The intersection of non-white ethnicity and female gender identity compounds the harmful, unjust, discriminatory actions against members of these groups; women of color. Applying a single-axis framework of analysis, Black women in the twentieth century were excluded from social justice campaigns as white women dominantly represented the feminist movements while Black men represented the Civil Rights Movement.[citation needed]
Crenshaw's application of an intersectional lens to analyze the experience of Black women remains relevant and useful in considering the presence of white feminism in activist movements today. Without this lens, women of color are "theoretically erased" from both feminist and antiracist analyses. Intersectionality has been increasingly embraced by feminist movements around the world as a direct challenge to white feminism's shortcomings. According to Bonu Rosenkranz, systems like racism, colonialism, and economic injustice are linked to gender-based violence through movements like Ni Una Menos, feminist strikes, and rallies in places like Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. In contrast to white feminism's emphasis on gender and individual oppression, these initiatives prioritize the experiences of marginalized women and place a strong emphasis on collective action and structural critique.
According to academics Ashlee Christoffersen and Akwugo Emejulu, many feminist groups, particularly in the UK, have embraced the terminology of intersectionality without making the structural adjustments it calls for. According to their research, intersectionality is frequently applied in an "additive" way, treating characteristics like race, class, and transgender status as distinct things rather than as interconnected oppressive systems. As a result of this strategy, trans women and nonbinary individuals have been excluded from feminist organization, exposing the shortcomings of white feminism's intersectional participation. Christoffersen and Emejulu claim that this type of feminism frequently revolves around a universalized concept of "womanhood" that favors middle-class, cisgender, white, able-bodied women.
The first wave of feminism began in the late nineteenth century, and focused on the equality of political and economic rights. The rights women were fighting for were women's suffrage, access to education, ability to hold political office, equality in the workforce, and legal rights in marriage. This wave officially started with the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention in Seneca Falls, New York, towards the end of the Industrial Revolution. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was one of the main organisers of this convention and went on to oppose the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The goal of this wave was to open up opportunities for women, with a focus on suffrage. It was a movement predominantly organized and defined by middle-class, educated white women, and therefore concentrated mostly on issues pertaining to them.
While some women of color were part of the first-wave feminist movement, such as the Indian suffragette Sophia Duleep Singh, on the whole the first suffragist movements remained primarily white; for example, there has been no historical evidence pertaining to the participation of Black British women in UK suffrage movement.[citation needed] In 1893, New Zealand became the first region in the British Empire to grant women of all ethnicities the right to vote; this was met with anger from some suffragists, including Millicent Fawcett, who expressed displeasure that Māori women in New Zealand were able to vote, while women in Britain were not. American suffragettes Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton fought for white women to get the right to vote in the United States, which led to white women gaining the right to vote before Black American men had their right to vote protected by the Voting Rights Act of 1965.