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I had a bit of an epiphany last night. I've seen a lot of complaints from WOC, disabled people etc about being treated as "add ons" to feminism, which has as a default the needs and experiences of white middle class western women. I'm sympathetic to these claims but always felt I was missing something.
After reading about WOC-centred activism against sexual violence I was checking my twitter and someone1 pointed out that #fem2 (A feminist discussion..thing? I don't really get twitter groups and tags) claims to be "feminist" but assumes pretty strongly that everyone is American and seems to see the entirety of feminism from non-American countries as "International" issues, an extra like race, disability etc2. And even then "International perspectives" means "What do Canadians think of the American health system?".
And I thought "Oh. This is how WOC feel all the time. Or for that matter feminists from countries with cultures less like America's." (Australian feminism is pretty similar to American feminism, so I don't usually feel excluded this way)
Because in the same way as it's absurd to only read Germaine Greer or Hoyden About Town if you've decided to make the effort to consider "Australian women's problems" for a little bit, or to lump us with the Zambian National Women's Lobby3 because we're all "International", it's absurd to think of white feminists as just "feminist" but any POC feminists as, primarily, POC, who are only mentioned as part of a special tokenistic effort to "include" POC voices. And so on for other marginalised voices.
Why should white western american etc be the default? What if the women of the Asian Women Carnival made a generic "feminist" carnival where everyone "happened" to be Asian? (With maybe a Latina to cover the "Non-Asian" POV, and a Chinese woman handwringing about plastic surgery in America and should We do something to help Those Poor Women?) Would that be any less feminist than one where (almost) everyone "happens" to be white? What if most posters were from muslim backgrounds? Or were disabled? Or from non-western countries? Why do those groups have to be marked but ours/theirs4 don't?
Which is not to say there's anything wrong with white American etc women speaking up and organising against the sexism we/they experience, but if we're going to claim to speak for all women we ned to speak for ALL women, and if we're not we need to be honest about what we're doing. Even saying "We have not managed to find much information about *blah* and apologise for the lack" is a start. (This is something the history courses I've been listening to as podcasts do a bit, which I think is lazy: you're academics, researching is your job)
Anyway, this is just the thoughts I've had over the past day or so. I'm not sure where I'm going to go from here.
1)In a locked tweet referring to an unlocked tweet they'd written under another name, I hope it's ok to mention.
2)This is based on skimming through a few pages of posts, and like I said I don't get this form of communication. Anyway, the point of this post isn't #fem2's faults so much as my reaction to my perception of them.
3)Yes, I did have to google to find an "International" feminist who wasn't western. Blah.
4)Oh wait, I forgot, I'm disabled. Huh. Hmm.
After reading about WOC-centred activism against sexual violence I was checking my twitter and someone1 pointed out that #fem2 (A feminist discussion..thing? I don't really get twitter groups and tags) claims to be "feminist" but assumes pretty strongly that everyone is American and seems to see the entirety of feminism from non-American countries as "International" issues, an extra like race, disability etc2. And even then "International perspectives" means "What do Canadians think of the American health system?".
And I thought "Oh. This is how WOC feel all the time. Or for that matter feminists from countries with cultures less like America's." (Australian feminism is pretty similar to American feminism, so I don't usually feel excluded this way)
Because in the same way as it's absurd to only read Germaine Greer or Hoyden About Town if you've decided to make the effort to consider "Australian women's problems" for a little bit, or to lump us with the Zambian National Women's Lobby3 because we're all "International", it's absurd to think of white feminists as just "feminist" but any POC feminists as, primarily, POC, who are only mentioned as part of a special tokenistic effort to "include" POC voices. And so on for other marginalised voices.
Why should white western american etc be the default? What if the women of the Asian Women Carnival made a generic "feminist" carnival where everyone "happened" to be Asian? (With maybe a Latina to cover the "Non-Asian" POV, and a Chinese woman handwringing about plastic surgery in America and should We do something to help Those Poor Women?) Would that be any less feminist than one where (almost) everyone "happens" to be white? What if most posters were from muslim backgrounds? Or were disabled? Or from non-western countries? Why do those groups have to be marked but ours/theirs4 don't?
Which is not to say there's anything wrong with white American etc women speaking up and organising against the sexism we/they experience, but if we're going to claim to speak for all women we ned to speak for ALL women, and if we're not we need to be honest about what we're doing. Even saying "We have not managed to find much information about *blah* and apologise for the lack" is a start. (This is something the history courses I've been listening to as podcasts do a bit, which I think is lazy: you're academics, researching is your job)
Anyway, this is just the thoughts I've had over the past day or so. I'm not sure where I'm going to go from here.
1)In a locked tweet referring to an unlocked tweet they'd written under another name, I hope it's ok to mention.
2)This is based on skimming through a few pages of posts, and like I said I don't get this form of communication. Anyway, the point of this post isn't #fem2's faults so much as my reaction to my perception of them.
3)Yes, I did have to google to find an "International" feminist who wasn't western. Blah.
4)Oh wait, I forgot, I'm disabled. Huh. Hmm.
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