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Why White Feminism Matters
00:04:56
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| You might have heard the term white feminism used lately. | |
| Of course I have, and I'll tell you why. | |
| Because I am a shitlord and I educated myself. | |
| Because I have listened to feminists and believed what they said. | |
| So tell me what's wrong with white feminists. | |
| After Nikki Minaj and Tara Swift's Twitter exchange or when people critique HBO's girls. | |
| You see, these should be red flags right here for feminists. | |
| If the people who are commanding the feminist dialogue are Nikki Minaj and Taylor Swift or Lena Dunham's fucking TV program. | |
| My point being, if Christopher Hitchens had had a big blowout with Richard Dawkins, it would be worth talking about. | |
| If Taylor Swift and Nikki Minaj have a little Twitter spat, it's not. | |
| But what does it mean? | |
| It means that Western feminists have no greater issue than what some dipshit says to another dipshit on Twitter. | |
| Yes, yes, I know that you are talking about what does white feminism mean. | |
| Go on, go ahead and be racist. | |
| Basically, white feminism is feminism that ignores intersectionality. | |
| Then why call it white feminism? | |
| Why not just call it simple feminism or basic feminism? | |
| Why don't you call intersectional feminism feminism plus or something? | |
| So not all feminists who are white are white feminists. | |
| Yeah, I can see where the confusion's coming from. | |
| But I mean, I understand what you're saying. | |
| But most white feminists are white. | |
| Because white people just don't have to think about things like race on a daily basis. | |
| Unless you're a progressive and then you have to think about race constantly. | |
| And we're not just pulling the race card. | |
| You see the expression and the way you've done that? | |
| It tells me that you are just pulling the race card. | |
| White feminism excludes the experiences of basically anyone who's not white, fist, and straight. | |
| And female. | |
| But go on, tell me why that's problematic. | |
| Here's why that's so problematic. | |
| Sorry, tell me why it's so problematic. | |
| First, it assumes the way white women experience misogyny is the way all women experience misogyny. | |
| Could you try to have a slightly more judgy, entitled expression and tone of voice, please? | |
| With a little bit more condescension. | |
| And then please go on and tell me how each individual's experiences slightly differ due to their own circumstances. | |
| And that's just not true. | |
| I believe you. | |
| White feminism aims to close the wage gap between men and women. | |
| But what it fails to recognize is that most of the time, Latina and black women make even less than white women. | |
| Yeah, but that doesn't change the stated goal because, believe it or not, black and Latina women are still women. | |
| God, I can't believe I'm defending white feminism. | |
| And police brutality should be viewed as a feminist issue. | |
| Um, what, in the same way that, like, animal rights are a feminist issue. | |
| But it doesn't affect white women the way it affects women of color. | |
| If Sandra Bland had been a white woman, would a simple traffic stop have resulted in an arrest? | |
| Categorically, yes. | |
| Here is the footage from Sandra Bland's arrest. | |
| Get out of the car now, or I'm gonna remove you. | |
| And I'm calling my mother. | |
| I'm gonna yank you out of here. | |
| Okay, you're gonna yank me out of my car? | |
| Okay, all right. | |
| 25, let's do this. | |
| Yeah, we're going to. | |
| Don't touch me. | |
| Get out of the car. | |
| Don't touch me. | |
| I'm not under arrest. | |
| You don't have the right to say. | |
| You are under arrest. | |
| And compare that to the footage of a white woman being arrested during a traffic stop. | |
| Alright, well, you're not free to leave. | |
| You're gonna take the bag off. | |
| No, no, I'm not. | |
| Take the bag off. | |
| No, I'm not! | |
| This is fuck! | |
| You're raping me! | |
| This is race! | |
| This is rape! | |
| This is right! | |
| Okay! | |
| Relax your arms! | |
| It's relaxed! | |
| Stop fighting me! | |
| It's relaxed! | |
| Stop fighting with me! | |
| These women weren't being treated in this way because they were female, because they were black, or because they were white. | |
| They were being treated this way because they were challenging the cops' authority. | |
| And if you hadn't noticed, female privilege isn't working here. | |
| They're being treated like a man. | |
| White feminism ignores the role that whiteness plays in creating things like beauty standards. | |
| For example, this is okay, but this isn't. | |
| According to who? | |
| By what standard? | |
| You know that the content warning on the album cover isn't actually to do with the cover and to do with the content within it. | |
| White women are most often the faces of feminism. | |
| Tina Faye, Tara Swift, Amy Schumer have been able to break into industries that have been dominated by cis white men. | |
| But black women, women of color, we face barriers that white women don't. | |
| Only if you're saying the entire industry that you're trying to get into is racist. | |
| Being a white feminist doesn't make you a bad person. | |
| It just means you have a lot to learn. | |
| Yeah, I mean, racism isn't something people are born with. | |
| It does have to be learned. | |
| The most important thing any white feminist can do is educate herself and listen and engage with the experiences of women of color without silencing them. | |