Rude News 008
white feminism - on piggybacking and seemingly minoritising
In my recent Rude News, I questioned, wether or not I can have sympathy for “overwhelmed men", who do not do the work to stay up to date, and unlearn patriarchal norms in todays society. Which, to put it roughly into perspective: No, I cannot seem to find any empathy for that. Yes I can understand the confusion of giving up privileges, seemingly natural rights, that weren’t questioned. But lets be very clear about that: As Esposito says in “Community, Immunity, Biopolitics”: Immunity is the opposite to Society. Privilege is not societal. And men are not “giving up” rights, we are levelling the grounds. It is called: equality.
But when I sent my script to one of my professors, she immediately flagged one paragraph from it:
„With the collective sharing of women experiencing sexual harassment, sexism and also assault by men, we seem to have grown a collective consciousness targeted towards what firstly seemed to be split into inside and outside problems. Afghan women not being able to speak freely, seemed to be separate from police officer Wayne Couzens raping and killing Sarah Everard in England. Women in the US being deprived of their bodily autonomy under a partriarchal and right-wing ruled government seemed to be not connected to me not being taken seriously when talking about my sexual and mental abuse.“
Since then, I’ve been asking myself, whether or not my views from a white, western and also very privileged position, gave my the right to compare, and muddle together. Yes I was talking about women rights. Yes I was discussing, or trying to, the overwhelming rise of violence against women in the last 10 Years or more. My angle was, to ask, whether mens slow deprivation of immunity, of male privilege might be the reason for their growing hatred and aggression towards women. Like the Kid in Kindergarden saying: if I can’t sleep, no one else should. And proceeding to wake everyone else up from their nap.
But what I ended up doing, was using very different scenarios, that are happening in this moment, in comparison to western scenarios where men were also mistreating and killing women voices, and women altogether.
Using, is the word in question.
Did I, in my white and pov, put together two scenes, women in Afghanistan, and women in Eurocentric Spheres, and USE them to carry the same argument?
White Feminism is a term addressing the racial bias of white feminist people, focussing on feminist issues from a white perspective, and leaving out the fact that there are other distinctions within the feminist movement, such as other forms of oppression on ethnic minorities, women of colour and people of colour.
So while I am speaking of privilege, when talking about equality, I seem to piggyback on Afghan Women fighting for fundamental human rights.
Yes being harassed by your coworker is not alright. But the fact that you are able to work, that I am able to write, and publish my opinion already puts me in a different position to others. To use western standards and put them on other nations, cultures and societies, as if our standards are the only ones to measure by, is very naive and Eurocentric.
Still, yes I might argue, that I am speaking about women experiences and women experiencing discriminatory behaviour together. But that leaves out the fact, that not all of the women I am addressing are taking part in this conversation. The people speaking about this, exchanging opinions and thoughts, are not only the ones able to speak about it, but also the ones being listened to.
While patriarchal structures exist worldwide, they manifest themselves differently: in Afghanistan, women struggle for the right to education and freedom of expression, while in Western contexts women are confronted with structural sexism, sexualised violence or restrictions on their reproductive rights. These problems cannot be equated, but they share a common root: patriarchal systems that oppress women and enable violence.
“The struggles of the white, heterosexual, elite, western woman have gained currency as the only history of feminism setting itself up as a role model for the rest of the world.” - Ruhi Khan, ESRC Researcher
I wonder if my attempt to consider global and Western women's rights issues in a common argument runs the risk of falling into the trap of “white feminism”. My intention is not to impose my viewpoint as if it were universally applicable or to use the struggles of women in non-Western settings as a vehicle to showcase my own experiences or those of Western women.
However, by comparing the two positions, I may have unintentionally presented them as equivalent, failing to adequately address the different contexts, stakes, and lived realities these struggles entail. Sure it’s interesting and necessary to talk about a maybe growing aggression towards women, but simply looking at the last 10 years, and ignoring the last 200, or at least not putting them into context is not the way to go. When looking at the “global south” one must also put into context it’s history and our constant exploitation of it for our own benefit. Immunity is not societal.
The growing aggression of many men - visible in an increase in gender-specific violence - could be linked to the loss of patriarchal privileges. This “fighting back” is not a universal phenomenon, but is context-dependent: In Western countries, it often manifests itself as misogyny and violence against women who demand their rights; in other parts of the world, it is closely intertwined with religious, political and cultural structures that fundamentally oppress women.
Unlearning isn’t just “the mens job”.
While this was me sharing an opinion, which reading back, lacks distinctiveness and seems clumsy, I’d like to share a few quotes by Shahd Alkaabi, written for the egalitarian ltd:
“However, Western feminist approached the ‘third world’ with superiority, dominance, and power. They looked at women in developing communities as powerless collectives who were stuck in a time machine. To Western feminists, these were women who lacked modernity as a result of following backwards values brought about through religion and traditions. The Women’s International Alliance, measured women’s participation in the public sphere and concluded that Western societies are more progressive and civilised than other societies in all aspects. These consistent comparisons between women in the West and the Global South, keep reproducing a Western feminist hegemony which views Western ideals of feminism as the only ideals of feminism. Evidently, feminism across the globe is heavily influenced by cultural imperialism which looks at the third world from a hierarchical lens, and places the West as the ‘teacher’ and the rest of the world the ‘student.’ Thus, feminism has a Western history and origin and continuously preferences Western values over that of other civilisations. Therefore, it does not qualify as a universal project.”
“Western feminism becomes extremely dangerous when it enters the political realm. This can be seen in different polices in Europe and North America that imply cultural imperialism and a sense of superiority between the West and the Global South. The most popular example is the United States War in Afghanistan. The 2001 War in Afghanistan was justified by the need to ‘save’ Afghani women from Taliban. This argument was used to convince the world and the Democrats of the legitimacy of this intervention. The manipulation of feminism by the US government to mask the real reasons for entering Afghanistan threatens the legitimacy of feminism, turning it from a legitimate political movement into a tool to serve agendas. Moreover, the War in Afghanistan made the situation worse than ever for Afghani women.”
You can find her whole article here.