6 responses to “Racial Equity Anti Hero: Gloria Steinem”

1. 

   Emily Holzknecht

   February 9, 2021

   I am trying to work out what you mean when you say “how Black men gained the franchise in 1870”. I realize that 1870 was the 15th amendment, but the phrase “gained the franchise” is tripping me up.

2. 

   Emily Holzknecht

   February 9, 2021

   I can remember specifically making a comment to a white man sometime between 2013 and 2015 expressing my frustration that Black men are given rights before women in relation to first president and right to vote, so basically exactly what Gloria Steinem said in this article although I hadn’t read her words. I definitely jumped onto the white feminism train with great enthusiasm. It felt so natural to position myself as the victim of victims, to enter myself and by concerned primarily with my own rights. It felt natural because I am socialized into white supremacy culture and that is the place white supremacy culture has for me to help hold up the system.

   Learning about the history of transgender people has led me to develop a much more nuanced understanding of gender and how the European construction of and policing of gender has been used to legitimize racism against Black and brown people of all genders. I can see much better how very racist my white feminism was and how I benefit greatly from gender-based racism and from racism in general. Now my role must be recognizing white feminism in other white people and walking with them about the harm that white feminism causes.

3. 

   Christina Sonas

   February 9, 2021

   I am really enjoying this series and need to remember to share it to my own feed. Many white women have no intersectionality, just the one line of oppression, and it gives us terrible tunnel vision. As a collective we have been content for centuries to be located above people of color, in exchange for still being subordinate to white men. And then, in 2008, we did a lot of shocked pearl-clutching that neither white men nor people of color wanted to vote for “us” in the guise of Hillary Clinton. I remember the drama from all the second wave white feminists I knew; there was fierce factionalism between their “must vote for the (white) woman” demands and third wave white feminists like myself who believed in the necessity of the *right* woman, not just any woman “for feminism’s sake”. Steinem’s words are so damning, and the NYTimes for printing them: the white supremacy in claiming that Black men had the vote sooner, despite not being able to use it safely until 45 years after women were enfranchised. I’ve no idea exactly how Black men gained the franchise in 1870, but I’m confident it had nothing to do with giving Black men the vote and instead was wholly about white politics.

4. 

   Rebecca McClinton

   February 7, 2021

   I can certainly find myself in having pitted sexism against racism, and have learned here how the people that injures the most are women of color. Offending from the victim position in the relational ethics we learn here at Lace on Race is such a big part of that and I’m still working to root out elements of that in myself, particularly how it comes out in self flagellation, withdrawal, fear of doing harm to avoid the pain of disappointing, and the myth of white benevolence.
   (cross posted to facebook)

5. 

   Miela Gruber

   February 7, 2021

   This brings up a few thoughts for me-the first is that at this point the division of sexism and racism seems so strained that the article almost feels like it doesn’t make sense, because you can’t really write this article unless you set aside the Fact of Women of Color and pretend they don’t exist. The Obama Clinton split was the perfect example-black men Or white women seems to be who this article is about tacitly and Black and brown women (as well as queer people, non-binary or trans people) are invisible. The article does say says that the oppression of women and of BIPOC are intimately tied, but it is Not able to name any of the nuances of the ties, which is really like an interwoven net. Sexism contributes directly to racism, and racism undergirds sexism. They are not separable. White womanhood is designed such as it is to support racism and white supremacy. And the way white men oppress women, is exactly the same way white women oppress BIPOC. It is the same playbook. I was just listening to a researcher on a podcast about coercive control and she said that people across cultures will use the same methods and patterns to control other people, at the individual, group, and governmental level. Which is what makes the patterns so repetitive, predictable and almost boring in a way. The voice of White supremacy has a slippery creepy feeling in my head-I am learning to feel it-and how it resists recognition. This is one of them. I remember this being one of the ones that came up for me in the past-“but women including white women really are getting the crap beat out of them and raped and killed too. Also-Black men seem to get power first, vote first, etc” I literally had those thoughts that are in this article-and having them, I can feel the creepy shadiness. It used to feel like confusion (also sometimes a sign of resistance) and now it feels more like the kind of shady white supremacy that lets you be a little more comfy-and that’s a warning sign that WS addictive justification is creeping up on you. What did come out of reckoning with that is that it really does help to understand the power dynamic to understand that white women treat BIPOc especially women of color the way men treat them, which Lace has said, and it took a while but it sunk in. And it helps provide a lens of understanding. A recent example-I had a conversation recently where someone said to me-I watched a documentary recently and what I liked about it was it wasn’t all angry at white people it was very matter of fact. It showed the injustice but it just showed the details of what happened. Because it’s getting very angry out there”. And I was able to say-I don’t think it’s “getting angry out there”. I think it’s more like BIPOC say-this hurts, and white people say-you’re attacking me. She looked askance and I said you know how when a man hurts you and you try to tell them, and try and try and try and they just get mad and feel attacked pretty often? And then like a bunch of years later they say-well why didn’t you tell me? It’s like that. White people, including women, treat BIPOC the way White men treat white women. BIPOC people are saying-I am being hurt. I am being harmed by this and killed and you’re not listening. And white people are saying-I’m being attacked. Doesn’t that sound very familiar to you? It kind of helped her see it a different way. This is something that grappling with the stuff in this article gives you-another way to access understanding and empathy and cutting through the White blindness. I agree that I don’t think it is possible for anyone to be liberated without ending racism, because it undergirds the whole system of oppression, and the way that it intersects with sexism magnifies it. The fact that I have had this same argument in my head shows that it is actually one of the predictable patterns-the “we must defend white womanhood first”pattern. It tells a lie-that there is any way to separate them, and that it is possible in any way to end sexism without ending racism by pretending you can pit them against each other instead of acknowledging that racism in the US undergirds sexism and predicts how and in what patterns it will show up whether against white women or BIPOC women. Also, non-binary, gender queer and trans folks are so left out when you go to this particular kind of pitting sexism against racism they aren’t even allowed in the house to stand in the background and roll their eyes, and I had a hard time even discussing it without doing that too-which to me is another sign that it is more pattern then truth.

6. 

   Michelle Wicks Cypher

   February 7, 2021

   I am trying to figure out exactly whee to start my comments. I admit, I am hung up on two things. One, at first read, I find myself agreeing with a lot of what Gloria wrote in 2008. I know that means I need to go back and reread it from my new way of looking at things and my new perspective of how whyt supremacy works. Like what Christina Pisani Sonas said in her comment on FB, that she had to tell her white feminist self to sit down and listen. Second, I am hung up on Gloria’s description of Hillary as the “daughter of a white American mother and a black African father”. I have never heard of this, so started looking as I learned that there are many things I have not heard of until I look for it. The information I am finding on her father says nothing about him or either of his parents being black or from Africa or any other country that would imply being a POC. Am I missing something or was this a blatant lie that was not called out? I have looked in several places to see that statement talked about, but no luck (I am also terrible at online searches, it takes me forever to find things – I do not seem to intuitively know which words to use). It totally feels like a way to align her with Black voters. It really bothers me that that comment is in there and I cannot find anything calling it out or supporting it. I can 100% agree with Ms. Washington on the idea that gender as the most restrictive force in America is ludicrous. I think it is a restrictive force, but certainly not the most. Race is WAAAY ahead of gender, as is poverty. One of the articles that came up in my searching actually states disagreement about gender being the most restrictive because they said poverty was the most restrictive and then race second, largely because there are more Blacks in poverty than there are whte women in poverty. Misogyny is absolutely real, but trying to use it to push aside racism and white supremacy is wrong and doe snot help any of us move forward. Until the least of us is treated equitably, no one is treated equitably. When the least of us is brought up, all of us are brought up. Given that both misogyny and racism is real, as is class systems, that makes poor, Black women the ones we need to be elevating and treating equitably and then all poor people will benefit and then all women will benefit and then all Blacks will benefit and then all people will benefit. Instead, we (ww especially) try to use Black women and then throw them to the side and under the bus when it suits them. Personally, I need to go back and reread again Gloria’s article and see just what I agree with (as obviously, there are many things I didn’t even after my initial statement that I did) and WHY it seems reasonable to me and where I can root out more of those whte supremacist view points so that I am not harming the Black and brown people around me, in this space and IRL