1. White Men Saving Brown Women from Brown Men?
Saadia Toor, in her piece entitled "How Not to Talk about Muslim Women," discusses the contradictory notions of feminism in American and Muslim countries. White feminism in western countries, namely the United States, view feminism as an ethnocentric construct that consists of white women pushing aside the patriarchy and gaining independence from men by avoiding strict gender roles of being housewives and instead getting jobs and becoming wage-earners. Feminism is often expressed in freedom of dress in which women dress scandalously in order to battle slut-shaming and take ownership of one's own body and feminism is occasionally stereotypically shown through the blatant refusal to shave body hair and wear cosmetics to protest body alteration to suit men's ideals. While this may represent feminism in western cultures, it is not universal in all countries; though, white feminists may like to think so. The United States government used this ignorant idea of feminisms as being a universal idea to justify entering into a war with Afghanistan, as stated in Toor's article, "White men—and women—were exhorted to save brown women from brown men. this was an ideological move designed to secure the consent of the American public for an unprecedented act of international aggression." The American government claimed that Afghan women were oppressed by Muslim culture because they were forced by their male-dominated society to wear burqas and head scarfs to keep women as a group down and that it was America's duty as protector of the free world to fight against this and "free" these women from their oppression. This American battle against female oppression through the justification of war is described by Nadine Naber's article where she states that "the US war on terror as a radicalized, gendered, and sexualized imperialist war that operates through military and economic policy in order to advance and consolidate the system of capitalism" which is further supported by Toor's article where it showed that the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, a group supported and used as the face of the fight for feminism in Afghanistan by the US government to help justify warfare, was "no longer useful for the United States' political agenda" because "its bulletins make it clear that life for Afghan women not only did not improve under the new US-approved administration, but actually worsened." This act of white feminism was not aimed to actually promote feminism in Afghanistan and make life for the supposedly oppressed Afghan women better, it was just used as an excuse to enter another nation and wage war and in turn worsened the lived of these already oppressed women.
2. The Master's Tools will Never Dismantle the Master's House
Audre Lorde is a voice for women of color in the world of feminism. In many of her pieces she discusses the unfair treatment of women of color in the western world due to the strong focus on white women. In her groundbreaking piece entitled "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House," she opened the eyes of women in America to the inequality within feminism, becoming a staple name in the world of feminist intrigue. Lorde pointed out the ridiculousness of the claim of white feminists that feminism is a all-encompassing term and that their white feminism treated everyone as equals by contradicting it with the oppressive actions of those same white feminists when she pointed out "If white American feminist theory need not deal with the differences between us, and the resulting difference in our oppressions, then how do you deal with the fact that the women who clean your house and tend your children while you attend conferences on feminist theory are, for the most part, poor women and women of color? What is the theory behind racist feminism?" This claim was shocking to the American public but it held true, this white feminist upheaval in the United States focused on not an all-encompassing feminism, but instead on a racist and bigoted feminism that ignored the oppression of women of color. Despite this instrumental piece of feminist literature being written in 1984, the criticisms of white feminism within it still occur to this day. Women of color are subjected to the white ideals, making it seem like they are not real women unless they meet the physical requirements of white women as stated in Jarune Urujarens article "WOC are also pressured to meet Western standards of beauty, which overwhelmingly favor stereotypically 'white' (or Eurocentric) features: straight hair, light skin, and light eyes. From the time of birth, the eye shape, hair texture, and skin color of WOC are under scrutiny…all based on the erroneous belief that being acceptable or attractive to men—especially white men—is a source of power and social mobility" This exemplifies the idea that women of color will never be held to the same standard as white women, further disabling the idea of feminism being inclusive of all women. White feminism is shown as just another form of racism in western countries.
3. Do Muslim Women Need Saving?
As shown in the first point, western, ethnocentric idealists often view Muslim women as being oppressed and weak and in need of saving by the powerful, heroic, liberal United States. In Lila Abu-Lughod's article she examined cultural relativism in relation to Western intervention in Muslim states. She discovered that western idealist feminism is more and more often uneducated and oppressive against other cultures and religions. In her example of one such person proposing that "Christian leaders now wasting pervious time and resources on a futile exercise of interfaith dialogue with the self-appointed leaders of Islam should redirect their efforts to converting as many Muslims as possible to Christianity" and idea, Abu-Lughod noted, would be introducing these Muslim people "to a god who rejects Holy War, presumably, the God of Crusades" making apparent the uneducated responses these ethnocentric white feminist advocates have and the damage they would cause if actually implemented. Americans and other western cultures tend to have the notion that all Muslim women are repressed and oppressed by their society and that they are desperate for the white, western world to save them from their supposedly lowly position in the world. This western view of Muslim women as being weak and helpless persists through society and in itself is a form of oppression and not far from feminism because it blatantly ignored the successes and triumphs of Muslim women by labeling them as "weak." This issue is described by Chitra Nagarajan in her article where she states "there is a long and problematic history of colonial feminism and the 'good intentions' of outsiders using racialised notions to 'save women over there.' This actively causes harm, including when communities react to this by holding on to static notions of 'culture' and 'tradition' in the face of outside challenge as a way to resist colonialism and racism." This claim makes it clear how the racist views of Muslim culture by western society blatantly opposes the central idea of feminism: creating equality for women in the world; instead this bigotry makes it so that Muslim women will never be equal in the eyes of white feminists.
4. The Feminine Mystique
Betty Friedan is another advocate for equality within feminism and has written many scholarly articles that to argue the inequality present within white feminism and the struggles women face due to imperial feminism. In her instrumental piece entitled "The Feminine Mystique," Friedan examines the general inequality within white feminism, not just the inequality between white feminists and women of color. She notes that there is a strong separation between women within the white feminism realm that exceeds stratification based on skin color or nationality. She points out how feminists often keep each other down, saying that "Perhaps women who have made it as 'exceptional' women don't really identify with other women. For them, there are three classes of people: men, other women, and themselves; their very status as exceptional women depends on keeping other women quiet, and not rocking the boat" which exemplifies how women often are the perpetrators of their own oppression by making feminism and success into a competition even amongst themselves, further suppressing women by making it impossible to progress as a whole. This suppression of women through competition exceeds into other issues with white feminism and can make it even more difficult for women of color to move up in a world of white feminism because the competition creates even more focus on the white members and further ignoring the women of color. This can be shown in women of color being ignored from crucial studies and treatments because of being ignored and certain disorders, like eating disorders, being viewed as a "white woman's illness," making it difficult for women of color to achieve equality even in healthcare. According to the National Eating Disorders Association, "exact statistics on the prevalence of eating disorders amend women of color are unavailable. Due to our historically biased view that eating disorders only affect white women, relatively little research has been conducted utilizing participants from racial and ethnic minority groups. In spite of these factors, reports of eating disorders among women of color are on the rise." This information provides a statistical example of how women of color are kept from receiving equal benefits as a result of being ignored by white privilege within the construct of white feminism, thus resulting in the opposite of feminism.
5. Women of Color are Strong and Oppressed
Despite living in a modern society within a modern world, old-fashioned stereotypes on certain parts of the world still persist. To the United States, the African continent seems a rugged and dangerous place plagued with warfare and uneducated, uncivilized peoples. This obviously racialised view on an entire continent of people dominant amongst American society. This view makes it easy for countries that believe it to justify interfering within in affairs in Africa and passing judgement on cultural practices that have existed there for centuries for the reason that they do not necessarily fit within a generalized American culture. Traditional African rites of passage and rites of intensification are often up for scrutiny by western peoples because they may seem "bizarre" or extreme to them though they may possess meaningful power and symbolism for the cultures that practice them. A rite of passage traditionally practiced in much of Africa that is targeted by western societies as a human rights violation is ceremonial genital mutilation. While this practice can be incredibly harmful and is, in fact, arguably a human rights violation, this one example of ritual is used as the face of African "savageness" and is often used to justify interfering within African societies and also perpetuates the racist views on Africans as a whole as shown through the description by Fiona Green in her article titled "Clitoridectomies to Designer Vaginas" where she claimed that there are "three erroneous and dangerous representations of Africa and African women are evident: reducing all of Africa to one uncivilized place; reducing African women to the status of their genitals, presumed to be infibulated, and Africans to be sadistic torturers of victims; and reducing all [female genital mutilation] to its worst form, infatuation." While women within Africa are viewed as being victimized by their society and are weak and helpless and in need of "saving," women of color are viewed quite the opposite in western cultures. It seems as long as women of color exist within a western society, they are "strong" and immune from the oppression they would face in Africa. This dichotomy causes women to be viewed as oppressed within Africa and to be oppressed in western society because they are supposedly strong in comparison to white women as described in Bell Hooks' article entitled "Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center" which states that "Racist stereotypes of the strong, superhuman black woman are operative myths of many white women, allowing them to ignore the extent to which black women are likely to be victimized in this society, and the role white women play in the maintenance and perpetuation of that victimization…By projecting onto black women a mythical power and strength, white women both promote a false image of themselves as powerless, passive victims and deflect attention away from their…power." As a result of white feminism, women of color have little chance of gaining equality because their are oppressed when it suits white, western feminists and are strong and powerful when it benefits white, western feminists.
6. White Gazes, Brown Breasts
White feminism is not a new, modern creation. White feminism is often labeled as imperial feminism, relating it to the oppressive and destructive forces of western imperialism during the colonial era in world history when the western world dominated the rest of the world, overtaking and performing ethnocide and eliminating differing cultures. Western white cultures have historically viewed indigenous societies as being lesser and savage, employing tactics to modernize and bring those nations up to par with their own "modern" world. This occurred historically when the tropic environments were colonized by western cultures, and the ethnocentric, judgmental views of that society were recorded by the perpetrators as evidence of the attempt to "save" the indigenous people from their own immoral tendencies so that they would fit the world of Christian Ideals. White feminism existed even in this age, described by Roland Sintos Coloma in his article "White Gazes, Brown Breasts: Imperial feminism and Disciplining Desires and Bodies in Colonial Encounters" where he describes feminists of this age as being "white women as imperial feminists asserted their principled crusade and superiority over white men and brown women by becoming bearers of racialised heteronormative traditions and feminine respectability and beaching barriers to inter-racial sexual relations." Essentially, imperial feminism resulted from white western women being afraid of white western men having sexual relations with indigenous women, so they claimed that feminism was needed to "help" the indigenous women abandon their immoral behaviors so as to control their actions and keep them from "corrupting" the white men. As a result of this historical mistreatment of indigenous women and the harsh forced stripping of their culture, those women are often considered to have been free of oppression before colonization which causes problems to this day. The deleterious effects of white feminism of the past still spurs issues in the present in that it is difficult for feminism to reside in indigenous cultures that were forcibly colonized as shown in Andrea Smith's article "Indigenous Feminism Without Apology" where she described indigenous cultures as having "the mantra in indigenous communities that Native women aren't feminists. Supposedly, feminism is not needed because Native women were treated with respect prior to colonization. Thus, any Native woman who calls herself a feminist is often condemned as being "white." White feminism, as a result, perpetuated the inequality of indigenous women as feminists and also as indigenous, making them decide between identities without the option to be both.
7. Is White Feminism Actually Feminism?
Is white feminism even feminism? It can be argued that by having the separation of white feminism and black feminism and asian feminism and all other "forms" of feminism that, by definition, none are actually feminism because the splitting into groups encourages inequality amongst women; the precise thing that feminism is supposed to fight against. Nancy Kim makes this exact claim, that western feminism is not feminism at all, "Relativist criticism of feminism as a form of western imperialism is misguided because gender oppression is endemic to the West. Rather, feminism is a multicultural response to the oppression of women. There is nothing inherently "Western" about it. Feminism does not impose Western values upon societies in non-Western countries; rather it opens up options that enable women…to become "cultural participants" rather than cultural victims." Essentially, feminism as a whole is not racialised or stereotyped, it is the general movement for equality for women, all women, regardless of race or nationality. White feminism, thereby, is a fringe feminism, acting under false precepts of "good intentions" that are ultimately harmful and just as deleterious as patriarchal oppression. The author of "This is What I Mean When I say 'White Feminism'" appears to agree with this concept, stating that "'White feminism' does not mean every white woman, everywhere, who happens to identify as feminist. It also doesn't mean that every 'white feminist' identifies as whire. I see 'white feminism' as a specific set of single issue, non-intersectional, superficial feminist practices. It is the feminism we understand as mainstream; the feminism obsessed with body hair, and high heels and makeup, and changing your married name…It is the feminism that doesn't consider race as a factor in the struggle for equality." This brief description of what white feminism is portrays an image that is recognizable by everyone who has come into contact with white feminism. It is what is popular and generalized and publicized on the most. Despite this, white feminism is not true feminism. It oppresses more than it liberates.
8. Maori Women Against White Feminism
A culture that has survived through years of discrimination and violence against it is the Maori people. Through years of forced colonialism and the attempt to strip the Maori of their deep rooted heritage and culture through ethnocide, the Maori have survived and retained as much of their society as they could; though not without a fight. Historically, when New Zealand was colonized the indigenous peoples were considered to be savages and highly primitive compared to the western peoples that colonized there. We've heard this story time and time again, in Asian cultures and American cultures where western invaders declared the indigenous peoples to be corrupt and in need of salvation and conformity to Christianity that results in the forced removal of centuries of culture and tradition. In Maori culture, the indigenous people were subjected to strict rules and regulations by Christian feminists and missionaries as described in Tanya Fitzgerald's article "Jumping the Fences: Maori Women's Resistance to Missionary Schooling in Northern New Zealand" reporting that "The [Christian Missionary Society] and its missionaries believed that Maori, as an indigenous people, were in need of salvation and those religious and cultural changes that missionaries introduced were beneficial to Maori" and that the women especially in this culture were subjected to harsh treatment so as to control their behavior to fit within the heteronormative values held by the Christian missionaries because "Nga Puhi women were considered far more (morally) degraded than men and in need of the civilizing influence and Christian teachings of missionary women." Despite the obvious discrimination these women faced by these white Christians who intended to impose helpful "feminist" ideals, they fought against it and held onto their culture, "Unwilling to conform to missionary expectations, Nga Puhi women actively sought to contest missionary educative activities." Faced with people unwilling to immediately conform to their ideas, the educative initiative to westernize these women was abandoned. The harmful behavior of these white feminists can be easily explained by the ideas and values held by white feminism today, as shown by Donna Awatere in her piece "Maori Sovereignty," where she explained that "The first loyalty of white women is to the White culture and the White Way…This loyalty is seen in their rejection of the sovereignty of Maori people and in their acceptance of the imposition of the British culture on the Maori. This is to be expected as the oppressor avoids confronting the role they play in oppressing other…White feminists do this by defining their "feminism" for this country [New Zealand] and by using their white power, status and privilege to ensure their definition of "feminism" supersedes that of Maori women." This explanation of white feminist actions against the Maori gives a clear reason to why white feminism often is able to oppress other cultures under the guise of feminism; they manipulate the intentions of feminism so that they are more "right" and superior than whatever culture they are interacting with.
9. White Feminism and Foreigners
White feminists are often declared ignorant and uneducated on other cultures that they so quickly and willingly pass judgment on. White women feminists are therefore seen as the young, inexperienced, quick-to speak group of feminists that usually cause more trouble than good. This is not far off. White feminists often forget their privilege and as a result act in ways that are ignorant to the individual struggles and difficulties that people of other ethnicities and backgrounds experience that white women do not. As Chilla Bulbeck said in her piece "(White) Feminism and Foreigners," "Throughout history, women have been largely 'disloyal to civilization' and seen ourselves as 'sisters' of African-American women, and women of former colonies such as India, and of Indigenous women in white settler nations…We white feminists were quickly told, and more slowly learned, that hierarchies of oppression connect women uncomfortably together…White middle-class women are incorporated into national stories at the expense of Indigenous, black, Asian-background, and working-class women," white feminists do not take the time to realize the difference between classes, races, and ethnicities and instead are quick to just assume every group of women is identical to white women and that all women require, desire, and experience the same things that white women do. Because of this ignorance, non-white women are, again, ignored and not properly considered in the discussion on feminism because white feminism has so much dominance and control over the situation due to sheer numbers and publicizing. Focusing on white women as victims of oppression takes away from the struggles that all other women experience. As Bell Hooks said in her writing titled "Feminism is for Everyone," "Biased feminist scholarship which attempts to show that white girls are somehow more vulnerable to sexist conditioning than girls of color simply perpetuates the white supremacist assumption that white females require and deserve more attention to their concerns and ills than other groups;" thus in this western society, as a result of white feminism, non-white women are not considered or given as much attention as victims of oppression because white feminism says that the primary victim is white women. Because of this, white feminism ultimately results in furthering the oppression that non-white women already face by not allowing them a voice in the argument for liberation.
10. Imperialist Feminism Redux
As stated in the first entry, American culture has used feminism as the backbone of its argument for continuation of warfare in the Middle East and initially used it to justify the original occupation of Afghanistan. The United States alteration of what feminism is and using, essentially, white feminism as a weapon against its Islamic combatants is a cruel use of feminism that gives it a bad name and reputation. In theory, the United States government was supposed to help women, thats what they claimed; and so, with good intentions in mind American society sided with the government to support interference in the Middle East to "save" these oppressed women in danger of the Islamic regime under which they lived. As Saadia Toor states in her article "Imperialist Feminism Redux," the United States is insistent in that "Ever since 9/11, there has been a constant effort to build a broad consensus around the need for a sustained US military presence in Afghanistan…All through this period, there was one claim which proved instrumental in securing the consent of the liberals (and, to some extent, the left)—the need to rescue Afghan women from the Taliban." On the surface, it would appear that the American people wholeheartedly wished to help liberate these oppressed Muslim women and allow them to experience the benefits of a liberal American society free of the harsh regulations of a restrictive religious society. However, once these feminist ideals were implemented in this society, women actually suffered instead of thrived. This is due to the ethnocentric view of the world white feminism encourages. White feminists have a single, strict idea of what feminism is and they do not adjust it to fit the cultural ideals, practices, and beliefs of other societies. This constrained idea of feminism is depicted in Sharon Smith's article where she points out a flaw in white feminist Friedan's own description of feminism saying "Friedan praises those stay-at-home moms who had shown the courage to break from their traditional roles to seek well-paying career, writing sympathetically that these women 'had problems of course, tough ones—juggling pregnancies, finding nurses and housekeepers'… Yet she doesn't deem it worthy to comment on the lives of the nursemaids and the housekeepers these career women hire, who also work all day but then return home to face housework and child care responsibilities of their own." This contesting of Friedan's work shows how flawed the basis of white feminism is; it originated on the idea of the important of breaking away from the strict gender roles that were placed on women by the patriarchal society that they resided in, but in doing so they created even stricter gender and racial roles for non-white women who were then forced to take the responsibilities that these newly liberated white feminists gave up, on top of still having their own responsibilities. White feminism in this sense, originated on the idea of cultural ignorance and in that way it has persisted until this day and is now affecting other cultures and nations that white feminism feels the need to delve into the "change" and "liberate."
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