Article by Kyrie Robertson, TPT Staff Writer

In the last few decades, the white feminist narrative has consumed media. It continuously seeps through the cracks of western society, creating illusions of change, of equality. She lurks in pop culture articles and listicles, business pages, and question forums; to escape the internet age without encountering the white feminist is an impossible feat. The reality is, however, that you’ve likely heard of her, and you may even think you know her. But the truth is: you don’t.

Feminism was not born white. It was birthed by the individual sufferings of women and their recognition of the unjust treatment of all women - a shared pain, an unspoken intimacy. The feminist movement, however, harbors a different origin. Such can be traced back to the mid-nineteenth century, sparked by the Seneca Falls Convention. This 1848 assembly corralled men and women into a New York chapel to organize the goals and ideologies of the feminist movement: which mostly concerned divorce, property, and ballot law reform. The participants shared one distinct commonality: their whiteness. No black or brown women were invited to this convention, setting an unadmirable precedent and limiting the scope of the movement. In fact, some of its notable participants, such as Elizabeth Stanton, were opposed to the black ballot because they did not think black people should be able to vote before white women. That idea of white supremacy concerning suffrage (and otherwise) in the feminist movement did not waver but persisted into the 20th and 21st centuries.

A notable example of this is Alice Paul’s 1913 suffragette march, during which Paul released a statement explicitly asking black women not to come – making it clear that this was a white movement. When black women did join the protest, they were forced to march in the back. The feminist movement was very successful in gaining the right to vote for white women in 1920, but it was in active opposition to suffrage for women of color – which would not be achieved until 1965 with the passage of the Voting Rights Act (or 1975, for American women whose first language was not English).

With white suffrage secured, feminists within the movement set their sights on something new: capitalistic equality; personal advancement rooted in the exploitation or exclusion of women of color. This would evolve over a century until, finally, the development of the “girlboss” began: the Buzzfeed feminist, the MLM distributor, the new age daughters of NOW. This is where lines become blurred. The confusion starts with the false synonymity of white feminism and performativity. Performative feminism encompasses the unassuming; the girl who thinks she is doing what is right. It encompasses the red cloak phenomenon, the Instagram story activists. White feminism, however, is knowing and exists for the calculated furthering of the white supremacist agenda. White businesswomen use marketing strategies showcasing their successes through the lens of womanhood; how they overcame their greatest adversary: their gender. Black and brown women cannot afford to think only of their gender, and instead must recognize that they are “of color” before they are women. White feminists take advantage of this reality and their only consideration of race is how it can benefit them: “will putting down this woman help me advance amongst my white male coworkers?”

While white feminism is seemingly the dominant entity in the call for “equality”, it does not have to remain this way. It is first necessary that we eliminate competition between white women and women of color in a spacial sense by encouraging solidarity - this responsibility falls fully on white men and women. Start small: make sure everyone is contributing equally (and listening equally) in a conversation, especially to those with lived experience and wisdom. This will lead to a bigger shift: the incorporation of women of color into business and government beyond the scope of identity politics. To jumpstart this change requires the participation of willing challengers to the white feminist agenda and societal bias. This starts with you.

White feminism does not seek to dismantle systems of oppression, but rather to find ways to succeed within them (stretching as far back as colonialism and succeeding into late-stage capitalism). Intersectionality is not lost, but it is becoming increasingly muffled by the media age as white feminists dominate and silence voices in communities of color (i.e., through whitesplaining). The knowing white feminist is a white supremacist in red bottoms, her white-centered ambitions obstructing black and brown progress. She has been decades in the making by a movement that does not accurately represent its audience. The true liberation of women cannot be achieved until the white feminist is put to rest and the feminist movement seeks equality first within itself, uplifting black and brown women and allowing their voices to be heard.

The views articulated in this piece are the writer’s own, and do not reflect the official stances of The Progressive Teen or HSDA at large.

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