Unfree MAL Kickoff: What is White Feminism?

Welcome to Unraveling Privilege, a blog about activism, craftivism, and intersectionality! Today is International Women’s Day, and the cast on day of the Unfree MAL! To celebrate, let’s discuss and define white feminism so we can begin an exploration on how to identify and dismantle it.

“What woman here is so enamored of her own oppression that she cannot see her heelprint upon another woman's face?” - Audre Lorde, Sister, Outsider

What does “white feminism” mean?

The phrase “white feminism” is a shorthand for activism that exclusively looks at the perspective and problems of a very specific subset of women: those who are white, young, heterosexual, cisgender, middle class, professional, able-bodied, and thin [1]. More specifically, though, white feminism is activism done to the exclusion — or even to the detriment — of anybody who falls outside of that subset. White feminism is generally lacking in its understanding of the broader context of a problem and it generally pushes for solutions which fit within the existing, broken system rather than reworking the system to better uplift all people.

A brief example

A poignant example of white feminism, which will be examined in more detail next week, is the women’s suffrage movement. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, a wave of feminism and protests swept through the United States, demanding women be given the vote. Black women were a part of the battle but were notably excluded from public-facing marches and events [2]. The Seneca Falls Convention, the first women’s rights convention in 1848, was comprised almost entirely of upper and middle class white women, with a few white men. The battle for women’s voting rights did not examine poll taxes, literacy tests, or grandfather clauses which prevented black men and women from voting. Most harmfully, however, was that the white suffragettes furthered their bid for voting rights by highlighting their opposition to Black voters and their ability to overwhelm Black voices, with Jeanette Rankin arguing that “there are more white women of voting age in the South today than there are negro men and women together” [3].

A word of warning when you encounter the phrase!

Some bad actors will use the phrase “white feminism” merely to shut down a conversation looking to push against the status quo, regardless of if the conversation is actually harmful. This is an example of a “thought-terminating cliché” [4]. A thought terminating cliché is a succinct phrase that is highly reductive and can be used to dismiss or stop a deeper analysis from occurring. If you encounter the phrase “white feminism,” take a quick moment to mentally step back and examine the surrounding context. Is the person attempting to end the conversation (red flag), or are they using it to open the conversation of the topic to another perspective? Are they using it to dismiss something in its entirety with no follow-up (red flag) or are they using it as a constructive criticism, pointing out specific aspects that are problematic and explaining how and why they are problematic?

References and further reading

1. Beck, K. (2021). White feminism: From the suffragettes to influencers and who they leave behind.
2. Brown, T. L. (2023). Celebrate women’s suffrage, but don’t whitewash the movement’s racism. American Civil Liberties Union.
3. Rankin, J. (1918). Woman Suffrage. Archives of Women’s Political Communication.
4. Lifton, R. J. (1961). Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism.