Comments on: Is racism a feminist issue?

By: judgesnineteen

judgesnineteen — Tue, 13 May 2008 10:09:07 +0000

Um…actually I said that racism isn’t a feminist issue (with a lot of qualifying statements like, racism is a human rights issue and feminists should care about all human rights, not-being-racist-ourselves is a feminist issue, and I’m ok with covering non-feminist issues on feminist blogs). If you’d like to argue why racism should be a feminist issue, you’re welcome to.

By: Tiffany

Tiffany — Mon, 12 May 2008 23:59:43 +0000

Great write up, yes racism should be a feminist issue..kudos

By: judgesnineteen

judgesnineteen — Mon, 12 May 2008 17:15:43 +0000

Thanks, octogalore!

By: octogalore

octogalore — Mon, 12 May 2008 14:12:42 +0000

Judgesnineteen — commendations on this post. Nice clear logical analysis of what makes a feminist issue.

And you’re right - I think part of the frustration with feminist blogs posting about issues that are not feminist issues is the lack of transparency about same. I do feel that feminist blogs should be centered on feminist issues, but I don’t think we need to be draconian about it and would be less bothered by the inclusion of important issues on other topics, if occasional, if they were labeled as such. Trying to contort various issues, certainly of critical interest, into being “about feminism” does nobody any favors.

By: judgesnineteen

judgesnineteen — Mon, 12 May 2008 10:12:21 +0000

So I think you’re saying that if white women get more power, which is what feminism causes, then racism will increase because there will be more powerful white people? And so you think that feminism shouldn’t be for all women, but just for women of color to avoid increasing racism? If there’s hope of decreasing sexism, why isn’t there hope of decreasing racism (in and out of the feminist movement)? I’m not saying we should just work for feminism and leave racism alone. Besides, if I’m understanding your argument correctly, it would mean that people with more than one type of oppression affecting them shouldn’t fight for anyone except people exactly like them - if women of color fight for anti-racism, sexism will ensure it helps men more than women, and there will be more strong men to be sexist against them. If queer disabled people fight for queer rights, ableism will ensure it helps the able-bodied more, and there will be more strong able-bodied people to be ableist. Rather than tell people to only fight for groups that have their same characteristics, I tell people to fight for everyone’s rights. The problem is figuring out how to make that really happen and not just be something we say, but I think looking for solutions is better than throwing up our arms and saying we white women can never have a decent feminist movement.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 12 May 2008 04:15:15 +0000

Feminism supports racism indirectly because feminism issues are taken by women of color alongwith white women. The racist political structure ensures that the final beneficiary is the white woman. This inturn increases racism. So, in a way, feminist women of color are fighting against themselves when they fight for feminism. To really fight for feminism, they should fight for liberation of women of color and not all women, because that is the biggest blunder that a (colored) feminist could ever do.

By: judgesnineteen

judgesnineteen — Sun, 11 May 2008 16:33:28 +0000

I think you’re totally right about us not giving kids enough credit sometimes. That’s really great for Ontario.

By: Lyndsay

Lyndsay — Sun, 11 May 2008 14:08:19 +0000

I don’t know how the classes would work. Ontario’s minister of education emailed me that, “As part of the review process, I have asked the ministry to proceed with the creation of a suite of draft courses relating to Gender Studies, Equity Studies, and World Cultures for inclusion in the revised Social Sciences and Humanities curriculum policy document due for release in spring 2010. I expect that a new gender studies course will be piloted in Ontario schools in the second semester of the 2008/09 school year as part of that review.”

And this is from 2003 but it’s an interesting encouraging story about teaching children about stereotypes. The children end of getting mad at Pottery Barn for making a catalogue that shows boys doing certain things and the girls doing certain things and they mail letters to Pottery Barn and the president writes back saying she will consider their comments for the next catalogue. I think we don’t give kids enough credit sometimes but the older you get the more ingrained stereoypes must become. So I hope my government would work towards teaching about some issues to all at an earlier age but gender studies in high school is a start.
http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/18_02/pink182.shtml

By: judgesnineteen

judgesnineteen — Sun, 11 May 2008 12:35:39 +0000

Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. I just wrote this because, although it’s not the most important thing in the world to draw lines between what’s feminism and what’s some other kind of activism, I think this question of “is racism a feminist issue” is going to be a big one as we all figure out how to move on from these racist problems in feminism, because it seems to be the way some people are trying to fix feminism. And while I want to be on the side that’s doing the fixing, I’m just not willing to pretend that makes sense to me if it doesn’t.

I’ve never heard of an equity studies program. That’s really cool. Because of intersections, I do think it’s good to look at more than one issue at once. I wonder how those classes would work.

By: Lyndsay

Lyndsay — Sun, 11 May 2008 11:29:06 +0000

I think you make a lot of sense. Racism shouldn’t be ignored by feminists because 1) it would be hypocritical to be feminist but racist which means really, that we only care and about white women and 2)we need to look at how WoC are affected differently by sexism because they are not white BUT we can’t just say that racism is a feminist issue so that we can cover a story on our blog. Yes? Sounds like what you’re saying. Just because we call ourselves feminists doesn’t mean we can’t care about all forms of oppression. But that’s separate from our feminism or else feminism starts to become a synonym for “human rights activism”. Is this what you’re saying? I guess the two ways to see it as you said are who it affects or the cause. I like your example of taking away all the sexism and if that could happen, the police still wouldn’t have tried to look for Romona Moore. Because they are being accused of being racist, not sexist. Hmmm.
Ontario is creating a gender studies course for high schools and maybe an equity studies course. I fully support the gender studies course but if equity studies is learning about oppression including sexism, racism, classism etc then that sounds like it could be even better and something that is really lacking from schools.