By Madeline Price (she/they)
Content warning: this piece discusses violence, genocide, white supremacy
Growing up as a child in rural Queensland, I had a vague understanding of what intersectional feminism was (before it became a part of the everyday feminist vernacular - and a slogan on sweatshop-made t-shirts around the world) through a class perspective: I understood how the economic power structures between myself, my peers and others in my community caused tension (particularly women in my community). I saw how finances (or a lack thereof) resulted in increased marginalisation, and how economic privilege (whether through stable and consistent employment, jobs derived from educational privilege, or intergenerational/familial wealth) afforded authority, power and respect.
I remember the feeling of eyes upon me - as if everyone knew, when, of course, they did not - as I wore a pair of hand-me-down navy pants as part of my school uniform (I was always the smallest of my friends, with the shortest legs, so second-hand pants were a common occurrence). And I distinctly remember biting my tongue as my young voice wanted to scream out ‘That was mine!’, whenever I saw another child in clothes my parents had donated to the local second-hand shop when I outgrew them.
Yet, in my community, I grew up with the class and economic privilege that I saw so starkly: I wore second-hand clothes not because of financial need, but because of my parents entrenched beliefs of waste-not, want-not (coming from their own experiences with class, privilege and scarcity growing up), and because my friends all grew too rapidly to truly ‘wear out’ any items (I did not grow that rapidly, as anyone who knows me can attest). I was so clearly aware of the stark class differences in my community because I had, not had not.
My awareness of class – and the privileges it can afford – was an overwhelming influence upon my understanding of intersectional feminism, more so than my own experiences of (and challenges with) sexual identity, gender, education, mental health, disability and environmental injustice, growing up. It wasn’t until many years later, moving from my predominantly-white rural community and engaging with fellow progressives, that I understood how inequality, inequity and injustice extended further – and impacted more – when considering race, ethnicity and Indigeneity. And, in particular, the societal, government, economic and political structures that exacerbated this inequality, inequity and injustice on a global scale.
For many years, my understanding of intersectional feminism grew from the bedrock of ‘white feminism’, an “ideology and very specific approach and strategy to achieving gender equality that focuses more on individual accumulation, capital and individuality – accruing power without any redistribution or reconsideration of it” (as defined by the incredible Koa Beck).
As emphasised by Beck:
“[There is a] thread that runs through what we might call lifestyle feminism, empowerment feminism or corporate feminism – some of my friends say “feminism lite” - [it] is a white success model or an aspiration to whiteness. That’s what we’re talking about across all these brands of feminism: going to a very elite college, running your own company, exploiting other women to get there, entering into marriage or a long-term relationship with another partner, having children, being middle class, really supporting those values which are really intrinsic to our nation. White feminism as a practice and ideology aspires to those things rather than interrogates them.”
I see, now, how - not foundational, but infiltrative - white feminism was to my own understandings of ‘intersectional’ feminism growing up. I (and many, many other ‘intersectional’ feminists alongside me) claimed our intersectionality to be fully on display when we argued that pay inequity was linked to racial inequity (proudly proclaiming our understandings of how white women and Black women received different pay scales, and how this was so unfair!), without consideration for how the entire capitalist structure maintains systems of exploitation that could never exist alongside truly intersectional feminism. In our minds, ‘intersectional’ feminism was arguing for equity in pay for all women (regardless of identity-related factors like race, class or disability), rather than dismantling the oppressive structures of capitalism, colonialism and patriarchy that reinforce and grow the exploitation of workers.
I remember sitting in a feminist collective meeting at university, many years ago, and listening to my fellow ‘intersectional’ feminists discuss the need for increases to punishment and penalties for offenders of sexual violence, with no intersectional analysis of how systems of power and authority (like prisons and the police) cause intrinsic and detrimental harm to already targeted communities, and how abolition is the only true way forward.
Or how we spent hours discussing the need for a diverse panel discussion on Women in Politics, rather than a frank conversation on how current political systems reinforce colonialist, classist, neoliberal and patriarchal systems of power.
My ‘intersectional’ feminism was, for many years, actually white feminism (or ‘Lean In’ feminism, or ‘empowerment’ feminism, or ‘liberal’ feminism – whatever you want to call it). Regardless of my personal experiences of and understandings from a class, sexual identity, gender, education, mental health, disability and environmental injustice perspective, I still wasn’t the ‘intersectional’ feminist I claimed to be.
It is really only in the second half of my feminist journey that true intersectional feminism has been in practice, influenced by a journey of continuous learning and growth, interactions with individuals with lived experience, conversations and discussions with progressives, and interrogations of my own values and beliefs.
This influence changed how I saw intersectional feminism as not only the fight for pay equity (and a rejection of ‘Lean In’ feminist beliefs), but for the rights of workers and unions for safety, health, job stability, care and pay. It influenced how I understood that the fight for a world free from violence against women, also included the rights of sex workers to experience a workplace (and world) free from violence, and one afforded the same protections as any other workplace. And it influenced how I understood that the fight for justice for all cannot come without the dismantling of patriarchal, colonial, white-settler, heteronormative, ableist and capitalist systems of power.
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I was reminded of this journey of continuous learning that I experienced (from basic understandings of feminism, to ‘white feminist intersectionality', through to the values, beliefs and understandings I hold today) recently when I spotted a much-shared post on Instagram:
Source: The Slow Factory. [ID: Title reads The 8 White Identities, by Barnor Hesse. A semi-circular graph (coloured red to yellow to green) points to the different identities - white supremacist, white voyeurism, white privilege, white benefit, white confessional, white critical, white traitor, white abolitionist. Text underneath reads ‘There is a regime of whiteness and there are action-oriented white identities. People who identify with whiteness are one of these. It’s about time we build an ethnography of whiteness, since white people have been the ones writing about and governing Others’.]
The post, detailing the eight white identities, was based upon work completed by Professor Barnor Hesse, an Associate Professor of African American Studies, Political Science and Sociology at Northwestern University. Professor Hesse noted that white identity (particularly action-orientated white identity) can be described in terms of eight different categories: white supremacist, white voyeurism, white privilege, white benefit, white confessional, white critical, white traitor and white abolitionist.
Source: The Slow Factory. [ID: The 8 White Identities, by Barnor Hesse. A description of four of the white identities. 1. White Supremacist - clearly marked white society that preserves, names and values white superiority. 2. White Voyeurism - Wouldn’t challenge a white supremacist; desires non-whiteness because it’s interesting, pleasurable; seeks to control the consumption and appropriation of non-whiteness; fascination with culture (example: consuming Black culture without the burden of Blackness). 3. White Privilege - May critique white supremacy, but a deep investment in questions of fairness/equality. 4. White Benefit - Sympathetic to a set of issues but only privately; won’t speak/act in solidarity publicly because benefitting through whiteness in public (some People of Colour are in this category as well.]
Source: The Slow Factory. [ID: The 8 White Identities, by Barnor Hesse. A description of four of the white identities. 5. White Confessional - Some exposure of whiteness takes place, but as a way of being accountable to People of Colour after; seeks validation from People of Colour. 6. White Critical - Take on board critiques of whiteness and invest in exposing/marking the white regime; refuses to be complicit with the regime; whiteness speaking back to whiteness. 7. White Traitor - Actively refuses complicity; names what’s going on; intention is to subvert white authority and tell the truth at whatever cost; need them to dismantle institutions. 8. White Abolitionist - Changing institutions, dismantling whiteness and not allowing whiteness to reassert itself.]
Below the post (and in every Insta-story share I spotted), were proclamations by white folk of “I’m a white traitor!”, “White critical!”, “#WhiteAbolitionistForTheWin”. Some of these were genuine representations of where these white folk had identified areas to work on and step up from (I myself am guilty of this, asking those I engaged with where they found themselves on this list in an effort to get substantial commitments for continuous learning and growth). And others, of course, were performative – it is hard to take seriously a black square posted back in June 2020, followed by a claim of “I’m definitely a white traitor!”.
In the resurgence of the popularity of the post on Instagram over the past few weeks, a key piece of context was missed, a paragraph by Professor Barnor Hesse prior to the list, detailing:
“There is a regime of whiteness, and there are action-oriented white identities. People who identify with whiteness are one of these. It’s about time we build an ethnography of whiteness, since white people have been the ones writing about and governing Others.”
By ranking ourselves – as white people – on this list of identities as anything other than a white supremacist, we entirely missed the point of the list. As further detailed by Lecia Michelle (almost two years ago!), “Professor Hesse created this for black and brown people to use as a resource to categorize those people who claim to be our allies (sic).”
Michelle continues:
“White people have no business ranking their own allyship. What ever title you get is given to you by the marginalized group you claim to be supporting. If you ranked yourself as anything other than a plain-old white supremacist, you also failed. It should be obvious to you that any self-assigned ranking means you are giving yourself accolades for climbing the mythical ladder of white supremacy (sic).”
Similar to my own experiences of how white feminism infiltrated my understandings of intersectional feminism, white supremacy infiltrated our understandings of allyship.
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In the title of this piece, I say I was a white feminist, but it is not up to me to liberate myself from that title. I am still white and I still actively benefit, daily, from the privileges that affords. I am still a feminist within a movement that continues to prioritise my voice, my vision, my status and my needs above all others. I am still a white feminist (until that title is otherwise replaced), but I am moving – like we all should be – to be, in practice if not in title (at least not until it is earned) to be a truly intersectional feminist, white traitor and abolitionist.
The ways in which I am doing this is simple:
Educating myself on the past and present-day histories of global social movements (not just feminist movements, not just movements for racial justice, but all movements), the demands they are making and the fights they are fighting;
Using my privilege, authority and power because white folk have a lot of it: we will get meetings with politicians that others cannot; we will not face the levels or extremes of police brutality at the front of picket lines, strike lines and blockades; we have access to wealth, resources and the ears of decision-makers that others do not. Use this and redirect this privilege to the frontline of the social movement;
Listening to what the movement wants: does your local social movement need bodies at a mobilisation or money for sanitiser and face masks? As what tangible actions and support are needed and then deliver on those;
Redistributing my wealth through paying social movement-builders, paying for resources and supplies, and paying reparations; and
Confronting my fellow peers because let’s be honest, if your parents are still voting and believing in a particular way, then you need to do something about it.
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To move from what you have known (and taken as fact your entire life), to interrogating and reflecting upon your own values and beliefs, to reimagining your role within society, social movements and allyship, is tough. I am not going to say that this journey of mine (or yours), has been easy: I have made mistakes (as will you), I have fallen back into white supremacist ways of thinking (as will you), I have redefined over and over again my commitments to allyship and being an accomplice and co-conspirator (as will you), and I still wake up every day with the gut feeling of not doing enough (as will you).
As Michelle poignantly puts:
“You will learn about allyship your entire life. You will never graduate. You will never know everything. You will never become an expert.
If that’s what you’re striving for, stop now. Your allyship isn’t rooted in activism. It’s rooted in titles, performance and praise.
In other words, your allyship is harmful, and we want no part of it.”
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For more resources on this topic:
Read:
6 ways to be antiracist, because being 'not racist' isn't enough
Welcome to the Anti-Racism movement: here’s what you’ve missed
Opportunities for white people in the fight for racial justice
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Acknowledgment
If you are reading this, chances are that you fear you are also a white feminist, or recognise the privilege of white feminism inside you and want to turn it around. Perhaps you have been called a ‘white feminist’ in the past and, after getting all defensive and spurting a claim of ‘No I’m not!’, have recognised that maybe, yes, yes you are. Maybe you wholeheartedly believe that you are not a white feminist, have never been a white feminist, will never be a white feminist and want to spend a moment to ridicule those on their continuous learning journey away from being white feminists.
But regardless of which category you fall within, I want you to ask yourself this as well – why are you reading my words? Why are the words of one white women to another more palatable to you than the hundreds of thousands of words written by Black/Blak, Indigenous, women and nonbinary folk of colour, which have been shared across the world on this exact topic?
I want to take this moment to acknowledge the work done by Black writers and writers of colour, Black researchers and BIPOC academics, whose work was referenced within this piece, and whose labour is constantly utilised (without recognition or compensation) on the ‘journey to allyship’ that many white people embark upon.
White folk: pay those who teach you and who you learn from. And do better.