Recently in Theory Category

Should white privilege prevent feminist researchers studying women of colour? Is it possible to present an accurate portrayal of marginalisation or Othering, from a white Western position?

Lately, following a few blog posts on the problems of visions of The Oppressor seen in white feminists – most recently Renee’s anger at pearl-clutching racism-denying ‘straw women’ at Feministe – I have become bothered by thoughts that my own, academic, research on the intersections of gender, race, ethnicity, religion and class could bring me under similar attack. It was also useful to read Samhita’s post on intersectionality .

I could be one of the Oppressors telling the Oppressed how it is, what their lives are like.

This is not a defence of white (second-wave) feminism’s appropriation of women’s issues or marginalising of women of colour.

I am a British middle-class young white feminist, and I am in the first year of my PhD. I know this puts me in a privileged position. However, learning to read, think, and analyse I hope would also put me in a position to give consideration and weight to real, embodied experiences, to learn to avoid essentialising.

My research is in identity, embodiment, and femininity in the context of physical education and sport in school (sport pedagogy). I use third-wave feminist and poststructuralist analyses. I’ve only recently started, and my supervisor is attempting to guide me towards focusing on the experiences of (British) Muslim girls in physical education. She is also white, middle class and Western. But I find anger directed at white feminists who retain supremacy in feminisms, in feminist theory or movements, especially those who gain media interest, who have potentially co-opted, silenced, belittled, essentialised or marginalised non-white, non-Western, or non-secular women.

If I talk to, observe and give a voice in academic research to young women of colour, or young women of a minority (in the UK) religion, am I in the end providing one more white viewpoint on the ‘minorities’? Can I know *anything* about ‘them’? Shouldn’t it be a Muslim feminist researcher doing this? Should I be researching only those young women whose experiences I may have shared? Am I completely unable to understand the experiences of anyone? These are the fears I feel after reading attacks of white feminism.

I expect there are Muslim or British Asian (feminist) researchers who cover sport pedagogy. I haven’t done a literature review on the topic yet. Am I unable to add anything? Anything I do say will involve listening to and reporting on the voices and experiences of those I research. I might not want to study young women who are ‘like me’ – I’m not sure what this means, since identities are often so fragmented.

I would be dismayed if my voice as a researcher was considered invalid, or unwanted. I wouldn’t want to approach any research in a school and be rejected by the young women who I would potentially want to interview because I am of a privileged group ostensibly looking down on them. Research in my area is based on articulating the experiences and perspectives of many people or groups and thus working towards making P.E a positive learning environment. Yet I am painfully aware of critiques of white academic traditions.

I’d really value any feedback or advice or points of view on this. Have any other academics here had problems like this? And apologies to all readers who find my academic words boring :)

1. The way French Feminists deal with social, Marxist, and psychoanalytic theory
2. Their antifoundationalism and use of genealogical approaches
3. The work of French feminists on the social construction of race, gender, and sexuality is unsurpassed (in my humble opinion)
4. The focus on language and its embodiment of patriarchal norms
5. The way many French Feminists have been so good at balancing political activism with a focus on theory
6. The multiplicity of writing styles that French feminists are willing to use, and their use of metaphor
7. The relentless insistence on exposing instances of norming/othering
8. The work many French feminists have done to expose the inherent ties between capitalism and patriarchy
9. The inclusiveness that follows from their assumption that racism, sexism, homophobia, etc stem from the same systemic sources and are motivated by similar impulses
10. Simone de Beauvoir. (and Colette Guillaumin, Christine Delphy, Monique Wittig, Michèle Le Dœuff ...)

Dear feminist friends -

To borrow a acronym from the military BLUF - or bottom line up front, here is my question: what does feminism require of me to be a better ally? Specifically, what does radical feminism require of me? No matter what I do, it seems as though I will never be good enough of an ally, or that I always seem to do something wrong, from the perspective of radical feminism.

To be sure, I am a third-wave liberal feminist. Do you know that bumper sticker that says, "I am a radical feminist, not the fun kind?" Well, I am the fun kind of feminist, not the radical kind. I am a political activist; I eat meat; I enjoy sex; I have political ambitions, and I have a career in the military - which I started at the hopes of one day going into politics. Yet, from the radical feminist perspective, even all those things are patriarchal.

Surely, I am in no way bitching. As a male, full of privilege, my life whether radical feminists accept me or not, will still be a good one. I will go on to have a great political career - among others, whether I get the acceptance of radical feminists or not.

But it seems whenever we talk about various sects of feminism, it is to criticize, rather than to try to be better allies or work together. So, that's why I am asking the question of how I can be a better ally.

A few examples: it is claimed that my eating meat is patriarchal - but can I also be a feminist and remain real? Isn't okay to ensure that disadvantaged women, whether of the Western world or in developing nations, get enough to eat, be it meat or vegetables?

It is also claimed that politics in itself is patriarchal - that it is one class ruling over another. Yet, to make the lives of the disadvantaged better, shouldn't we focused on the legislative efforts to make women's lives better? I may not understand everything that women face, but how is my desire to make the political process a more woman-friendly space patriarchal?

As for sex, some feminists have claimed that even casual sex - that kind that comes with no emotional attachment, is one that is demeaning to women, because women are seen and viewed as vehicles to one's pleasure, rather than actual human beings. I, of course, do not share this view, but it does bother me that some view sex as entirely patriarchal, even if two people mutually agree to and enjoy it. One incident that still sticks with me is when I was reprimanded for saying "just because a woman looks tasty does not mean you've got to treat her like a piece of meat." I am told that to say a woman looks tasty, in itself, is sexist.

As for military service, last night, watching a 60 Minutes program about a female soldier receiving the Silver Star for her service, I shared the story with some people, and were told that even my military career, in itself, is patriarchal - that military service is not consistent with feminism. Some feminists would go on to say, and even attack, academia, saying that it is also patriarchal, setting a certain set of standards that women have to follow - and that even women's studies classes, themselves, are not beneficial to women.

So, again, my goal is not to please anyone. This is as much my movement as it is anyone else's. But I am detecting a cultural and philosophical gap between the 2nd-wave, radical movement and my own. A long time ago, as a freshman, I was told by my Intro to Women's Studies professor that feminism is what each woman makes of it. If that were the case, and if feminism isn't about genitals, then am I not allowed to believe my own philosophies and practices, and participate in the "real world," so long as I don't lose sight of my feminism?

To be sure, the world view of radical feminism I just painted is only limited to a handful of feminists I've met. But I do feel, as though, they deserve to be heard, too. What is it that radical feminism wants of me? How can I be a better ally?

Feminist literary theory is a kind of re-colonisation or de-colonisation of the objectified  and  female body.  It is also a tool by which to interrogate the repressive and performative situations of feminity both in society and syntax.  To quote from Virginia Woolf,

Women have served all these years as looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its size.  Without that power probably the earth would still be swamp and jungle. (A Room of One’s Own )

Certainly, this ‘looking-glass’ image is integral for feminist theory.  The ‘looking-glass’ reads as both a pane through which an image can be seen, as well as a surface merely reconstructing the ‘see-er’.  The ‘through’ (glass) method can offer some sort of resistance, a return scrutiny of the viewer and two-way sight, whereas the latter position only allows limited mimetic reflection.  ‘Women’ oscillate between the two potentialities.

Anyone who has ever taken a women's studies class has probably read Peggy McIntosh's article on white privilege. For anyone who hasn't read the article, she describes male privilege, and then compares this to white privilege by listing all kinds of privileges white people have that often go unacknowledged, such as being able to speak without being trapped into having your opinion represent everyone of your race or being able to find people who look like you represented in the media. If anyone hasn't read this article, I really recommend finding a copy because it forces some people to acknowledge privilege that is usually ignored and to think critically about things that have happened in their lives.

I've really been really thinking about all the privileges I have and how I would absolutely not be where I am today without those privileges. However, just recognizing that is simply not enough. With this knowledge, I am that much more responsible when I allow myself the benefits these privileges bring.

One privilege I've recently begun to really think about is 'one of the guys' privilege.

There is a very interesting post on Feministing.com asking readers to vote on feminist icons. And they ask the question, do we even want icons? Do they serve a purpose in this vast ocean of information we swim through every day? I sat and really thought about whose picture on the cover of a magazine would instantly relay to me that this is a feminist and a champion of feminism. From Magdalene to Ginsberg, from Sappho to diFranco, from Gentileschi to Kahlo, Cleopatra to Maloney - I have hundreds in mind whose lives advanced gender equality whether they meant to or not.

But today I think it is not icons we need but an iconic event. We need to shift the expectation of inequality; the natural acceptance of less pay, less respect, injustice, poor education, diminishing reproductive freedom, sexism in all its forms. We need to admit that it is both an impossibility and unreasonable request to put this all on a single human being or even a group of people. Yes, it can begin with a small group of people but now we are tilting at a tipping point.

Feminism has reached as far as it can on the shoulders of individuals and now we must, as a collective consciousness, call for all genders, in all its variations of expression, to offer our services to Mother Earth and manifest equality. Our minds must hold full pictures of the world as we want it to be. As we travel, work and simply live ~ we must posit equality in each step, each action, each intention.

more at http://onlinewithzoe.com

One of my recent projects is doing research on why radical feminism from 1967-1975 disintegrated. I know there are some who may disagree and argue that radical feminism held on and morphed into current feminism; however, I counter that around the early 1970's, women became turned on to the issues radical feminists were addressing but didn't want to give up their elevated status in society (or their husbands'). Unfortunately for those radical groups who altered the way we view revolutionary feminist practice and theory like Redstockings, WITCH, New York Radical Feminists, The Feminists, and Cell 16, focus shifted from radical politics and universal sisterhood to a split between 'male' new left groups and cultural (reformist) feminist groups like NOW.

I would like to know from anyone who may know more about this era of feminism what they consider aided in the downfall of radical feminist movement. Or, one could argue that there was no downfall. What are your thoughts?