Feminism can only be for everybody when you fight for everybody.
In Emma Watson’s 2014 speech to the UN, titled “Gender equality is your issue too,” she declared that feminism was synonymous to gender equality. She talked in generalities, only focusing on the differences between men and women, declaring “I think it is right that socially I am afforded the same respect as men.” Yet, Emma Watson is a wealthy white woman, whose problems include “being called ‘bossy.’” Representing women on the front-and-center pedestal of the UN, Watson has made it clear: feminism is fighting for women to be equal to men and feminism is only a gender-based issue. This raceless, gender-first feminism, better known as white feminism, is alluring. White feminism, which originates from the beginnings of feminism at the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, seems to be a simplified way to present feminism. Finally, all women can be united and work together towards the same cause. Why should race be a part of the feminist conversation when feminism should just be about gender equality?
The erasure of racial difference in feminism perpetuates the notion that race-based issues are not important to solve or even focus on. By eliminating race and shaping feminism to be something purely about gender, the feminist movement did not take racial difference seriously. Yet, racial difference is what adds an additional layer of oppression on women of color. When white feminists ignore racial differences and claim that all women are fighting against a “common oppression,” their feminism overlooks the inequalities amongst women. This generalization avoids realities such as that black women are paid 21% less than white women in the U.S., resulting in the failure of white feminism to fight for anyone but white women—the group whose race doesn’t invoke their oppression. Author bell hooks argues that “there could be no real sisterhood between white women and women of color if white women were not able to divest of white supremacy”. Feminism, described through the ideal of a “sisterhood” in which all women are connected by the same interests, is used by white feminists harmfully to erase the different issues that affect women. A realistic sisterhood—one that reflects the oppressive connections between white women and women of color—is impossible when white women do not recognize how racist biases shape feminist ideologies.
The consequences of this white feminism is detailed in writer Audre Lorde’s speech, “The Uses of Anger.” She says, “My response to racism is anger. I have lived with that anger, ignoring it, feeding upon it, learning to use it before it laid my visions to waste, for most of my life.” More than just a reactive emotion, produced in response to specific moments, Lorde’s anger has become a long term, growing feeling. However, Lorde has learned to use this anger as a tool. Lorde has reclaimed her reaction as a source of information, through which she is able to better understand how to speak to her oppressors. Because anger is not only something that she experiences, but something that “lies between” all women, anger is not a way to further separate herself from white women. Instead, Lorde believes that the passion and fervor of anger has potential as “a powerful source of energy serving progress and change”. To Lorde, anger is a catalyst for change—change that isn’t quick and easy but the beginnings of an ideological reformation. By removing the stereotypical associations of irrationality and fury from anger, Lorde displays the benefits that result from paying attention to anger.
Yet Lorde’s emphasis on the positive results of anger ignores the reality that anger is not always accepted in society, especially anger from black women. The American radio and television sitcom, Amos ‘n’ Andy, established The Sapphire Caricature, through its portrayal of African American women as aggressive, loud, and rude. This caricature has persisted in popular media ever since the 1950s, when Amos ‘n’ Andy was first aired, shaping TV show characters and news article descriptions of black women and minimizing the personalities of black women to their anger. Thus, black women who show anger are quickly discredited or looked down upon as just another “angry black woman,” making it impossible and harmful for them to show anger. In an article published in the magazine In These Times, Joshunda Sanders explains that this “angry black woman” caricature has resulted in “an infuriating reality” in which “black women are encouraged to repress our anger even when we have so much to be angry about”. Lorde’s speech, which emphasizes anger as “an appropriate reaction to racist attitudes”, does not acknowledge the reality that although reasonable, it may not be accepted.
When anger is continuously refused, it becomes socially necessary for black women to stop their anger. In fact, Sanders argues that anger can come with tangible consequences, such as when Serena Williams “openly expressed her anger at a notoriously strict umpire” and “was fined $17,000”. Not only do people refuse to listen to anger coming from black women, they actively try to stop it, making it unacceptable—even punishable—for them to express anger. Because white women often cannot understand the anger of black women and how it has the potential to be transformed into information and action in the way Lorde hopes, anger is instead construed as a way to view black women as “irrationally upset” and thus, “consistently and forever unequal” (Sanders).
White women are afraid of what anger directed at them implies about their responsibility in causing this anger. Thus, when white women do respond to anger, Lorde criticizes their reactions as full of fear and guilt. Fear causes white women to say things such as black women “are ‘creating a mood of hopelessness’” to bring the focus away from the content of what black women are saying and to push the blame for this hopelessness away from themselves onto black women (Lorde). Meanwhile, guilt allows white women to position themselves as victims of black anger. Lorde says that “guilt is just another name for impotence…the ultimate protection for changelessness” because instead of wanting to address the issue, guilt serves as another defense mechanism. Writer Rachel Cargle explains specific examples of guilty reactions. With behavior such as “spiritual bypassing,” Cargle showcases how white women “when confronted with ways they have offended a marginalized group with their words or actions, they immediately start to demand unity and peace; painting those they harmed as aggressive, mean, or divisive”.
Yet, in criticizing and suppressing black anger, what many white feminists fail to realize is that they, too, have an arsenal of anger. Because of anger’s universality, the focus on anger as a communicative medium between women can be used to understand the context of black anger. Lorde says that “anger which stands between us [black and white women]” can “be used for clarity and mutual empowerment.” White women who are in touch with their anger are able to better understand black anger in knowing the origins of anger and the importance of expressing it. While Sanders agrees with the power of anger as a way to uncover injustices, she views it as only a starting point: “Black women’s expression of anger and suffering will not dismantle white supremacy on its own; it is only the alarm bell that signals the urgent need for change”. Because even if white women listen to angry black women, Sanders declares that no change is possible without “hearing” them—meaning that more than just noticing the oppression black women face, white women must actively try to change it through adjusting their roles and supporting them as allies.
Although white women can never genuinely understand the oppression black women face, Cargle expresses that being an ally is the most powerful position they can take. Cargle defines allyship as “using your sphere of influence…to call out racist actions and ideals,” and “uplifting the voices and experiences of people of color”. Anger can be used as a measurement of this allyship, as Lorde says the process of translating anger “into action in the service of our vision and our future is a liberating and strengthening act of clarification” that can help “identify who are our allies with whom we have grave differences, and who are our genuine enemies”. By describing allies as those “with whom we have grave differences”, Lorde debunks the myth of sisterhood that women can only support one another when they share the same values. To be an ally, white women need to acknowledge and celebrate difference, instead of discriminate and erase difference.
Feminism is not just a fight for gender equality, nor a fight just between women and men. Feminism is a fight for every oppressed woman, oppressed not only because of their gender, but because of any difference—race, sexuality, class. Although Lorde focuses on her personal racial oppression, she emphasizes that any oppression among women is detrimental: “I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own. And I am not free as long as one person of Color remains chained. Nor is any one of you.” Stepping on others to lift yourself up gives you privilege, but not freedom. Freedom is found, not through denial of the shackles that weigh women down, but through teamwork in releasing them. Feminism can only be for everybody when you fight for everybody.
