I’ve got your back, and all other women’s too

Pictured: Bell Hooks

This comment article is written by Ujima Radio presenter Cheryl Morgan

Last week, Laura Williams wrote about “Fashionable feminism and a fake class war”“Fashionable feminism and a fake class war”. As someone who writes about women’s issues, both here and elsewhere, I was disappointed with some of it.

Not about the need for feminism, of course. That remains as strong as ever. But the article goes on to talk about “meaningless pseudo class warfare” that shifts attention away from “the original feminist point”. This dismissal of the very real issues faced by various minority groups does nothing to further the feminist cause. Rather it harms it by turning many women away from feminism, because it makes them think the movement doesn’t apply to them.

Laura knows who is discriminated against here, and it isn’t people from minorities, it is her. “But where does this end?” she asks. “Are white women not allowed to feel oppressed, because it pales in comparison to female black oppression? Are heterosexual women to keep quiet because gay women have it a lot worse?”

Well, I am a white, well-educated, middle-class heterosexual woman. Compared to a man from a similar background, of course I am oppressed. But I also work for Ujima, a radio station that primarily serves the Afro-Caribbean community of Bristol. On a regular basis I have black women come into my studio and tell me about their lives. It is painfully obvious to me that, in many, very real ways, their lives are much less fortunate than mine. I see it as my duty as a feminist to try to make things better for them.

The trouble is that all too often it doesn’t work this way. The leaders of our feminist organisations, the journalists who espouse the feminist cause in the media, our women MPs, are almost all white, middle class and heterosexual. Feminism doesn’t look like a diverse and inclusive movement. Nor is it always attentive to the problems of minorities. Here’s what tends to happen.

A black woman complains that she has been discriminated against. Well, says the white feminist, that’s a race problem, not a feminist one. A Muslim woman asks for help. Well, says the white feminist, that’s a religious issue, not a feminist one. A disabled woman is badly treated. That’s a disability issue, not a feminist one. You get the idea?

So no, women are not “turning on fellow women for speaking out against misogyny”. They are turning on fellow women because those women are often deaf to the very real problems that their sisters face.

Thankfully there is a better way. It is called Intersectionality. If you read those white feminist journalists who have access to the national media they’ll tell you that this is a complex academic theory that ordinary women can’t understand. That’s nonsense. All it means is that different people are discriminated against in different ways, but all of that discrimination is caused by a society that is obsessed with favoring some groups of people over others. 

If we all pull together to resist our oppressors then we’ll all be a lot better off. As Benjamin Franklin said to his fractious colleagues at the start of the American Revolution, if we don’t all hang together, we will surely all hang separately.

There isn’t a fake class war in feminism, there is a very real struggle between feminists who believe in Intersectionality, and those white feminists who think that any campaign that isn’t all about them is a distraction from the true point of feminism.

How do I know this? Because I see it all of the time. It happens to me. You see, while I am white, middle class and well-educated, I am also transgender. Much of the time this makes little difference. I live as a woman in society, and have done for years. I am subject to all of the same ways that society discriminates against women, and I benefit from the good bits, too. Occasionally someone will “read” me as being trans and I’ll be subjected to a torrent of abuse in the street, but by far the most abuse I get in life is from people who identify as feminists.

Sure trans people are always the butt of sensationalist articles in tabloid newspapers, but for truly offensive attacks on us the best place to look is opinion pieces in left wing newspapers such the The Guardian, The New Statesman and The Spectator. I have lost track of the number of supposedly feminist causes that I have wanted to support, but have discovered that as a trans woman my support is not wanted.

The thing is that these attacks don’t come from all feminists. They come almost exclusively from white feminists. I’m hard pressed to think of any well-known non-white feminist commentators in the UK. After all, non-white people find it hard enough to get any access to our mainstream media. Statistically they are horribly under-represented. In the US, however, there are people like Bell Hooks and Melissa Harris-Perry. And guess what? They have no problem with trans women. That’s because they believe in Intersectionality, in the idea of different groups of oppressed people helping each other.

Given Bristol’s proud tradition of radical politics, I like to think that Intersectionality is our sort of thing. We don’t have to play hierarchical games, and we shouldn’t.

Now you may say that I’m a special case, that I’m not “really” a woman (whatever that means). However, no one asks to check my chromosomes or medical history before treating me as a woman. Indeed, if you want to understand the reality of male privilege, talk to someone who once had it and has given it up. Believe me, I understand all about the need for feminism.

You see, Laura, I’ve got your back, because I suffer from the same day-to-day oppression that you do. But I’m also giving my support to my non-white sisters, to my lesbian sisters, to my disabled sisters, and so on. Their concerns are not shifting attention away from the original feminist point. Because, when it comes down to it, a feminism that applies only to some women, and not to others, is a feminism that isn’t worthy of the name.

Pictured: Bell Hooks – Tduk / Wikipedia