Critical white feminism interrogating privilege, whiteness, And antiracism in feminist theory

Critical white feminism interrogating privilege, whiteness,

And antiracism in feminist theory

Chapter I: The Problematics of White Feminist Theory

―From coast to coast, the feminist movement is

racist but that news is old and stale by now‖

-doris davenport, ―The Pathology of Racism‖ (85)

White feminist theorists are mostly unsuccessful in their mission of

understanding the oppression of women and conceptualizing sufficient solutions. I

attribute this problem, in part, to white feminist racism. Racism in the feminist

movement was overwhelmingly prevalent in the past, as davenport described in

1983; however, it still exists today. In this chapter, I argue that both historically

and contemporarily white feminist theorists exhibit racism in their scholarship by

universalizing womanhood, ignoring differences between women, and employing a

reductionist analysis of female oppression, all of which are problematic because

they prevent feminist solidarity and community, and thus thwart social change.

As the main problem that I wish to address, white feminist racism can be

defined as the disregard for women of color by white feminists. In this way, white

feminists embody black philosopher Paul Taylor‘s definition of racism as an

unethical disregard for people who belong to a particular race‖ (Race 33). Taylor

defines disregard‖ as the withholding of respect, concern, goodwill, or care‖ (33).

Using this definition, I assert that white feminists are racist in their theoretical

discourse. In particular, white feminists are racist when they fail to notice the

existence of women of color, fail to consider differences between women, fail to

respect the contributions of women of color, fail to notice their suffering, fail to

acknowledge the institutions and social systems that make them suffer, fail to hear

the suggestions of women of color, fail to listen to the critiques by women of color

about white racism, fail to concern themselves with the liberation of women of

color, fail to respect their boundaries, and fail to prioritize racism as a feminist

issue. According to Taylor, all of these actions are racist if they are directed

towards someone simply because of their racial or ethnic identity, despite whether

or not they are intentional (34). Therefore, white feminist theorists exhibit racism

in their scholarship by their failure to show respect, concern, goodwill, or care for

women of color, and by their complacence in the omission of nonwhite women‘s

voices in feminist thought.

First, many white feminists are racist because they theorize in ways that

universalize womanhood. That is, white feminists frequently postulate that all

women everywhere are invariably similar. When white feminists theorize about

women‘s lives, experiences, and needs, they often generalize about all women by

claiming to address the lives, experiences, and needs of all women; however, in

reality, they often assume that their perspectives as white women are the same for

all women. As a result, white feminists theorize only about white women, even

while asserting that they are talking about all women. The universal woman that

many white women refer to is, in fact, a white woman. Therefore, white feminists

exclude women of color in their analyses. By universalizing white womanhood and

failing to account for the needs of nonwhite feminist issues, white feminists fail to

respect the concerns of women of color, thereby intentionally or unintentionally

perpetuating racism. Evidence of such white feminist racism is found in nonwhite

feminist critiques, the exclusion of women of color in foundational feminist texts,

and the methodological roots of feminist research and practice.

To a substantial degree, women of color reject white feminism and critique

the exclusionary white universalization of women, thus demonstrating its

insufficiency. This schism is illustrated by the fact that other forms of feminism,

such as Chicana, Asian, Indigenous, and Black feminism, emerged to account for

the needs of women of color. These ethnically-specific schools of feminist thought

address the exclusionary nature of white feminist theory. For example, Chicana

feminists disconnected and distanced themselves from white feminists because

their theories did not include the needs of Chicana women. Chicana feminist Marta

Cotera argued in ―Among the Feminists: Racist Classist Issues - 1976‖ that white

women consistently displayed racist practices by, for example, presenting women‘s

history as an all-white history (215). As a result of white women‘s disregard of

Chicana women, especially white feminist historians in their historical

publications, Chicana feminists could not align with white women. Cotera states,

―Unfortunately, this has forced us to separatism in documenting history out of

selfprotection and need‖ (215). Chicana feminism had to separate itself from white

feminism in order to avoid the harmful lack of care and concern that they

experienced in white women‘s universalized feminist histories, and in order to

theorize about the realities of Chicana women. Other varieties of feminism, too,

evolved partly because of the exclusion of women of color within white feminist

theory and the insistence of white feminists to universalize their experience as

women.

White feminist racism is also indicated by nonwhite women‘s critiques of

white feminist theory, which demonstrate white feminists‘ tendency to universalize

white womanhood within specific feminist texts. One such example is black

feminist bell hooks‘ review of The Feminine Mystique by white feminist Betty

Friedan. A critique of The Feminist Mystique is significant because it is considered

a seminal feminist text in mainstream feminist thought, and thus is extremely

influential for subsequent feminist theorizing. According to hooks in ―Black

Women: Shaping Feminist Theory,‖ Friedan‘s work is still heralded as having

paved the way for contemporary feminist movement‖sic (33). Despite its

instrumental contributions to today‘s feminism, this book was, in fact, only

referring to a select group of women (33). As hooks argues, Friedan claims to

describe the condition of all women in America, but in reality she only describes

the plight of a select group of college-educated, middle- and upper-class, married

white women‖ (33). According to hooks, Friedan‘s decision to equate all women

with this small privileged group of women exposes the racism, classism, and

sexism in her scholarship because she disregards the realities of women who are

not in this small group of women. Friedan, as shown by hooks‘ critique, by

attempting to theorize about all women using the experiences of only a select few,

fail to account for the needs of women of color.

Like many mainstream feminist texts, white feminist universalization can

also be found in one of the primary means of feminist research and practice, called

feminist standpoint, which operates from the belief that women‘s lived experiences

are a fundamental site of knowledge. While many feminists are informed by

feminist standpoint theories, I refer to one in particular to represent how the

widespread usage of this major theoretical framework results in problematic

implications. Nancy Hartsock‘s argument in her 1997 publication The Feminist

Standpoint: Developing the Ground for a Specifically Feminist Historical

Materialism‖ provides an example of a white feminist who universalizes

womanhood, specifically in her claims about women‘s experience. In her overall

argument, Hartsock asserts that a feminist standpoint is necessary to provide an

important epistemological tool for understanding and opposing all forms of

domination‖ (152). A theoretical viewpoint grounded in women‘s experience,

according to Hartsock and others who use standpoint theory, is the starting point to

conceptualize women‘s oppression.

However, Hartsock‘s argument is problematic because she lists several

woman-specific experiences that, in her opinion, generate a feminist standpoint,

such as childbirth and motherhood, which she calls women‘s material life activity‖

(159). She states, That this is indeed woman‘s experience is documented in both

the theory and practice of the contemporary women‘s movement and needs no

further development here‖ (158). With this statement, Hartsock generalizes

women‘s experiences and, thus, exposes several inaccurate assumptions: a) that all

women experience the same material activities; b) that all women experience these

activities in the same way; and c) that the documentation of women‘s experiences

has included all women, not just white women. Thus, she universalizes

womanhood by asserting that there are common experiences that are shared

identically by all women. Additionally, she fails to recognize that, because of a

history of racist exclusion of nonwhite women within feminism, the experiences of

women that have been documented in feminist theory and practice are mainly those

of white middle-class women. Hence, her claim that this is indeed woman‘s

experience‖ actually refers to a singular experience (read: white) that excludes a

plurality of experiences (read: nonwhite) (158). Therefore, Hartsock is one

example of a white feminist who promotes a universal conception of woman in her

theorization and thereby disregards women of color. And, further, because this

feminist standpoint is one of the primary methods of feminist research and theory,

the universalization of white women‘s experience in Hartsock‘s work represents a

larger methodological disregard for women of color in feminist theory.

What is more, Hartsock‘s universalization of white womanhood ignores

differences between women. By asserting the existence of a singular women‘s

experience, she ignores the diversity of women‘s lives by denying the possibility

that women of various races, classes, nationalities, and sexualities have divergent

experiences and thus different world views. For instance, Hartsock notes

motherhood as a woman-specific experience, but fails acknowledge that

motherhood is, in fact, a racialized experience, meaning that women of different

races and ethnicities embody motherhood in dissimilar ways (if at all). Due to

white and nonwhite women‘s divergent roles throughout history and currently,

women become mothers, fill the role of mother, perceive their motherly

responsibilities, and are perceived as mothers in a variety of ways. Therefore,

Hartsock‘s application of feminist standpoint theory disregards this diversity by

homogenizing experiences such as motherhood. Hartsock, too, by claiming that

there is one common women‘s experience, fails to recognize the diverse

experiences across differences. Consequently, Hartsock displays white feminist

racism by not recognizing the realities of nonwhite women‘s lives.

In sum, as demonstrated by Cotera, hooks, and Hartsock, the schools of

thought that emerged in response to white feminist disregard, along with the

universalization of white womanhood in influential feminist texts and the

generalization of women‘s lived experiences in feminist methodology, overall,

reveal the presence of white feminist racism in feminist theory. Furthermore, the

universal approach which is deployed by many white feminists results in other

problematic theoretical trends, such as a general disregard for differences between

women, as demonstrated by Hartsock‘s work. This tendency, too, illustrates white

feminist racism, bringing me to my next reason why white feminist theory is

insufficient.

Second, as a result of universalized conceptions of white womanhood, white

feminist theorists disregard differences between women. When white feminists

theorize as if all women share the same experiences identically, they ignore the

differences between white women and women of color. The refusal to

acknowledge differences illustrates a lack of care and respect for the realities of

diverse women‘s lives. To illustrate the connection between universal definitions

of womanhood and the disregard for difference, as previously revealed by

Hartsock‘s argument, I provide several additional examples from the scholarship of

feminists of color.

White feminism‘s universal definition of woman and the resulting frequent

failure to recognize difference is criticized widely by women of color. For

example, Asian American feminist Esther Ngan-Ling Chow notes white feminists‘

failure to regard the differences between themselves and Asian American women.

In ―The Feminist Movement: Where Are All the Asian American Women?‖ she

argues that Asian American women are excluded in white feminism because the

realities of Asian American lives are not included. Chow states that ―Asian

American women who are committed to fighting both sexism and racism feel that

white feminists are not aware of or sympathetic to the differences in concerns and

priorities of Asian American women‖ (371). In other words, white feminist

theorists do not regard Asian American women, and do not facilitate an

understanding of their specific experiences. Furthermore, they exhibit white

feminist racism in their failure to respect the concerns, needs, and important issues

in Asian American women‘s lives.

Additionally, Valerie Amos and Pratibha Parmar, British feminist scholars of

color, also describe the inadequacies of universalized white womanhood as a

failure to recognize difference. In Challenging Imperial Feminism,‖ published in

2001, Amos and Parmar state that, white, mainstream feminist theory, be it from

the socialist feminist or radical feminist perspective, does not speak to the

experiences of Black women‖ (17). Amos and Parmar argue here that no white

feminist perspective exists thus that sufficiently includes women of color, despite

the numerous schools thought. Because many white feminists only theorize about

their race-specific experiences, nonwhite women are alienated from feminist

theories and their experiences and needs are dismissed. According to these

scholars, ―many white feminists‘ failure to acknowledge the differences between

themselves and Black and Third World women has contributed to the

predominantly Eurocentric and ethnocentric theories of women‘s oppression‖ (20).

As demonstrated by the scholarship of both Ngan-Ling Chow and Amos and

Parmar, white women, in general, continuously refuse to explore the reality of

nonwhite women‘s existence and therefore often fail to see how these realities

differ from their own.

In short, many white feminists‘ refusal to regard difference is caused by their

narrow focus on the experiences and needs of white women, their assumption that

all women‘s experiences are similar to their own, and their determination to

universalize all women as white. And, as Amos and Parmar assert, the ignorance of

difference and subsequent white ethnocentrism in feminist thought is unacceptable.

White feminists‘ failure to regard the differences between women results in the

disregard for nonwhite women‘s oppression and the systems that facilitate that

oppression. Because white feminists often deploy these tendencies in their

scholarship, they consequently tend to utilize a reductionist approach, as well. That

is, white feminists often reduce oppression to one or two fundamental causes, but

fail to acknowledge racism as a cause, which is my next reason illustrating its

inadequacy.

Third, white feminist theory, by and large, is racist because of its

reductionist inclinations, which results from its universalization of white

womanhood and disregard for differences between women. Many middle-class

white theorists subscribe to reductionism to explain their one basis of oppression,

which is their gender. White women, as members of the dominant race, are not

oppressed by their racial identities. Similarly, middle-class women do not suffer

from class oppression. It is easier for them, therefore, to use the reductionist

approach because they are not oppressed on the basis of these identities. It is for

this reason that white feminists often problematically claim that sexism is the

fundamental cause of women‘s oppression. However, singular oppression is not a

luxury that other women can enjoy. In the article ―White Woman Listen! Black

feminism and the Boundaries of Sisterhood‖ (2000) black feminist Hazel V. Carby

explains that unlike middle-class white women, women of color ―can point to no

single source for our oppression‖ (390). Women of color, working-class women,

and those women victimized by other forms of oppression such as homophobia,

transphobia, and ableism, cannot subscribe to reductionism. These women cannot

identify sexism as their only oppression because they are oppressed by other

systems as well. As Carby states, When white feminists emphasize patriarchy

alone, [women of color] want to redefine the term and make it a more complex

concept‖ (390). The oppression that affects women of color is multidimensional; it

cannot be explained in the one-dimensional sense that white women often employ.

When white women use reductionist approaches in their scholarship, their theories

are too simple to account for the complex historical realities of women of color.

While various schools of feminist thought reduce in different ways, the

reductionism demonstrates an insufficiency of white feminist theory. Radical

feminists, specifically, argue that patriarchy, a systemic social force that results in

sexism, is the basic cause of all oppression. Socialist feminists, on the other hand,

assert that oppression has two primary causes: sexism and classism. Although

white socialist feminist perspectives incorporate classism into the conversation and

examine the close relationship between class and gender, which is missing from

many other feminist analyses, white socialist feminists often ignore the differences

between women and the racialization of class. So, within this paradigm, working-

class and poor white women are included, but women of color from all class

backgrounds are still oftentimes ignored. To illustrate, in ―Transforming

Socialist-Feminism: The Challenge of Racism‖ Kum-Kum Bhavnani, British

feminist of South Asian descent, and Margaret Coulson critique several white

socialist feminists by stating that Woman‘ continues to be defined as a universal

category‖ (91-2). Their main argument here is that an analysis of racism must be

central to socialistfeminism‖ (98). The socialist feminist schools of thought, when

theorized from a white perspective, fail to include race as a source of oppression in

women‘s‘ lives, and are often reductionist, as well.

While it is not problematic to assert the existence of patriarchy or classism, it

is problematic to reduce all women‘s oppression to one or two sources. The

reductionist approach is problematic because it does not address other systems of

domination that cause other oppressions, such as racism. When sexism and/or

classism are determined to be the primary source(s) of all women‘s oppression,

those women who are affected by other systems are excluded from the theoretical

discourse. This approach excludes queer women who are affected by homophobia

and heterosexism; it excludes differently-abled women who are affected by

ableism; and it excludes women of different ages who are impacted and oppressed

by age-ism. Overall, reductionism, as a form of disregard, demonstrates white

feminist racism. The insufficiency of reductionism is made evident by the writings

of women of color and their responses to reductionist white feminist theory.

Some feminists of color critique specific works by white women for their

racist and reductionist approaches. For example, mixed-race feminist Linda Martín

Alcoff makes a claim that is similar to Carby‘s in her 1998 article What Should

White People Do?‖ In this work, Alcoff critiques white radical feminist Adrienne

Rich for using reductionism in her widely-used 1979 paper entitled Disloyal to

Civilization.‖ Alcoff states that, despite the fact that Rich is more perceptive to

white women‘s racism than other radical feminists, Rich continues to put sexism at

the center of all women‘s lives‖ (267). Alcoff finds Rich‘s approach problematic

because, in reality, sexism is not the most critical oppression for all women.

Women of color, for example, may also desire to put racism at the center of their

lives, alongside the sexism that they endure. Reliance on reductionism is another

reason why white feminist theory is inadequate, exclusionary, and arguably racist.

In all schools of thought, white feminists tend to rank oppressions in their

reductionist analyses. Latina feminist Cherríe Moraga describes in ―La Güera‖

why feminist theory must, instead, take a broader approach to oppression. She

states, ―In this country, lesbianism is a poverty—as is being brown, as is being a

woman, as is being just plain poor. The danger lies in the ranking of oppressions.

The danger lies in failing to acknowledge the specificity of oppression‖ [emphasis

in original] (29). Despite the cautionary words of Moraga, white feminists do not

heed her warning and continue to rank oppression when they adhere to

reductionism by putting sexism at the center of all women‘s lives. Further, white

feminists fail to acknowledge specific oppressions when they disregard the

oppressions of women of color.

Overall, white feminist theorists oftentimes expose their racism by

universalizing womanhood, disregarding differences, and, as a result, their use of

reductionist approaches to oppression. Collectively, these problematic tendencies

cause concerns that extend beyond the borders of theoretical scholarship. White

feminist racism in scholarship, ultimately, obstructs community and solidarity in

attempted feminist collaboration, which, inevitably, thwarts social change. This

critical outcome is, therefore, the fourth reason I present to portray the

problematics of white feminist theory.

Fourth, white feminist racism is inadequate because the aforementioned

disregard for women of color hinders sisterhood, community, friendship, love, and

solidarity among feminists. Because white feminism alienates women of color,

feminist collaboration and organization is thwarted. When women cannot work

together due to lack of respect, care, goodwill, and concern, a united movement for

social change is impossible.

White feminists‘ racism in their scholarship is directly connected to their

racism in activism. Because white feminists have a theoretical understanding of

women‘s oppression and liberation that ignores women of color, correspondingly,

they ignore women of color in their real-life attempts at liberation, as well.

Menominee Native American feminist Chrystos writes about her personal

experience as a Native American woman in 1980 and the feelings of rejection that

she felt from white feminists, which shows how white feminists, at that time,

exhibited racism towards women of color. In her poem ―I Don‘t Understand

Those Who Have Turned Away From Me‖ she speaks of feminism as a community

where she sought comfort and acceptance but, after experience with white

feminists in the movement, she realized that feminism was hypocritical and false.

She states, ―I still think that 98% of what happens – liberal conservative or radical

lesbian separatist is: bullshit‖ (68). Much of what Chrystos experienced was

inauthentic and insincere. She articulates what she did find in feminism:

The lies, pretensions, the snobbery & cliquishness The racism which bled

through every moment at every level The terrifying & useless struggle to be

accepted The awful gossip, bitchiness, backbiting & jealousy The gross

lack of love sic (69)

Because of these atrocities she found in feminism, Chrystos could no longer stand

to continue in the feminist struggle. Instead, she states, ―I left the women‘s

movement utterly drained I have no interest in returning My dreams of crossing

barriers to true understanding were false‖ [sic] (69).

In the exploration of Chrystos‘ experiences and others like it, it is clear just how

alienating and destructive racism in feminist theory and practice is. It is because of

these faults that, historically, cross-racial feminist organizing and action was

challenging, and oftentimes stagnant and unfeasible.

The ability to organize is a powerful tool for social change. Many feminists

claim that it is, in fact, necessary for women‘s liberation. In her 1984 book Sister

Outsider, black feminist Audre Lorde asserts, Ignoring the differences of race

between women and the implications of those differences presents the most serious

threat to the mobilization of women‘s joint power‖ (117). During this time period,

because of many white feminists‘ reluctance to include women of color, feminists

were frequently unable to join forces and organize together across differences.

Lorde also argues that, Without community, there is no liberation, only the most

vulnerable and temporary armistice between an individual and her oppression‖

(107). It is crucial that white feminists strive for enduring relationships between

feminist communities in order to strengthen the feminist movement with women‘s

joint power. According to Lorde, white women and women of color need each

other for support and connection‖ (69). In spite of the necessity for collaboration,

Lorde argues that, at that time, feminists could not yet fully come together because

they had not yet recognized each other (70). Therefore, white feminist racism

thwarted the support, connection, community, and sisterhood needed for feminist

mobilization, and, as will demonstrate, continues to thwart social change.

Community is inhibited by the problematic nature of mainstream feminist

theory. Several other authors articulate this reality. Verna St. Denis, a Métis

woman and Aboriginal scholar, argues in Feminism is for Everybody: Aboriginal

Women, Feminism and Diversity‖ (2007) that many Aboriginal women reject and

dismiss feminism because of a general conception that organizing women of the

world against gender inequality under a banner of universal sisterhood both

minimized and erased social, economic and political differences between vastly

different positioned women, particularly Aboriginal women‖ (33). St. Denis refers

to many Aboriginal and Indigenous women, both scholars and activists, who

theorize about the irrelevancy of feminism to their lives, as well as its racist and

colonial tendencies. She provides an overview of six reasons why Aboriginal

women often critique feminism, including feminist tendencies to inaccurately

universalize male domination; tendencies to impose colonial concepts, such as

equality, onto Aboriginal societies; tendencies to reproduce white male patriarchal

practices and traditions; and tendencies to focus on gender oppression (37-40).

Because of the inadequacies of white feminist theory, which, as demonstrated by

St. Denis, does not include Aboriginal women, many nonwhite women do not find

feminist endeavors worthwhile. Therefore, white feminists cannot expect them to

join a feminist movement.

It is important to note that many women of color are so deterred by racism

within feminism that they refuse to identify as feminists‘ and instead choose to use

different terminology. African American feminist historian Evelyn Brooks

Higginbotham claims inAfrican-American Women's History and the Metalanguage

of Race‖ (1992) that, indeed, some black women scholars adopt the term womanist

instead of feminist in rejection of the genderbased dichotomies that lead to a false

homogenizing of women‖ (273). The fact that some women of color reject even the

terminology associated with white feminism indicates the gravity of the discord

between women across differences.

Scholarship by feminists of color repeatedly exposes the inadequacy of white

feminist theory. Nonetheless, there has been little apparent recognition of this

effort from white feminists. For example, hooks asserts in Revolutionary

Feminism‖ (1995) that, despite endless insistence from women of color, white

women continue to vehemently‖ resist the assertion that an antiracist agenda must

be at the core of our movement if there is ever to be solidarity between women and

effective coalitions that cross racial boundaries and unite us in common struggle‖

(101). The absence of antiracism is illustrated in most white feminist thought,

which can be demonstrated by the absence of solidarity and coalition between

diverse women in feminist action.

Women of color and white women often do not align themselves because of

the exclusion present in feminist theory. Carby claims that racism among white

women ―more than any other factor disrupts the recognition of common interests

of sisterhood‖ (―White Woman‖ 401). Feminist organization and mobilization is

complicated by the insufficiency of white feminist theory and the struggle for

white women to correct this flaw. Racism within the movement largely prevents

the sisterhood and community of feminists and obstructs feminist action.

The obstruction of community is not the only result of racism within feminist

theory. Feminists of color have, furthermore, according to Amos and Parmar,

sought to define the boundaries of our sisterhood with white feminists‖

(Challenging‖ 31). Because of the destructive racism displayed by many white

feminists, women of color have oftentimes chosen to separate themselves from

white feminism. However, white feminists fail to respect these boundaries.

Instead, in an attempt to organize across difference without a true

consideration of difference, white feminists have commonly tried to force

sisterhood and community onto nonwhite women without their consent. Mixed-

race feminist Jennifer Lisa Vest argues in her 2008 article The Internally

Globalized Body as Instigator: Crossing Borders, Crossing Races‖ that, Despite the

seductive nature of claims by some modern Northern global‘ feminists that we

ought to be able to identify women‘s issues which transcend all racial, cultural, and

national boundaries, little evidence exists that such a plan is viable or appealing to

any but the most privileged women‖ (76). Vest asserts that the history of European

colonization and global domination leave white folks feeling entitled to cross the

boundaries of others. This colonial legacy renders white feminists blind to borders

of any kind.

The ongoing efforts to ignore and invade nonwhite spaces are problematic.

Furthermore, lack of respect for feminist boundaries displays white feminist

racism. Vest claims, Being without borders is not the ideal... The eradication of

boundaries and borders is something only the powerful celebrate‖ (80). It is crucial

that white feminists develop an awareness of borders and the importance of those

borders, but this has not yet been realized. Overall, the exclusion and racism

characterized by white feminist theory results in failed attempts at cross-racial

organizing and coalition building, and thus causes ineffective and unsuccessful

conceptualizations of women‘s oppression and solutions.

In their racism towards women of color, white women oppress women. This

oppression is antithetical to feminist goals of equality, inclusion, and justice. As

earlier indicated, feminist theory seeks to end the oppression of women, yet

demonstrates flawed attempts to visualize this goal. These flaws are not trivial, but

indeed urgent, since they result in fragmented women‘s activist movements. While

women of color are oppressed by racism, white feminists are simultaneously

perpetuators of racism. In this sense, white feminist theory can be defined as an

oppressor of women of color. Their frequent reluctance to name themselves as

oppressors signifies their compliance within this role. Many white feminists fail to

name racism as a significant feminist concern and refuse to examine their own

racism, making a unified feminist movement difficult. Women across difference

cannot effectively organize a viable women‘s movement if they are actively

oppressing each other.

If a successful multiracial feminist activist movement is to become more

attainable, white feminist theory must take a broader approach to oppression than it

currently does. Feminist theory needs to acknowledge and respect other forms of

oppression, not sexism alone, if it is to be fruitful. Black feminist Barbara Smith in

the 1982 article ―Racism and Women‘s Studies‖ clearly explains why feminist

theory must evolve in order to be successful. She states: The reason racism is a

feminist issue is easily explained by the inherent definition of feminism. Feminism

is the political theory and practice that struggles to free all women: women of

color, working-class women, poor women, disabled women, lesbians, old women-

as well as white, economically privileged, heterosexual women. Anything less than

this vision of total freedom is not feminism, but merely female self-

aggrandizement. (49)

Because many women are affected by oppressions other than sexism, feminist

theory must be concerned with these issues, as well. Furthermore, because white

feminist racism prevents social change, it is necessarily a feminist issue.

Overall, white feminists routinely fail to conceptualize women‘s lives and

ultimately fail to theorize women‘s oppression and liberation. White feminist

racism is evidenced by disregard for women of color. Feminist theories written by

white feminists have, on the whole, excluded women of color and failed to account

for their needs. As outlined above, this is due to universalized white womanhood,

refusal to acknowledge differences among women, and reductionist tendencies that

fail to recognize nonwhite women‘s oppressions. What is more, because feminist

theory is intrinsically linked to feminist action, unsuccessful feminist theory leads

to unsuccessful feminist activity. Because of the exclusion and racism displayed by

the majority of white feminists, women of color often cannot rely on white feminist

theory, despite its supposed liberatory intentions for all women. Consequently,

women of color and white women rarely create community, solidarity, and

sisterhood. The inadequacies of most white feminist theory tend to thwart attempts

to establish a successful and inclusive feminist movement. Therefore, white

feminists cannot be satisfied with their current theoretical framework.

Chapter II: The Inclusion Illusion: A Solution That Does Not Solve

―What woman here is so enamoured of her own

oppression that she cannot see her heelprint upon

another woman‘s face?‖

-Audre Lorde, ―The Uses of Anger‖ (132)

As illustrated in chapter one, the established white feminist model does not

satisfy all women‘s needs, but only those of a select few. In this case, the women

who are included in the feminist discourse are those who are identified as white,

leaving women of color out of the theoretical framework that supposedly exists to

liberate them. White feminist theory, therefore, fails to actualize its goals.

Furthermore, white feminists display racist tendencies that obstruct feminist

solidarity and social change. Overall, because most white feminists refuse to

acknowledge and engage racism as a feminist problem, they have failed to

transform feminist theory and failed to transform themselves.

While plenty of scholars, especially nonwhite feminists, have suggested

solutions, white feminists have failed to eradicate white feminist racism. The most

popular solution offered is that feminism must give more attention and priority to

the experiences of racially and otherwise marginalized women. However, this add-

on‖ approach is an ineffective means of rectifying the problems I presented in

chapter one. In this chapter, I will explain why the addition of nonwhite women in

itself attempts to reform feminism, but fails to transform it. The add-on approach

does not transform white feminist theory because it does not decenter white women

from the theoretical discourse; further, it recenters white women, puts the

responsibility of solving the problem on women of color, and allows white women

to evade responsibility for white feminist racism. For these reasons, the add-on

approach results in an illusion of inclusion.

According to the proposed approach, feminist thought must incorporate

nonwhite women‘s voices into feminist discourse. Scholars who offer this solution

stress the need to investigate the experiences of women of color in feminist theory

in order to more fully understand women‘s oppression. While the proposal for

white feminists to regard a wider scope of perspectives is important and necessary

because diverse voices can no longer be ignored; feminism cannot rely on this

solution alone. Asian American feminist Mitsuye Yamada explains why the

addition of marginalized voices is not enough in Asian American Pacific American

Women and Feminism,‖ published in 1983. She claims:

Some of us feel that visibility through the feminist perspective is the only

logical step for us. However, this path is fraught with problems which we are

unable to solve among us, because in order to do so, we need the help and

cooperation of the white feminist leaders, the women who coordinate

programs, direct women‘s buildings, and edit women‘s publications

throughout the country. (71) Indeed, as demonstrated by Yamada, white

feminists are needed to help change feminism.

If women of color are to be truly included in feminist theory and action,

white feminists must broaden their vision to incorporate a diversity of women of

color‘s opinions, histories, and experiences. Failure to do so results in a limited

white perspective that is not representative of the real plurality in women‘s lives,

which, in turn, perpetuates white feminist racism. However, while the add-on tactic

is valuable, it is not a satisfying solution, as illustrated by numerous failed attempts

to implement it in white feminist theory and action. I will discuss several reasons

why this solution, as it is currently constructed, should not and cannot exist as a

sufficient solution to racism in white feminist theory.

The first reason that the addition of women of color to feminist theory is

insufficient is because it does not result in a transformation of white feminist

theory where white women are decentered and nonwhite women are

demarginalized. Instead, white feminists have merely resorted to an add-and-stir

type approach that does not take seriously the needs and issues of women of color.

The add-on inclusion of women of color in feminist theory does not necessitate

equal respect and concern for their perspectives. Although marginalized

perspectives may be included, white feminists are not necessarily required to listen

or respect them.

As evidence of the add-on solution‘s failure to transform white feminist

thought, some scholars use the newest and most contemporary expressions of

feminism, often described as Third Wave‖ feminism, to demonstrate the

continuation of disregard for women of color. Feminist scholar R. Claire Snyder

argues in the 2008 article What Is Third-Wave Feminism? A New Directions

Essay‖ that, despite important writings by feminists of color in the early 1980s like

This Bridge Called My Back and Sister Outsider, Third Wave feminism continues

to have a white, middle-class bias (181). Snyder comments on the 1999 text titled

The BUST Guide to the New Girl Order, edited by Marcelle Karp and Debbie

Stroller, which is often considered central to the Third Wave (182). Karp and

Stroller maintain that the voices in BUST express our own Girl Culturethat shared

set of female experiences that includes Barbies and blowjobs, sexism and

shoplifting, Vogue and vaginas‖ (qtd. in Snyder 181). While Karp and Stroller

presume that there is a shared female experience, Snyder notes that several of these

activities, such as playing with Barbie and reading Vogue, are more likely

experienced by white girls than girls of color

(181). Snyder‘s analysis illustrates that white women‘s experiences are still

centered and nonwhite women‘s experiences are still marginalized, indicating that

the inclusion of women of color in feminist thought does not necessarily transform

the discourse.

Chiefly, the add-on approach does not succeed in altering white feminist

thought. Adding women of color does not automatically negate disregard and

racism. Recalling Taylor‘s definition, ‗regard‘ requires respect, concern, goodwill,

and care, but the add-on strategy does not require these actions of white feminists.

Therefore, this solution does not genuinely resolve the white feminist tendency to

be dismissive. In fact, white women did not change their racist tendencies with the

implementation of this solution. The inclusion of women of color has instigated but

a trivial change in feminism as opposed to a true transformation. Despite an

actualization of this solution, evidence of racism and disregard persists in white

feminist thought, signifying the inadequacy of this approach.

For instance, the contemporary terminology used to describe the history of

feminist movements is arguably racist. Kimberly Springer explains in her 2002

article Third Wave Black Feminism?‖ that the wave‖ model excludes feminists of

color by obscuring the role of race in feminist history. According to Springer, the

fluctuations of feminist activity that the three waves represent recount the work of

white women but fail to account for the endeavors of women of color (1061). In

particular, she points out that if feminism‘s historical time line actually included

the antislavery, antilynching, and suffrage work of African-American, along with

American Indian women‘s gendered resistance,‖ the wave analogy would no longer

remain relevant (10612). In addition, the term Third Wave‖ itself dismisses race.

Springer argues that women of color used the term in the late 1980s to describe an

antiracist, women-of-color-led feminism for the coming decade,‖ but that Third

Wave feminism‖ is now used to describe something quite different (1063). Third

Wave feminism currently indicates a new generation of feminists who perpetuate

many of the same exclusionary attitudes and actions as previous generations of

white feminists, such as disregard for women of color in theory and praxis (1063).

Ultimately, as Springer states, women of color are largely ―drowned out by the

wave‖ (1061). In present-day feminist vocabulary and historical memory, evidence

of white feminist racism remains.

Several other feminists of color agree with the arguments put forth by

Snyder and Springer. Bhavnani explains the failed attempt to implement this plan

in the Introduction to Feminism and Race (2001) by asserting, ―Even when

women of colour were considered in mainstream feminist scholarship, it was

argued that this inclusion was merely an ‗add-on‘ and did not decentre white

women in feminist scholarship and practices, and thus avoided engaging with the

tricky question of how feminist endeavours might be transformed as a result of

such inclusion‖ (4). Even though feminist thought created a space for previously

silenced women to be included, it did not result in a transformation of feminist

theory wherein white women and women of color are mutually regarded and

respected. In fact, as Bhavnani asserts, white women remained in the spotlight of

dominant discourse and mainstream feminist theory remained virtually the same,

despite inclusion.

Typically, as recently argued by several feminists of color, disregard for

women of color is still present in feminism, despite an inclusion of difference.

Higginbotham points out in her 1992 article, Notwithstanding a few notable

exceptions, this new wave of feminist theorists finds little to say about

race....White feminist scholars pay hardly more than lip service to race as they

continue to analyze their own experience in ever more sophisticated forms‖

(Women‘s History‖ 251-252). Occasional exceptions to the otherwise pervasive

inattention to race by no means constitute a meaningful transformation in white

feminist thought. According to the observations of both Higginbotham and

Bhavnani, alike, the ‗add-on‘ theory has not caused white feminists to regard

women of color with respect, care, concern, and goodwill the way that a truly

satisfying solution should, even in the most recent Third Wave feminism.

In Theorizing Difference from Multiracial Feminism‖ (1996) Latina feminist

Maxine Baca Zinn and black feminist Bonnie Thorton Dill argue that, while

difference is recognized, it is not considered an important theoretical topic by white

feminists. According to Baca Zinn and

Dill, the add-on approach has resulted in more of a ―live and let live‖ attitude,

wherein feminist theorists include a diversity of voices but do not concern

themselves with their needs (323). Instead, white feminists continue to disregard

women of color, but are able to claim that their presence signifies a substantial

change in feminist theory and practice.

For an illustration of the inadequacy of the add-on approach and

contemporary evidence of white feminist racism, one can look to white Third

Wave scholarship. The book Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future,

for example, written by white Third Wave feminists Jennifer Baumgardner and

Amy Richards in 2000, is often cited as a prominent text of the Third Wave.

Baumgardner and Richards display use of the add-on approach by briefly

mentioning scholarship by women of color, but focusing mainly on the history and

issues of white women. In one instance, while presenting a history of American

feminism, they briefly note (all in one paragraph) that Native American societies

were traditionally egalitarian and quote Paula Gunn Allen‘s 1986 book The Sacred

Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions, which asserts that

oftentimes feminists problematically overlook the empowering womencentered

history of Indigenous North America women (69-70). Immediately, Baumgardner

and Richards go on to state, Now that we have acknowledged the red roots of white

feminism,‘ in Gunn Allen‘s term, we can turn our attention to the‗Seneca Falls

Five‘‖ (70). This statement suggests that paying momentary lip-service to nonwhite

women‘s history is satisfactory because it is included, although it is not deemed as

important as expanding on white women‘s history. The wording also implies that

the authors mention Indigenous women only because they were obligated to

acknowledge this historical reality as an inclusive add-on, not because they

sincerely regard it as critically connected and essential to feminist history at large.

Here, as indicated by their scholarship, Baumgardner and Richards consider

women of color to be marginal and separate from feminist discourse, while they

consider white women to be central to it. These influential Third Wave feminists

use the add-on approach, which merely gives an illusion of inclusion without a

transformation of their theoretical discourse that genuinely regards women of

color.

Additionally, white feminists routinely fail to decenter themselves with the

add-on solution because it causes them to subscribe to an additive approach to

women‘s oppression. Feminists of color urge white feminists to interrogate the

interconnectivity of women‘s identities in order to challenge the universalizing of

white womanhood and the exclusionary disregard of women of color by asserting

that a more effective approach to oppression is viewing identities and oppression as

interlocking. However, many white feminists subscribe to an additive approach

because they theorize identities as if they are merely piled upon another without

interaction. According to black feminist Patricia Hill Collins in her 1990 book

Black Feminist Thought, additive approaches are those starting with gender and

then adding on other variables such as age, sexual orientation, race, social class,

and religion‖ (222). Many white theorists, even when they do include nonwhite

women in feminist theory, fail to integrate intersectional analyses into their

understandings of oppression, and instead resort to an additive approach.

A consideration of major feminist organizations in America illustrates recent

usage of the additive approach. For example, The National Organization for

Women (NOW)‘s website, provides a list of its ―Top Priority Issues.‖ Out of six

issues, NOW identifies the latter three as ―Promoting Diversity/ Ending

Racism,Lesbian Rights,‖ and Economic Justice‖ (Key Issues). While it is

commendable that this organization considers these issues as the most important,

the separate categorization of each topic indicates that NOW considers inequalities

based on race, sexuality, and class as distinct concerns, detached from its other key

issues, which are listed first, such as Abortion Rights/ Reproductive

Issues,Violence Against Women, and Constitutional Equality‖ (Key Issues‖). Here,

NOW demonstrates its reliance on and promotion of the additive approach by

listing general issues relating to women‘s rights and gender equality, and then

adding issues that relate to other identities. Furthermore, by listing their priority

issues as separate concerns, NOW fails to critically explore the connections

between them. However, Collins and others argue that this approach is problematic

and misinterprets the reality of intersecting identities in women‘s lives (220).

According to many feminists of color, intersectional descriptions of social

location, which conceptualize all aspects of women‘s identities as interlocking

entities, are more accurate and effective than the additive approach used by

women‘s organizations such as NOW. Intersectionality recognizes that most

people are not affected by just one singular form of oppression because of the wide

range of identities that humans possess. In Bhavnani‘s 2000 article, Organic

Hybridity or Commodification of Hybridity? Comments on Mississippi Masala‖

she describes her own intersectionality by using the term hybridity‖ (188). She

asserts that all of the elements of my identity are not neatly related to each other,

but instead, act to irritate and collide with each other‖ (188). For example, a blind

working-class MTF26 transgender Korean lesbian is impacted by able-ism,

classism, transphobia, sexism, racism, and homophobia; yet, it would be difficult to

separate her identities and the oppression that they might cause her. Thus, feminists

of color have expressed the need to analyze oppression using an approach that

conceptualizes interlocking aspects of identity that result in a matrix or web of

intermeshing oppressions. Intersectional analyses account for what black feminist

Deborah K. King calls the multiplicative‖ effects of various isms in our lives, in her

1995 article Multiple Jeopardy, Multiple Consciosness: The Context of a Black

Feminist Ideology‖ indicating that each form of oppression interacts and intensifies

the others. Intersectional approaches do not make the mistake of reducing the cause

of oppression to one singular source (such as white supremacy or patriarchy or

capitalism), but instead recognize that all of these systems of domination are

inseparable, as are our identities.

In another example, Maxine Baca Zinn and other authors, in their 2000 book

Gender Through the Prism of Difference, describe the concept of intersectionality

by explaining that gender is organized and experienced differently when refracted

through the prism of sexual, racial/ethnic, social class, physical abilities, age, and

national citizenship differences‖ (1). By using this metaphor of a prism, feminist

analyses consider different identities interacting differently when they react with

each other, like light refracting through a prism. Alternately, King describes this

concept as multiple jeopardy‖ (297). King states that this term describes an

interactive model‖ that refers not only to several, simultaneous oppressions but to

the multiplicative relationships among them as well‖ (297). So, while there are

different names and metaphors used to describe the concept of intersectionality, all

of them expose the interconnectivity of identities that make up interconnected and

diverse oppressions.

For the most part, as noted earlier, white feminists tend to theorize without

attention to this concept of intersectionality by instead reducing the source of

women‘s oppression to gender. Within the reductionist framework, radical

feminists identify this system as patriarchy; however, patriarchy does not exist

within a vacuum, but is, in fact, connected to all other systems of domination such

as white supremacy, heterosexism, capitalism, and imperialism. Therefore, the

intersectional approach to conceptualizing identities leads to a different

understanding of oppressive systems as interlocking, as well. The add-on approach

to feminism does not require an exploration of the connections between patriarchy

and other oppressive power structures, such as white supremacy and capitalism.

Described by Collins as the matrix of domination,‖ this approach ―sees these

distinctive systems of oppression as being part of one overarching structure of

domination‖ (222). The matrix of domination is significant, states Collins, because

it fosters a paradigmatic shift of thinking inclusively about other oppressions‖

(225). It also ―opens up possibilities for a both/and conceptual stance, one in

which all groups possess varying amounts of penalty and privilege in one

historically created system‖ (225). The use of the matrix accounts for the

intersectionality in women‘s lives in ways that the reductionist and additive

approach of white feminist theory does not. The matrix of domination is useful in

visualizing connections between patriarchy and other oppressive power structures.

It is helpful in offering an alternate framework for the use of reductionist and

additive approaches in white feminist thought. However, the add-on solution does

not necessitate an understanding of intersectionality, and causes white feminists to

use additive theoretical approaches.

The second reason that the add-on solution is ineffective is it not only fails to

decenter white feminists, but actually recenters them. The add-on approach has

resulted in an inclusion of difference, but not a regard for difference. The illusion

of inclusion allows white feminists to maintain white feminist racism under the

guise of diversity within the movement. Because more women of color have been

included in feminist theory, white feminists are able to center themselves in

feminist theory and praxis with the assumption that feminism has achieved

diversity causing critical examinations of women‘s plurality to be no unnecessary.

Whereas white feminists may have complied with suggestions to incorporate more

voices into the dominant discourse, they often inaccurately assume that the

problem of racism has been solved and the work is complete. In other words,

adding nonwhite women to feminist scholarship subsequently allows Third Wave

feminists to believe that feminism has overcome its flaws, achieved its goals, and

consequently no longer needs to analyze racism within the movement since it is

thought to have been eradicated.

In order to illuminate the manifestation of this attitude in Third Wave

scholarship, it is useful to return to Baumgardner and Richards‘ Manifesta for

further exploration. The authors claim that the Second Wave in the 1960s and

1970s busted open the canon‖ for marginalized voices (76). They proclaim that

women of color have been publishing important feminist texts‖ that were circulated

widely at the start of the Second Wave‖ (77). Women of color were included in

feminist discourse and, therefore, The Third Wave was born into the diversity

realized by the latter part of the Second Wave‖ (77). To summarize, since

inclusion‘ had been realized‘ by the Second Wave, the Third Wave has already

achieved diversity.‘ Baumgardner and Richards imply that the realization of an

inclusive and antiracist agenda in feminist theory has already occurred. They make

the assumption that contemporary feminism succeeded in dealing with the old

problems such as racism within the movement. Baumgardner and Richards‘

recollection of feminist history exposes their attitude that racial equity has been

accomplished.

Overall, white Third Wave feminist thought scarcely identifies racism as an

unresolved feminist problem. Thus, white feminist issues are recentered because

white feminists are not required to concern themselves with issues of race, thus

allowing them to return to analyses that are void of attention to racial implications.

As an example, in a presentation entitled Manifesting Feminism‖ in 2010,

Baumgardner and Richards stated that the Second Wave focused on breaking

barriers but the main focus of the Third Wave, they claim, is struggling to answer

the question what does it mean to be in the space?‖ since the barriers are now gone.

Assuming that all women are now in positions that are free of barriers is clearly a

subscription to the idea that neither racism nor sexism affects women any longer.

Additionally, they state in their presentation that We already have many African

American scholars who are critiquing feminism and creating the philosophical and

political format that Third Wave takes.‖ They claim that because there are nonwhite

scholars who already‖ critique feminist theory, the Third Wave no longer struggles

with racism and exclusion.

Furthermore, with this statement, Baumgardner and Richards declare that the

presence of African Americans in feminism substantiates a satisfactory inclusion of

all women of color, which is problematic. First, this does not signify the inclusion

of those women of color who are not African American, thus discounting the

existence of many other people of color. This demonstrates Baumgardner and

Richards‘ failure to display concern for the exclusion of a multitude of nonwhite

groups. Next, the assumption that the concerns of one racial group represent the

concerns of all people of color is problematic because it lumps all nonwhites into a

monolithic category. This universalization of nonwhites denies the differences

between nonwhite groups, thereby disregarding the specificities and particularities

in the lives of various people of color. In the article Heteropatriarchy and the Three

Pillars of White Supremacy,‖ Indigenous feminist Andrea Smith argues that it is

inadequate to frame women/people of color‖ as a unified category (as Baumgardner

and Richards do) because it tends to presume that [nonwhite] communities have

been impacted by white supremacy in the same way‖ and that racism operates in a

singular fashion throughout different communities of color (66-7). However, this

framework is limited, as Smith explains, because, in reality, ―white supremacy is

constituted by separate and distinct, but still interrelated, logics‖ and thus racism is

enacted in a plurality of ways (67). For example, she suggests that black, Native,

and immigrant peoples are all uniquely situated and oppressed in American society

because of the discrete logics of Slavery/Capitalism,

Genocide/Capitalism, and Orientalism/War, respectively (67-8). Therefore, when

white feminists such as Baumgardner and Richards use the add-on approach to

regard the inclusion of one group of nonwhites as representative of the inclusion of

all nonwhites, they are ignoring the multifaceted historical realities and

contemporary experiences of people of color by misrepresenting them as a

monolithic group.

As demonstrated by Third Wave feminists such as Baumgardner and

Richards, the addon solution in feminist theory recenters white feminists because

they are able to analyze their positions white women without attention to the role

of race, since they believe that the inclusion of diverse voices indicates that racism

has been resolved. White feminist scholarship frequently maintains that the

inclusion approach was some kind of panacea, solving all of the race-related

problems in feminist thought. Many white feminists within the Third Wave,

especially, theorize with the presumption that the racism and disregard that

previously plagued feminism no longer exists. This, in turn, leads to white

feminists‘ denial of the current existence of racism, which allows them to return to

racist patterns of disregarding women of color. Nonwhite feminist critiques of the

add-on approach, along with an exploration of Third Wave feminist theory

demonstrate the failure of the add-on approach and the recentering of white

feminists.

Women of color are still regularly marginalized by white feminists, even

though they have now been included in feminist discourse. The add-on approach

has been used by white feminists as a way to reassert their normativity and

pathologize nonwhite women. As demonstrated by Baungardner, Richards, and

other Third Wavers, white feminists still tend to universalize womanhood by

generalizing about women‘s lives, but are now able to say that they no longer

exclude women of color. Baca Zinn and Thorton Dill (1996) argue that even in

purporting to accept difference, feminist pluralism often created a social reality that

reverts to universalizing women‖ (Theorizing Difference‖ 323). These scholars

argue that white women are still considered the norm, and thus are the center of

feminist analysis. Women of color are simply considered different and deviant

because they do not fit into the category of the universalized white woman that

white feminists still utilize.

In this way, I argue, Third Wave feminism subscribes to and reinforces a

post-racial ideology. In the 2004 Encyclopedia of Race and Ethnic Studies, Suki

Ali writes that there is no real agreement as to how best define‖ the term ―post-

race‖ (323). Some define post-race as a viewpoint that desires a termination of the

existence of race, others use post-race to refer to the inevitability of racelessness in

the future, and still others use post-race to illustrate a contemporary reality.

Academic scholars such as Paul Gilroy advance what is called post-race theory by

arguing for the eradication of race in pursuit of a future raceless society, which he

does in his 2000 book Against Race and his 1998 article ―Race Ends Here.‖

Conversely, David R. Roediger illustrates in Colored White (2002) that there was

an explosion of popular media in the 1990s asserting that American society will

soon become post-race in the 21st century (7). Roediger cites an article in The New

Republic called ―Race Over,‖ a New York Times article titled Race is Over,‖ and a

special issue of Time called The New Face of America,‖ which all argue that the

increasing racial and ethnic diversity in America indicates an end of racial

categorization (3-7).

However, many posit that post-race is neither a preferred ideal nor a

forthcoming development, but an existing reality of contemporary society.

Discussions surrounding the recent election of mixed-race President Barack

Obama, especially, provide evidence of this claim. In the 2008 and 2009, numerous

news sources published articles presenting the idea of a new American society that

is post-race, post-racial, and post-racism. Some examples include Does Obama‘s

Victory Signal the Dawn of Post-Race Politics?‖ in UCLA Today; Race, Post Race‖

in The LA Times; No Racism in Obama‘s Post Race America‖ in the Huffington

Post; and A New, Post Racial‘ Political Era in America‖ on NPR. The abundance

of attention to this topic in mainstream American culture demonstrates the popular

idea that post-race is a contemporary reality, and it is this specific definition of the

term that I use to connect mainstream ideology to white feminist thought.

President Obama‘s campaign and election was significant because this event

suggests that idea that a person of African descent becoming President of the

United States is evidence of racial equality. In this sense, post-race advances the

notion that issues of race are no longer a problem in contemporary American

society. In the 2008 article "Race Will Survive the Obama Phenomenon," Roediger

argues:

we hear often that race is almost spent as a social force in the United States,

eliminated by symbolic advances, demographic changes, and private

choices, if not by structural transformations or political struggles. Nowhere

is that argument more forcefully, or more contradictorily, made than in

analyses of Barack Obama's campaign for president. (B6)

Put simply, in accordance with popular post-racial attitudes, Obama‘s achievement

proves that black and brown people can achieve anything. Because there is person

of color in the White House, Americans somehow believe that racism no longer

exists. Arguably, this idea is similar to my earlier assertion of the illusion of

inclusion in feminist thought, whereby the addition of women of color in feminist

scholarship leads a number of feminists to believe that racism has ended.

The post-race assertion is that people of color were oppressed in the past, but

that racial oppression, discrimination, and subjugation are presently nonexistent.

The post-racial framework constructs racism as passé and advances the untrue idea

that one‘s race is no longer a substantial factor in one‘s life. Furthermore,

according to the post-racial framework, since race is no longer an issue, whites do

not have to concern themselves with it and can go back to concentrating on white

issues, thus, recentering whiteness. Despite their inaccuracies, post-race theories

are present in both mainstream thought and Third Wave feminist thought.

However, the election of a nonwhite president has not illustrated the

eradication of racism in America. In fact, I argue, it has intensified racism because

it no longer is seen as a social force. White antiracist scholar, Tim Wise, also

investigates post-racialism and the change in societal ideas about race. In his 2010

book entitled Colorblind: The Rise of Post-Racial Politics and the Retreat from

Racial Equity, Wise explores the consequences of President Obama's victory. He

claims that far from serving as evidence that racism had been defeated, [Obama's

election] might signal a mere shape-shifting of racism, from Racism 1.0 to Racism

2.0‖ (15). Wise denies the allegations that racism is extinct, but instead believes

that racism manifests itself in new and different ways.

According to the post-race paradigm, we live in a world that has abolished

differential treatment of peoples based on race and, therefore, everyone is equal

and should be treated as such. Consequently, American society has recently

subscribed to the rhetoric of ‗colorblindness‘ and race-neutrality,‘ alleging that, as

a post-race nation, we should be blind to skin color and neutral on issues of race.

Wise critiques the rise of post-racial liberalism, the current rhetoric of racial

transcendence, race- neutral public policy, and argues colorblindness not only fails

to remedy discrimination and racial inequity, it can actually make both problems

worse‖ (18). In his 2008 book White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a

Privileged Son, Wise, referring to the ideas of Julian Bond, asserts that

colorblindness is ineffective because to not see color is… to not see the

consequences of color‖ (21). While race continues to be a significant issue that is

indeed an enduring social force in American life, post-racial thought insists that

color has no consequence and should be ignored.

Post-race ideologies also have significant political implications. In her 1992

book, black legal scholar Patricia Williams argues in The Alchemy of Race and

Rights: Diary of a Law Professor, that post-racial ideology is especially pervasive

in American law. Williams asserts that because of the conception that America has

moved past race, colorblindness and raceneutrality have manifested themselves in

law and legal writing. Instead of addressing racism, Williams states, Race

neutrality in law has become the presumed antidote for race bias in real life‖ (48).

Like Wise, Williams asserts that racism still exists, but in different forms. Racist

acts are not considered racism even if it happens only to, or to large numbers of,

black people; as long as it's done with a smile, a handshake and a shrug; as long as

the phantom-word 'race' is never used" (49). Therefore, contemporary legal theory

develops with a disregard for contemporary racial implications. If we subscribe to

Paul Taylor‘s theory of disregard as a form of racism, then the denial of racism

exhibited by legal theory is in itself racist.

Like mainstream thought and legal discourse, feminism, particularly white

feminists of the Third Wave, subscribes to the idea that racial inequality is a thing

of the past, as illustrated by examples of Third Wave scholarship and its criticisms.

The act of incorporating women of color in feminist scholarship as a solution to the

divisive racism within feminist theory has facilitated feminist post-racism, in a

sense. Because white feminists attempted to meet the goal of adding nonwhite

women to the discourse, they believe that racial disparity no longer divides

feminist theory and activism. Therefore, the post-racial attitudes that resulted in the

add-on approach signify its inadequacy as a substantial solution.

The problem with the add-on approach, the illusion of inclusion, and post-

race feminism is that white feminists have not interacted with the addition of

diverse women in feminism. María Lugones‘ argument in On the Logic of Pluralist

Feminism‖ (1991) denotes the difference between the add-on approach used by

white feminists and the goal of white feminist transformation. Lugones states that

white feminists previously ignored difference, but Now white women recognize the

problem of difference. Whether they recognize difference is another matter‖ (38).

White women‘s mere acknowledgement that there is difference between women is

unsatisfactory. Instead, white women must alter their feminist ideology in response

to the knowledge of difference. Lugones‘ asserts that white women must take an

interactive recognition. She states, If the acknowledgement is noninteractive, the

knowledge that I want to see in feminist theorizing is missing‖ (38). Despite the

addition of women of color, many white women still do not recognize how the

lives of nonwhite women affect their own. Taking an interactive approach to

difference would require white feminists to change themselves and their theoretical

discourse as a result of their recognition with the plurality of women‘s voices made

possible by inclusion in feminism.

The third reason that the add-on solution is problematic is that it further

oppresses women of color. The overarching problem here is that white feminists

disregard nonwhite women; therefore, as the active agents in this case, white

women are the perpetrators of rendering women of color invisible and absent. Even

so, with this solution, white women do not take responsibility for solving the

problem that they themselves sustain. Instead, women of color are the ones who are

held accountable for rectifying the problem. This particular solution asks women of

color to insert themselves into feminist discussions so that white feminists can

become cognizant of nonwhite women‘s existence and so that racism is no longer a

defining characteristic in white feminist ideology. Women of color are responsible

for bridging gaps in white feminist theory for the sake of white feminists‘

understanding. In essence, the burden and responsibility of solving racism is placed

on feminists of color.

In 1984, Audre Lorde explained why this approach was unacceptable. She

asserted that this solution was, in reality, an oppressive approach that reproduces

the tactics of male supremacy (Sister Outsider 109). When white feminists use this

approach, either in history or in present day, they are simply employing an

extension of the master‘s tools.‘ She states:

Women of today are still being called upon to stretch across the gap of male

ignorance and to educate men as to our existence and our needs. This is an old and

primary tool of all oppressors to keep the oppressed occupied with the master‘s

concerns. Now we hear that it is the task of women of Color to educate white

women- in the face of tremendous resistance- as to our existence, our difference,

our relative roles in our joint survival. This is a diversion of energies and a tragic

repetition of racist patriarchal thought. (109) As demonstrated by Lorde, tasking

women of color with educating white women of their racism is a distracting,

inefficient, and unwanted request. Three decades after Lorde spoke out about this

problem, it still persists.

One example is a 2004 keynote presentation of Mary McRae, a black

woman, who addresses an audience of white women in ―How Do I Talk To You,

My White Sister? McRae explains that white women generally do not speak about

racism because they do not consider it to be their problem, while women of color

are expected to (4). In discussions, the topic of race stimulates anger and rage for

women of color, but white women are often scared, intimidated, or threatened by

these expressions and respond by shutting down, which results in a ―breakdown

in communication‖ (1). Consequently, women of color bear the burden of educating

white women about race ―without getting too angry‖ (4). She states that they are:

expected to find a way to contain our anger and discuss this topic in a way

that allows White women to hear it but not to experience the pain of our

anger and frustration around it. (4)

McRae explains that she often feels misunderstood, frustrated, rejected, and

discouraged after such encounters. And yet, she is repeatedly asked to speak at

conferences sponsored by white women (1). She suggests that ―Perhaps women

of color…take on the anger about race in the service of White women. Perhaps our

backs are the bridges [getting] walked over again and again—we perceive the

burden of dealing with race as one that is always on our backs‖ (4). Accordingly, as

demonstrated by Lorde and McRae, this approach harms women of color by

leaving them with the responsibility to deal with racism.

Ellen Pence is one white feminist who agrees with Lorde and McRae and

articulates the detriments of this solution. In her 1982 essay Racism A White

Issue,‖ Pence argues that, as the title implies, racism is a problem that whites

perpetuate and, consequently, a problem that whites must tackle. She uses the

historical example of slavery to illustrate this point by stating that slavery is a

white history. She then, to a white audience, asks the profound question: ―Why do

we call upon those who have suffered the injustice of that history to explain it to

us?‖ (46). Pence‘s example highlights the absurdity and insensitivity of such

requests.

Moreover, as a solution to racist exclusion within white feminist theory,

white feminists request that women of color join the conversation so that feminist

theory become more diverse and inclusive and so that white feminists are able to

better comprehend the experiences of nonwhite women and understand the

oppression that they face. Consequently, women of color are harmed in this

process. When the oppressor asks the oppressed to explain the oppression that she

has caused, the oppressed is potentially re-traumatized as she re-lives and recounts

the traumatic experience at the oppressor‘s request. Beyond the emotional tax that

this causes, it is also important to consider the time and energy that it requires. The

add-on approach requires that nonwhite women spend their time and energy

serving the needs and wants of white women instead of focusing on their own

needs and wants. Certainly, the implications of this approach

are troublesome. The idea that women of color must do the work of solving racism

within feminist theory is a harmful notion propagated by white feminist theory.

The fact that this solution intensifies the oppression of women of color indicates

that this is, indeed, an insufficient and problematic solution. In its current form,

because of the reasons I have just presented, this suggestion should not be

implemented.

Yet, the fourth flaw of the add-on solution, and arguably the most important,

is that it lacks a critical analysis of the underlying problem: white feminist racism.

That is, it allows white feminists to avoid a critical self-reflexive examination that

would thoroughly explore the issue of their ongoing disregard for women of color.

In The Pathology of Racism: A Conversation with Third World Women‖ (1983)

black feminist doris davenport asserts that, our limitations in dealing with this issue

is that we stay on the surface. We challenge the symptoms of the disease while

neglecting the causes‖ (85). In this statement, davenport likens the oppression of

women of color within feminism to a disease and argues that white women‘s

racism is the cause of the disease. With this approach alone, white feminist

scholars who theorize in oppressive ways are able to ignore and deny their own

participation in and contribution to racist power structures. Inviting marginalized

women to fill the voids in feminist theory and then assuming that racism within

feminist theory has been successfully eradicated is merely an evasion of

responsibility. Ultimately, it allows white feminists to avoid an investigation of

their own racism and avoid responsibility in rectifying the underlying problem.

This argument is not new, as it has been professed by countless feminists of

color. As Carby asserts, it is not a simple question of [women of color‘s] absence,

consequently the task is not one of rendering their visibility‖ (White Woman‖ 390).

The visibility of marginalized women is not enough to exist as a sufficient solution.

Beyond inclusion, Carby argues that white women must thoroughly interrogate

racism. She states, Black feminists have been, and still are, demanding that the

existence of racism must be acknowledged as a structuring feature of our

relationships with white women. Both feminist theory and practice have to

recognize that white women stand in a power relation as oppressors of black

women‖ (White Woman‖ 390). White women have failed to comprehend that their

theories and actions are oppressive to nonwhite women. Similar to the way that

white feminists continually disregard and disrespect the boundaries of feminists of

color, they continually avoid taking responsibility for racism because they deny

their own racism and its existence at large. If not evaded, the act of taking

responsibility would require white feminists to examine their own racial identities

and oppressive behaviors, as well as those identities and behaviors in society.

Likewise, Pence argues that this evasion of responsibility represents the

resistance of white feminists to adjust behavior and recognize racism. She asserts,

white women ignored the need to reexamine the traditional white rigid methods of

decision making, priority setting, and implementing decisions‖ (Racism‖ 46). It is

common, she explains, for white women to recognize the oppression of women of

color without ever understanding that they too are involved in racism. The

resistance of white women in considering their own racist attitudes and actions,

however, is not surpassed with the mere inclusion of nonwhite women in feminist

canon.

White feminists‘ failure to transform white feminist racism is demonstrated

by their incorrect application of interesectionality. I argue white feminists have

misinterpreted the suggestion by feminists of color to analyze identities as

interconnected entities because they do not consider both privilege and oppression,

and only regard intersectionality in terms of interlocking oppressions. If white

women were to apply intersectionality to their own lives, they would realize that

they are affected by both oppression and privilege: that is, they are oppressed by

their gender, but privileged by their race.

In sum, the add-on approach as a means of inclusion of women of color used

to eradicate white feminist racism is inadequate and problematic for several

reasons. First, this solution does not decenter white feminists, it fails to engender

concern and respect for those voices that have been added, and causes white

feminists to use an additive theoretical approach. Also, the implementation of this

solution demonstrates that it does not substantially alter white feminist thought.

Second, it actually recenters white feminists because it causes contemporary white

feminist theory, especially Third Wave rhetoric, to assume that the problem within

feminism has already been acknowledged, and, therefore, solved. Third, this

solution oppresses women of color by asking them to fix‘ white feminist disregard

and racism and puts the burden of responsibility onto women of color. Fourth, this

solution does not require white feminists to critically examine their intersectional

privilege and oppression. For these reasons, the adding and including approach is

clearly not adequate and should not be considered a viable solution for alleviating

white feminist racism.

White feminists must take an active role in exploring not only the

consequences of racism in the lives of women of color, but also the causes of

racism. The causation can be found in their own lives. Without an interrogation of

their own racial identities, there will be no substantial change within feminist

theory and practice. If white feminists were to truly regard the voices of women of

color, they would hear that they should explore the interconnectivity of women‘s

identities. As women, this means that they should critically interrogate how all

aspects of themselves intersect. As white women, they cannot ignore their racial

identities. Therefore, it is the exploration of whiteness, I argue, that we find more

effective strategies for improving feminist theories. Otherwise, feminists are

fruitlessly employing a solution that does not solve the problem.

Chapter III: Whiteness Ignored/ Whiteness Explored

―White is nothing. White is everything‖

– Chris J. Cuomo, ―King of Whiteness‖ (59)

As demonstrated, white feminist scholarship commonly exhibits racial

exclusivity, racist assumptions, and oppressive attitudes that ignore the

experiences, contributions, and realities of women of color, which results in a

failure to achieve feminist goals. I‘ve also illustrated the inadequacy of the add-on

approach that white feminists have attempted to use thus far to resolve this

problem, and the subsequent perpetuation of white feminist racism. Therefore,

white feminist scholars must approach the pressing issue of nonwhite women‘s

disregard in a different manner. Instead, white feminist theory must undertake this

endeavor by examining the implications of white feminist racism.

I argue that the bastion of white feminist racism can be attributed to the fact

that, in general, white feminists experience racial obliviousness wherein they are

not conscious of whiteness, which results from white normativity and dominance

in society, the social construction of whiteness, white privilege, and an

epistemology of ignorance. For this reason, in part, white feminist scholars have

not comprehensively prioritized the interrogation of whiteness as a significant

feminist issue. Because whiteness and racial privilege are ignored in feminist

theory, a multitude of complications arise, many of which were explored in

chapters one and two.

Because whiteness is a contributing factor to the urgent problem of white

feminist racism and is a concept that most white feminists do not consider, I find it

necessary to examine here. Therefore, in this chapter, I will give an overview of

how whiteness manifests itself in society, the social implications of whiteness, and

its role in oppression. Whiteness can be defined, generally, as a socially

constructed racial category for those of Anglo descent that is invisible to a great

extent, yet holds power in that it is the dominant race with privileges attached. To

clarify whiteness and its many nuances, I will discuss its social construction; its

systemic influence; its normativity, invisibility, and dominance; and its attached

privileges. I explore whiteness in general society in this chapter because I believe it

to be a beneficial gateway for exposing the negative influence of whiteness on

white feminist thought.

To begin, race is a socially constructed concept and whiteness, as a racial

category, is also socially constructed. In other words, racial categories are not

defined by any innate characteristic, but instead created by social attitudes.

Therefore, race is not a biological, essential, or factual entity; alternately, race is a

notion fabricated by cultural and societal conceptions. The social construction of

race, therefore, categorizes people based on physical characteristics and bodily

appearance, such as skin, hair, and eye color, body shape, and hair texture.

Consequently, the social construction of race also establishes the white, or

Caucasian, race based on a set of physical characteristics (such as fair hair and

skin) that are typically associated with Anglo peoples. Evidence of the social

construction of race is provided by the malleability of racial classifications over

time, as illustrated by the history of immigration in America the reracializations of

groups such as the Irish and Italians.

Whiteness is embodied by whites, constructed by society to serve as a racial

identifier. But a more in-depth investigation of whiteness reveals that it is more

than simply a racial marker. The implications of the social construction of race

suggest that race is constituted as a dichotomy between whites and nonwhites. The

notion of race exists as a necessary distinction between these two separate racial

categories. Within the racial binary, whiteness and brownness are codependent

concepts. They are necessarily inter-reliant, needing each other to define

themselves against the other.

Society constructs the interconnected racial binary in order to enforce white

dominance. White law professor Martha R. Mahoney argues in ―Racial

Construction and Women as Differentiated Actors‖ (1997) that race is ―a concept

having no natural truth, no truth separate from historical development, and possibly

no truth comprehensible apart from domination‖ (305). She claims that race as a

socially constructed concept is partly about culture and partly about skin color, but

insistently about domination‖ (305). In reality, then, the idea of race, while socially

constructed to differentiate physically-different groups, can be conceptualized as a

hierarchy of power between groups.

Within the racial hierarchy, white is constructed as the superior group and

nonwhite is constructed as the inferior group, composed of all people of color who

are not identified as white. The racial power dynamic of white vs. nonwhite exists

as a justification for white domination and nonwhite subordination. Black scholar

Michael Eric Dyson argues in his 2006 work Hubris and Hue: White Pride‖ that

many people of color see whiteness as existing for one purpose only: to contain,

control, and at times, destroy black identity and pride‖ (49). Dyson goes on to state,

Ironically, the fate of whiteness was tied to blackness; the dominant group was

symbolically dependent on a culture it sought to dominate‖ (49). Therefore, as

interrelated constructions, the dominance of whiteness is sustained only by the

corollary oppression of nonwhites as a subordinate group.

Whiteness is constructed, then, as a dominating force in society. It is useful

to use the term ‗white supremacy‘ to signify the system that enforces and

maintains the racial hierarchy. Black philosopher Charles W. Mills defines white

supremacy in The Racial Contract (1997) as the system of domination by which

white people have historically ruled over and, in certain important ways, continue

to rule over nonwhite people‖ (1-2). The system of white supremacy upholds the

superiority of whiteness in several ways, including white normativity and

invisibility.

The dominance of whiteness is maintained because white racial identity is

normalized. That is, whites regard themselves and their experiences as common,

standard, and conventional. All things related to whiteness, including culture,

experiences, and beliefs are considered by whites to be normal. They believe that

their race and its implications need not be investigated because there is nothing

about whiteness to investigate.

The normalization of whiteness causes whites to assume that the experiences

specific to white people are normal, natural, and neutral. In The Social

Construction of Whiteness‖ Mahoney states, What we ourselves do and think does

not appear to us to be culture,‘ but rather appears to be the definition of what is

normal and neutral, like the air we breathe, transparent from our perspective‖ (331).

All things white, therefore, are constructed and defined as ordinary and superior,

and whites perceive themselves as normal and superior, as well.

Additionally, normalized whiteness leads to the assumption that white

experiences are not racial. Because whiteness is considered the norm, white is not

perceived as a race the way that others, such as Black and Asian, are. Race and its

implications are only considered when in reference to nonwhites. The experiences

of people of color are raced, yet the experiences of white people are not.

The experiences of people of color are considered to be racialized, therefore

causing nonwhite cultural experiences to be othered.‘ According to Mahoney

White use of the term race‘ is based on definitions of the other‘ which imply a

normal, neutral, objective, culture-less stance towards whiteness‖ (305). In

comparison to the experiences of people of color, who are defined by their race,

whites assume that their experiences are not racial, not cultural, and essentially

normal. Thus, whiteness is not only normalized, it is also centralized whereas

brownness is marginalized. Hence, in society, whiteness is constructed as the

norm‘ and brownness is constructed as the other,‘ which are codependent concepts.

Consequently, whiteness is normal, dominant, and centered, whereas brownness is

othered,‘ subordinate, and marginalized. The center‘s existence, by definition,

relies upon the margin.

Because it is the norm and the center, whiteness goes unseen and unnoticed,

yet the race of nonwhites, as the marginalized ‗other‘ are visible. While white is

indeed a racial category, the normalization of whiteness causes those in this

category to be oblivious to it. Whites are generally unaware that whiteness, as a

racial concept, exists. To reiterate Mahoney, whiteness is similar to the air we

breathe in that we are surrounded by it, but are not conscious of its presence.

Barbara J. Flagg calls white people‘s ignorance of whiteness the transparency

phenomenon‖ in her article Was Blind, but Now I See‘: White Race Consciousness

and the Requirement of Discriminatory Intent‖ (629). She asserts, The most striking

characteristic of whites‘ consciousness of whiteness is that most of the time we

don‘t have any‖ (629). Whiteness is transparent to whites, causing them to be

unconscious of their own racial identities.

Similar to the comparison of whiteness to air, Tim Wise argues that to be

white‘ does not mean anything to whites, much like water does not mean anything

to a fish. Wise claims that the question What does it mean to be white?‖ is not often

asked because it is mostly unnecessary (White Like Me 2). Whites suppose that this

question is pointless because, as Wise says, ―Being a member of the majority, the

dominant group, allows one to ignore how race shapes one‘s life‖ (2). Whiteness is

unspoken and taken for granted as an inconsequential aspect of one‘s life. As an

identity that is assumed to have no influence or significance to the lives of white

people, whiteness is overlooked.

The invisibility of whiteness, therefore, allows the dominance of whiteness

and the system of white supremacy to go unnoticed and unquestioned. Whiteness

contains power, largely without resistance because it is normalized and transparent,

and, as the dominant and invisible culture, uses its power and authority to define

the terms and conditions of race. When the dominance of whiteness remains

uncontested and unchallenged, it is able to covertly produce and maintain

hegemonic ideologies not only about race, but every aspect of society.

White ideologies are hegemonic because they are dominant, authoritative,

and pervasive. While whites believe that whiteness is normal and inconsequential,

in reality, whiteness is responsible for creating a hegemony that creates a white-

centered worldview. Ruth Frankenberg explains that there are significant

implications and influences of whiteness. She asserts in White Women, Race

Matters: The Social Construction of Whiteness‖ that Fundamentally a relational

category, whiteness does have content inasmuch as it generates norms, ways of

understanding history, ways of thinking about self and other, and even ways of

thinking about the notion of culture itself‖ (633). Whiteness provides a framework

for viewing the world, and because it is socially constructed to exist as a source of

dominance, white understandings become universal understandings, causing a

white norm and white hegemony.

Mainly, white hegemony reinforces whiteness as the normal and superior

group, causing whiteness to be the standard or background that we use as a

comparison, much like the control group in a research study. Normalized whiteness

is the dominant template of identity‖ according to Dyson (47). Further, Dyson

argues, White ways of speaking, thinking, and acting are the unerring standard of

human achievement‖ (47). Whiteness, as the prototype of humankind, is valued,

whereas brownness is devalued because it is seen as a deviation from the model

identity. The consequences of whiteness permeate and, in fact, structure society,

even while they go largely unnoticed and unspoken. Mills‘ The Racial Contract,

for example, argues that whiteness has shaped institutions, economics, politics,

morals, and spaces, both in America and worldwide. Particularly, white supremacy

reasserts white dominance and, thus, nonwhite inferiority, through hegemonic

ideologies.

Furthermore, as a framework and lens for viewing the world, whiteness is

one determinant that structures how society at large perceives reality. Wise argues

that whiteness as the dominant perspective is able to become ―perspectivism,‖

which is the elevation of the majority viewpoint to the status of unquestioned and

unquestionable truth‖ (White Like Me 60). As the producer of ‗truth,‘ white

dominance is able to create ideas that empower whiteness and disempower

otherness. The hegemony of whiteness is therefore a system of power based on the

stealthy maintenance and control of race and racial inequality. Hence, whiteness

can be defined as a systemic arrangement of racist oppression, upholding the power

of white supremacy and the hierarchical construction of racial categories.

Government and law, especially, are influenced by the white hegemony. The

transparency of whiteness to the white consciousness has a major impact on law-

making and legal practice. Flagg states, Transparency often is the mechanism

through which white decisionmakers who disavow white supremacy impose white

norms‖ (Was Blind‖ 629). She goes on to argue that when government imposes

transparently white norms it participates actively in the maintenance of white

supremacy‖ (630). Because whiteness creates a dominant worldview that whites do

not see, it is possible for whites to support white supremacy without their

awareness simply by acting in ways that they perceive as normal and neutral.

These actions, however normal and neutral they are assumed to be, are in fact

racialized because they are guided by whiteness and white norms. Further, when

white perspectives are taken as normal perspectives, they are used as the standard

for everyone to follow, even though they do not account for nonwhite perspectives.

Evidently, the invisibility, dominance, and hegemony of whiteness have significant

consequences, ranging from individual perceptions to social attitudes to

governmental sanctions.

Thus, white normativity results in the invisibility of whiteness and leads to

whites‘ unconsciousness of whiteness. In turn, whites (and those in positions of

power, especially) implement white norms on society unknowingly, causing a

white hegemonic framework and the universalization of white truths. White

hegemony, subsequently, upholds white supremacy through its authoritative

perspectivism and the dominance of whiteness. It is in this cyclical manner that

whiteness sustains white supremacy.

Furthermore, the normativity and invisibility of whiteness facilitates racism.

Constructed as universal truths through perspectivism, white norms are imposed on

society in general. The standards for all people, then, are determined by whiteness.

Whereas whites are regarded in this paradigm, nonwhites are disregarded, and, as

we know, disregard is an implicit form of racism. As an implicit process, all of this

happens as though whiteness were not involved. So, similar to the invisibility of

whiteness, the racialized structure of society goes unrecognized and white

supremacy operates covertly, allowing whites to act in racist ways unknowingly.

How, though, do whites act in racist ways without knowing it? Whites

perpetuate racism and maintain the system of white supremacy through ignorance,

along with moral and cognitive dysfunctions, which allow white people to think

and act in oppressive ways while they believe that they are, in fact, thinking and

acting in fair and reasonable ways. For whites, being ignorant of reality allows

them to deny the existence of white supremacy and overlook racism. Mills explains

some of the specific mechanisms and thinking errors that cause whites to remain

ignorant and justify the exploitation of people of color. Mills argues that whites

live in an invented delusional world, a racial fantasyland‖ where they misinterpret

the world‖ and see the world wrongly‖ (The Racial Contract 18). In other words,

whites‘ perceptions are not always consistent with reality.

As a result, whites both believe in and perpetuate white mythologies‖ (Mills

18). Therefore, in a racial hierarchy where white perspectives are considered

authority, frequently, whites are taught lies about reality, trust in those lies,

consider them to be universal Truths, and then disseminate those lies onto others as

knowledge. Mills asserts that constructions of whiteness are rooted in an inverted

epistemology, an epistemology of ignorance” (18); in other words, whiteness is

necessitated by distorted comprehensions, backwards understandings, and (strange

as it sounds) a knowledge that is defined by a lack of knowledge Basically, the

racialized structure of our society conditions whites to be ignorant of reality, and

especially racial realities.. In White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,‖

white feminist Peggy McIntosh describes her personal experience as a white

woman and notes that My schooling gave me no training in seeing myself as an

oppressor, as an unfairly advantaged person or as a participant in a damaged

culture.‖ (188). McIntosh believes that whites are carefully taught not to recognize

implications of race.

This happens, in part, for example, because white hegemonic ideologies

disseminate a distorted version of reality through conceptions of history. Untrue

accounts of history are advanced by white authorities through such avenues as

media and public education. In normalized version of history, white people are

generally depicted as benevolent heroes, despite the violent reality of their

responsibility of slavery, domination, and colonization; people of color, on the

other hand, are barely, if at all, regarded as active agents in American history.

White feminist author Inga Muscio provides a useful summary of American

notions of history in Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Devil when she states, At its

very, very, very best, U.S. history is an unimaginative and superficial saga, with a

beginning, middle, and end, as told by the victors of history‘s present telling‖ (13).

History, then, is a fine example of what Mills calls a white mythology‖ or fantasy,

which advances a falsified version of (white) history and, ultimately, perpetuates

white ignorance.

Whites remain ignorant because they suffer from both psychological

dysfunction and moral distortions that allows them to perpetuate racism. According

to Mills, white misunderstanding, misrepresentation, evasion, and self-deception

on matters related to race are among the most pervasive mental phenomena of the

past few hundred years‖ [emphasis in original] (19). The psychological errors that

render whites incognizant of racial realities allow them to act in immoral (racist

and oppressive) ways while imaging that they are upstanding citizens.

So, in addition to cognitive functioning, whiteness also shapes white

morality and moral concern. Mills argues that white morality is distorted because

of a racialized moral psychology‖ [emphasis in original] (93). He claims:

Whites will…act in racist ways while thinking of themselves as acting

morally. In other words, they will experience genuine cognitive difficulties

in recognizing certain behavior patterns as racist, so that quite apart from

questions of motivation and bad faith they will be morally handicapped

simply from the conceptual point of view in seeing and doing the right thing.

[emphasis in original] (93)

Because of many whites‘ stunted cognition, they struggle to accurately

comprehend the reality of their world, which allows most of them to function

without guilt and deny responsibility for racial oppression. Without these

mechanisms, white people would be able to cognitively understand that racism is

immoral, although many whites surely do but often experience feelings of guilt

upon realization of racial realities. Thus, for the most part, the racial hierarchy has

created a partitioned moral concern in which whites are allowed the capacity to

have empathy for other whites, but nonwhites are excluded from the racialized

boundaries of moral values.

White ignorance is a way for whites to act in racist ways without knowing,

and therefore, is a necessary white supremacist tool used for racial domination. As

Mills argues, it is not that whites are living in denial by chance. Accordingly, white

racial incognizance and distorted morality are intentional and racial ignorance

towards racial realities is deliberate, used as a way to justify treating nonwhites as

inferior. Taking a historical approach, Mills claims that whites suffer from

cognitive and moral dysfunctions that are tied to a history of colonialism. In fact,

he argues that psychological dissonance is ―required for conquest, colonization,

and enslavement‖ (19). If whites are conditioned to believe that they are superior

and all others are inferior, whites can morally allow themselves to exploit people of

color, both historically and contemporarily.

Subsequently, whites are oppressive and racist without their realization.

Dysfunctional cognizance and morality, while existing within individuals on a

personal level, has widespread influences on dominant thought processes making it

consequently systematic, as well. Therefore, the system of white supremacy

continues functioning under the radar because white people (those in the dominant

and powerful group) are unconscious to the fact that it even exists.

It is not only Mills who describes the phenomenon of white incognizance

and its effect on systemic racism. Joyce E. King describes the racist tendencies of

many whites as a form of racism that tacitly accepts dominant white norms and

privileges,‖ which she calls dysconscious racism,‖ in her aptly titled article

Dysconscious Racism: Ideology, Identity, and Miseducation‖ (128). King explains

that whites are not completely unconscious of racism; that is, they don‘t have a

complete absence of racial consciousness. Instead, whites have an impaired or

distorted conscious in that they are uncritical when it comes to racial matters and

social inequity. Dysconscious racism, therefore, might be described as the opposite

of a critical consciousness that challenges culturally sanctioned assumptions,

myths, and beliefs‖ regarding race (128). King argues, like Wise and others, that

dysconscious racism is a new manifestation and expression of racism, shifted and

transformed in a post-civil rights era (128).

Similar to Patricia Williams‘ demonstration of the detriments of post-racial

beliefs in law, as presented in chapter two, Flagg also discusses the racialized

implications of law, this time referring to the systemic consequences of whiteness

and white supremacy as illustrated by white dysconscious racism. Flagg argues that

race-neutrality in law causes a new manifestation of discriminatory racism.

According to Flagg, white norms and the transparency of whiteness causes a

unique form of unconscious discrimination‖ (630). Discriminatory intent is a

contestable issue, Flagg argues, and views on intent are highly racialized. She

states, White people tend to view intent as an essential element of racial harm;

nonwhites do not‖ (630). Whites generally are largely concerned with defining

racist actions by the motives or intentions of the perpetrator,‖ while people of color

are less likely to care whether there was specific intention to be purposefully racist

(630). Flagg notes that this displays whites‘ complacency in the racial status quo.

Subsequently, subscription to race-neutrality and inclination towards the

discriminatory intent rule demonstrate whites‘ complacency in maintaining white

supremacy as a dominating system of power in society. The idea of post-racism

intensifies racism because of the denial of racial implications. We can see

manifestations of white ignorance in dysconscious racism, unconscious

discrimination, and dysfunctional morality and cognition that whites display

towards people of color, all the while proclaiming a non-racist stance by

subscribing to colorblind and post-racial ideologies.

While it may seem as though whites are disadvantaged by ignorance,

psychological dysfunction, and moral distortion, on the contrary, whites receive

immeasurable benefits simply because of their whiteness. Therefore, another

consequence of whiteness is the systematic conference of privilege given to whites.

Racial privilege, which can be described as the advantages and benefits given to

whites, proves to be one of the central components of whiteness. While racism is

easier to identify in society (similar to the race of the nonwhite other‘), privilege is

not as visible (similar to the white racial category). Like whiteness itself, white

privilege is unnoticed by those who receive it, yet is one of the normalized aspects

of society that creates and maintains a racial hierarchy. Correspondingly, privilege

and oppression are reliant concepts; however, white privilege is not as readily

discussed as it‘s opposite.

McIntosh describes white privilege as a corollary aspect of racism. She

asserts, As a white person, I realized that I had been taught about racism as

something which puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one

of its corollary aspects, white privilege, which puts me at an advantage‖ (White

Privilege‖ 188). Similarly, white privilege, as defined by Wise, is the flipside of

discrimination against persons of color‖ (White Like Me xi). Wise also makes the

comparison between the ―psychic tax of color in this culture and the psychic

subsidy that is whiteness‖ (54). In this sense, oppression might be viewed as a tax,

something that is taken away from someone, while privilege can be seen as a

subsidy, or something that is given to someone.

McIntosh goes on to provide a more detailed definition of privilege, which

she likens to an invisible knapsack. She describes white privilege as:

an invisible package of unearned assets which I can count on cashing in each

day, but about which I was meant‘ to remain oblivious. White privilege is

like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports,

codebooks, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks. (188)

While white individuals are socialized to not think about race and are often

incognizant of their racial identity, whiteness bestows upon them many unearned

benefits and opportunities that people of color do not receive.

Racial privilege comes in many different forms and the advantages of

whiteness are manifold. Wise explains that white identities allow whites to have a

sense of legitimacy and belonging. Whites are privileged in that they rarely, if ever,

have to prove ourselves deserving of our presence‖ (Wise 3). White privileges

include opportunity, access, authority, and comfort. Moreover, as Wise explains:

These privileges have both material components, such as better job

opportunities, better schooling, and better housing availability, as well as

psychological components, not the least of which is simply having one less

thing to constantly worry about during the day. To be white is to be free of

the daily burden of constantly having to disprove negative stereotypes. (xi)

Racial privilege affords whites physical, social, economic, and emotional

advantages. Overall, white experiences are characterized largely by the privileges

that they receive.

For example, white privilege allows whites to feel the comfort of belonging

to the racial group that is considered normal. The consequences of white

normativity facilitate this privilege because whites who internalize the norms and

schemas of whites do not suffer, but nonwhites who internalize white normativity

are negatively affected by it. While many people of color actively and vehemently

reject whiteness and its supposed superiority and normativity, others subscribe to

it. White supremacy is powerful enough to charm even those who are its victims.

There are several avenues through which whiteness pervades nonwhite cognition

and morality. Dyson contends that the dominance of whiteness causes people of

color (he refers to blacks in particular) to believe the alleged myth of white

superiority. In turn, they believe the corollary allegation that blackness or browness

is inferior, despite its evidence on their own skin.

Dyson states:

perhaps the greatest damage of white pride flares in the black psyche when

black folk spurn self-respect and sadly embrace a seductive self-loathing.

White pride is most effective when it finds expression in black voices. (54)

In general, whiteness privileges whites with a sense of pride and superiority that,

by the same token, disadvantages nonwhites with a sense of inferiority. As argued

by Dyson, the idea that whiteness is better‘ is manifested in nonwhite minds when

racism is internalized. As an example, he cites the adage white water is wetter‖ to

denote the common conception of white superiority apparent even today (54). As

this example demonstrates, white normativity privileges whites because they

receive societal messages that their race is normal and superior, while nonwhites

internalize messages that they are deviant and inferior.

Like whiteness, privilege is unseen by those who possess it, and white

privilege is one of the social realities that whites are unconscious of. Stephanie M.

Wildman and Adrienne D. Davis state in Making Systems of Privilege Visible‖ that

Privilege is not visible to its holder; it is merely there, a part of the world, a way of

life, simply the way things are‖ (316). Thus, white privilege is also subject to the

transparency phenomenon, unrecognized by whites as a norm, or considered a

universal reality of life.

One specific component of white privilege is the ability to ignore race and its

implications, which is also connected the idea of dysconscious racism. Trina Grillo

and Stephanie M. Wildman in Obscuring the Importance of Race: The Implication

of Making

Comparisons between Racism and Sexism (or Other Isms)‖ argue that ignoring race

and its resulting privilege or oppression is in itself a privilege. They state:

To people of color, who are the victims of racism/white supremacy, race is a

filter through which they see the world. Whites do not look at the world

through this filter of racial awareness, even though they also constitute a

race. This privilege to ignore their race gives whites a societal advantage

distinct from any received from the existence of discriminatory racism. (45)

Beyond the fact that whites do not experience discrimination on the basis of their

race, whites are advantaged because they are socialized to be ignorant of racial

matters. Whiteness provides the societal advantage of emotional and psychological

comfort to not worry or think about racism.

Furthermore, the disregard for racism and racial matters also constitutes as

racism; thus, white privilege, and the privilege to ignore race facilitates white

racism. As South Asian transnational feminist Chandra Mohanty states in Under

Western Eyes‘ Revisited: Feminist Solidarity through Anticapitalist Struggles,

privilege nurtures blindness‖ (79). Basically, white privilege causes an ignorance of

privilege. If privilege nurtures ignorance, ignorance fosters disregard, and

disregard necessitates racism, then it can be reasoned that privilege maintains

racism. And, as illustrated up to this point, it is not only this logic that

demonstrates the racism of those with racial privilege.

Ultimately, whiteness is powerful and pervasive, yet invisible. Racial

categories are social constructions, which means that they are not real, but

nevertheless have real life implications. As the dominant identity in a racial

hierarchy, white identities are normalized and white ideas are hegemonic. Despite

the racialized organization of our society, whites are inhibited by cognitive and

moral dysfunctions that result in ignorance of white supremacy‘s oppressive

consequences. Consequently, the system of white supremacy privileges whites and

oppresses nonwhites. Because of its transparency, along with the benefits it affords

to those in power, whiteness is unnoticed and unopposed by those who remain

ignorant and unconscious of its oppressive influence.

The effects of whiteness are personal, cultural, and structural. Especially

when using Frankenberg‘s definition of whiteness as a framework for

understanding the world, whiteness can clearly be understood as a systemic

phenomenon. White supremacy, as a system of domination that perpetuates racism,

is upheld by the dominance and invisibility of whiteness. Consequently, if

whiteness was challenged, white supremacy would be challenged as well.

However, whiteness remains ignored by whites in both mainstream culture and

feminist scholarship. The negligence of whiteness results in grave consequences,

such as the perpetuation of racial subjugation, oppression, and domination.

Primarily, leaving white culture intact and unexamined upholds white supremacy

by allowing hegemonic ideologies to remain unquestioned. An exploration of

whiteness exposes many of its hidden intricacies and covert manifestations in

society. As a necessary component of racism, understanding whiteness can greatly

inform the causes and solutions for not only mainstream racism, but white feminist

racism, as well.

Feminist thought is a product of society, written and produced by and about

those who exist within power systems. Therefore, feminist theory is formulated in

the context of not only a patriarchal society, but a white supremacist society that

simultaneously creates and is created by whiteness. Overall, whiteness remains

mostly unchallenged, especially within mainstream feminist theory. But because

white hegemony and supremacy are systemic in nature, they influence every aspect

of society.

As demonstrated, feminism is not free from racist influence. On the contrary,

white feminist thought is characterized by racist influence and white dominance.

To highlight this pervasive tendency within mainstream feminism, it is useful to

note Amos and Parmar‘s appropriate term ―white feminist supremacy‖

(Challenging‖ 20). Two major flaws of mainstream feminist theory are its

assumption that whiteness has no significance in women‘s lives and the reluctance

to critically interrogate whiteness. These two insufficiencies are a clear indication

of the reality of white feminist supremacy. For the most part, because it rarely

challenges whiteness, white feminist theory follows the societal pattern of ignoring

and remaining complacent with white cultural dominance.

However, white feminists can unlearn racism, overcome white ignorance,

and develop an ability to produce inclusive feminist theories. To make this

possible, it is vital for them to recognize, comprehend, and analyze whiteness,

privilege, and white supremacy. To be inclusive and overcome conscious or

unconscious racist tendencies, white feminists must become aware of the privileges

that they receive on the basis of their whiteness, and understand how their tacit

participation in a system of privilege and oppression, in fact, perpetuates

oppressive white supremacist systems of racism.

Chapter IV: Critical White Studies: (Mis)Informing Feminist Theory

―When race politics are the issue, it is one of the rare moments

when white men prick up their ears to hear what black men have to

say.

No one wants to interrupt those moments of interracial

homo-social patriarchal bonding to hear women speak‖

-bell hooks, Introduction: Race Talk‖ (2)

As displayed in the last chapter, whiteness is an important concept that

deserves attention because of its significant influence on society. In feminist

theory, an interrogation of whiteness can yield an understanding of white feminist

racism and white women‘s involvement in racist structures. Because whiteness has

not been sufficiently explored in feminist thought, white feminists disregard their

participation and complacency within the system of white supremacy. Despite the

transparency of whiteness and the contemporary post-racial climate that

encourages and facilitates racial silence, some scholars have been disrupting this

silence by analyzing whiteness through the discourse of critical white studies, or

whiteness studies. Therefore, I assert that critical white studies can potentially

inform white feminist thought. However, while critical white studies provides a

model for interrogating whiteness that is valuable to feminism, I argue that it is not

a sufficient framework to understand the intersectional nature of women‘s

oppression.

Critical white studies is valuable because scholars in this field examine white

identities and the transparencies of whiteness. In the introduction of Critical White

Studies: Looking Behind the Mirror, Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic define

critical white studies as ―an emerging body of scholarship that analyzes what it

means to be white‖ (xvii). They contend that critical white studies, as the next step

in critical race theory, focuses on understanding race, racism, power, and society

(xviii). As opposed to other critical interrogations of inequality that focus on the

results of oppression, critical white studies focuses on whiteness as the cause of

racial oppression. As an emerging field, only recently have scholars begun to

contribute vital insight to this discourse.

One problem is that the critical white framework lacks a feminist lens. Many

scholars who address racism and whiteness do so without attention to the

implications of gender. Critical white studies seeks to investigate whiteness, but

does not account for its intersections with gender, class, and/or other identities.

Further, while many feminists have contributed to critical white studies, the

discourse tends to be male-dominated and androcentric in its analyses. In this

chapter, I provide several examples of recent critical white scholarship and dissect

them in order to illustrate the problematic framework to which they subscribe.

Through my investigations, I hope to display some reasons why critical white

studies is not satisfactory in its interrogation of oppression, and thus, why

feminism cannot apply these theories as they currently stand.

Specifically, critical white studies regularly reduces the cause of oppression

to white supremacy. Like white feminist theory‘s subscription to the reductionist

approach by viewing patriarchy as the root of all oppression, reductionism in

critical white studies is problematic and insufficient. Racial oppression is, without

a doubt, a severe and widespread form of domination; yet, reductionist theories are

inadequate to fully address the matrices of domination that account for the

intersectionality in women‘s lives.

For example, while Charles Mills is not necessarily identified as a critical

white theorist, he unmistakably displays a profound and thorough exploration of

the consequences of whiteness in his Racial Contract. Many critical white theorists

(including Ricky Lee Allen, Zeus Leonardo, and David S. Owen who I will shortly

investigate here) are informed by his work. Because of the important contributions

of Mills ideas to my own conceptualizations of whiteness and the great deal that he

informed this work, both directly and indirectly, I feel that it is necessary to dissect

his analysis here. It is important to note that despite his immense influence on

critical white studies, Mills takes a reductionist approach to oppression, as well.

To begin, Mills blatantly denies that other aspects of one‘s identity, such as

gender, are as significant as one‘s race. According to Mills, white supremacy is the

most important political system of recent global history‖ as well as the basic

political system that has shaped the world (1). In Mills‘ view, racism is the

fundamental form of domination and implies that all other forms are simply

secondary. Mills analysis of the social contract shows that it is a misleading

account of society because it ignores the realities of racism, but I find his approach

to be insufficient because of his desire to present a reductionist analysis of race.

Mills briefly mentions gender and alludes to patriarchy, but only

acknowledges it as a separate and distinct system from white supremacy. In the

acknowledgment section he states, My focus on race in this book should not be

taken to imply that I do not recognize the reality of gender as another system of

domination‖ (xi). In the introduction he claims that his inspiration came from

Carole Pateman‘s The Sexual Contract, but that the use of his book is somewhat

different‖ (6). By stating that gender is another‖ and different‖ system, Mills admits

that he is using not only a reductionist analysis, but an additive analysis of

oppression as well. He denies that oppressions are interlocking or intersecting, but

instead asserts that they work as separate entities. The Racial Contract does not

combine the two analyses, and instead reduces all oppression to race. Mills

attempts to ignore multilayered oppressions and instead present race as the central

factor in societal organization, which is exclusive and inadequate to those affected

by other identities.

While Mills alleges that race is the primary source of oppression, he

acknowledges that it is possible that gender might contribute to oppression as well.

However, he does not describe the two as interlocking. Instead, he implies that

gender may be added onto his analyses of race as a separate and less significant

matter. Recalling the insufficiency of additive and reductionist analyses in

feminism, I argue that Mills‘ reductionism and additivism is problematic as well.

Moreover, Mills‘ approach does not take into account the way that racism affects

men and women in different ways. The Racial Contract is unconvincing in this

regard because it does not proficiently speak to the specific experiences of women

of color, and therefore does not speak to all people of color.

Theorists specific to the field of critical white studies demonstrate similar

flaws in their scholarship. For example, Ricky Lee Allen resorts to reductionism in

his article Whiteness and Critical Pedagogy. Here, Allen expands upon W. E. B.

Du Bois‘ critique of Marxist thought for its racial exclusion. Allen‘s argument is

that critical pedagogy (a Marxist inspired movement) is problematic because it is

normalized around a discourse that sees class as the principal determinant of social

and political life‖ (121). Basically, Allen critiques critical pedagogy for its

reduction to class.

However, Allen then subscribes to a similarly problematic reductionism. He

asks, What would critical pedagogy look like if it had been founded upon the belief

that white supremacy, not capitalism, is the central problem of humankind?‖ (122).

It is clear that by claiming there is a principal determinant‖ or central problem,

whether it be race or class, Allen fails to see the connection between systems.

Instead, he asserts a fundamental and essential source of oppression. Additionally,

he completely disregards the influence of patriarchy as a system of power. Without

attention to gender oppression, Allen‘s approach to critical white studies is

useless as an effective application to feminist theory.

Zeus Leonardo, another critical white studies scholar, conveys reductionist

tendencies as well. In The Color of Supremacy: Beyond the Discourse of White

Privilege‘, Leonardo suggests that white supremacy is the primary oppressor. He

states, whites as a racial group secure supremacy in almost all facets of social life‖

(140). While this is not untrue, Leonardo‘s fault is exposed when he alludes that

race is more oppressive than other identities. He reveals this assumption when he

asserts, race is an organizing principle that cuts across class, gender, and other

imaginable social identities‖ (140). If Leonardo took an intersectional approach, he

would argue that race, class, gender, and other social identities cut across each

other as equally powerful organizational systems. Instead, he falls into the all too

common trap of reductionism, a way of thinking that is limiting and oppressive in

its own right.

As Mills, Allen, and Leonardo show, critical white scholars do not always

value the significance of gender and other identities. David S. Owen provides an

even more obvious example than the aforementioned authors in his 2007 article

Towards a Critical Theory of Whiteness.‖ In this article, Owen displays blatant

disregard for diverse identities. Although he indicates his intention of aiding in the

liberation of peoples of color around the globe,‖ he provides a deliberate and

intentional neglect for addressing the specificities in women‘s lives (203).

Owen explains that there is ambiguity, or what Paul Taylor calls murkiness,‖

in the definitions of whiteness that have appeared in recent critical whiteness

scholarship (210). Despite the definitional variety of critical concepts of whiteness,

Owen asserts that unification, as opposed to fragmentation, is a more effective

strategy for theorizing the systematic nature of whiteness as an oppressive system.

He contends that a general, unified account of whiteness is more useful than one

that begins from the contextual differences in the meaning of whiteness‖ (213).

According to Owen, a microanalysis‖ of specific locations and contexts, while

useful, will not address its systemic nature‖ (213). Owen even goes so far as to say

that gender, class, and sexuality should eventually be included in the discussion,

but that critical white studies is not ready for such specific analyses at this time.

Overall, this neglect for an analysis of difference within whiteness is exclusionary

and insufficient.

In this section, I have chosen to critique four critical white theorists in order

to expose some of the flaws that are readily apparent within the discourse.

Noticeably, all of them deny the influence of gender and other identities. While

these few authors do not make up the whole of critical white theory, it is clear that

they represent the existence of a problematic trend. What is more, each of these

authors is male, which might explain their androcentric viewpoints. Nonetheless, it

is problematic that the men who are exploring whiteness, and who have the

privilege to act as authorities on whiteness, disregard the implications of gender.

These scholars‘ exploration of white supremacy as a singular cause of oppression

reinstates patriarchal thought patterns. Therefore, I argue, the male discourse on

whiteness, while attempting to be antiracist by exposing the dominant race,

displays sexist tendencies.

The tendency for men to explore race while forsaking gender is not new. In

fact, this was one of the main feminist criticisms of university Ethnic Studies

programs during their formulation. With the inception of such programs, academia

took the experiences of people of color seriously both in coursework and

scholarship for the first time. However, more realistically, academia was only

taking seriously the experiences of men of color. As Gloria T. Hull and Barbara

Smith claim in ―Introduction: The Politics of Black Women‘s Studies," the

burgeoning of Black Women‘s Studies was a result of both racism in Women‘s

Studies and sexism in Black Studies (xxi). Historically, racial discourses excluded

women‘s experiences and perspectives. While sexism in Ethnic Studies is not

necessarily the norm today, there are lasting implications of this historical trend.

Contemporarily, sexist exclusion in scholarship on race continues as the

subject of race is dominated by male scholars and male perspectives. hooks argued

in 1995 in Introduction: Race Talk‖ in that men continue to dissuade women from

joining in race-based discussions because of the ―long tradition of sexist and

racist thinking which has always represented race and racism as male turf‖ (1). In

public discussion, she argues, women who attempt to discuss race are

delegitimized, disregarded, and disempowered.

Specifically, male scholars tend to devalue feminist perspectives, especially

when they are applied to race. hooks asserts that feminist analyses of race are seen

as derailing the more important political discussion, not adding a necessary

dimension‖ (2). Hence, while some scholars seem to forget intersectional analyses,

others intentionally avoid them and view them as disruptive. The critical discourses

on whiteness reproduce the same sexist androcentric framework by ignoring

feminist considerations of gender and other intersections of identity, as revealed

here by the work of critical Mills, Allen, Leonardo, and Owen.

What is even more problematic about critical white scholarship written by

many men is, like most white feminist thought, they disregard women of color‘s

contributions. While much of the critical white framework was inspired by the

writings of feminists of color, scholars continue to disregard the integral

interconnectivity of oppressive systems. As Delgado and Stefancic noted, critical

white studies is a result of critical race theory, and critical race theory was

formulated by the contributions of women of color such as Kimberlé Crenshaw,

who coined the term intersectionality.‘ As Chris J. Cuomo and Kim Q. Hall assert

in Introduction: Reflections on Whiteness,‖ that It is perhaps only a matter of time

before traditionalist male scholars announce their ‗discovery‘ of what the

Combahee River Collective argued in 1978- that we must theorize the intersections

of gender, race, class and sexuality in our analyses of race‖ (6). While women of

color were the original intellectuals to provide insight on intersectionality, and are

thus foundational to the critical white discourse, critical white theorists ignore their

main arguments while building on their theories to create their own.

Even in work of those critical white scholars discussed in this chapter, there

are references to feminists of color, but a denial of some of their most profound

arguments. For example, Ricky Lee Allen and Zeus Leonardo cite feminists such

as Gloria Anzaldúa, Linda Martín Alcoff, Angela Davis and bell hooks in their

work. And yet, as discussed earlier, both Allen and Leonardo have overlooked the

significance of gender oppression while centering their on racial oppression alone.

As displayed here, critical white scholars are greatly informed by feminist thought,

yet lack a feminist lens. The reductionism, sexist exclusion of women‘s

experiences, and disregard for the contributions of women of color in critical white

studies indicate a problematic framework.

Overall, I argue that critical white studies is a generally worthwhile

informant for white feminists, save its problematic aspects. Because it explores

whiteness critically, it is invaluable to feminist theorists who have yet to do so.

However, its sexist exclusions are inadequate for application within feminist

scholarship. Both white feminist theory and critical white studies are flawed

because of their inclination towards reductionist and additive approaches. Because

neither approach takes gender, race, and other aspects of identity equally into

perspective as contributors to oppression and privilege, neither is sufficient to

address the problem of white feminist racism within feminist theory. White

feminist thought is arguable racist and male critical white thought is arguably

sexist. It is with both dissatisfaction and hopefulness in these two frameworks that

I encourage feminism to look towards the formulation of critical white feminism.

Chapter V: Towards Critical White Feminism

―It is an act of love to take someone at her word, to

expect the most out of a woman who calls herself a

feminist – to challenge her as you yourself wish to be

challenged‖

-Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa, This Bridge (62)

Due to the problematics of white feminist theory, the insufficiency of the

proposed addon solution, and the influence of whiteness on white feminist racism,

what is needed is a critical examination of whiteness in order to improve white

feminist thought. While several white feminists do interrogate whiteness, such as

theorists Ruth Frankenberg, Martha Mahoney, Peggy McIntosh, Anne Russo, Chris

J. Cuomo, and artists Lucy Lippard and Arlene Raven, I argue that more white

feminists should follow their lead. Overall, relatively few white feminists critically

consider whiteness. Although the field of critical white studies offers a valuable

framework, feminist scholars cannot rely on critical white theorists because of their

sexist tendencies and failure to regard feminist concerns. Therefore, another

approach is necessary for an antiracist transformation of white feminist theory.

Overall, my main intention is to suggest the development of an alternate

framework: critical white feminism. Critical white feminism can be generally

defined by its name, that is, feminism that is critical of whiteness. The formulation

of critical white feminism, which includes an interrogation of whiteness and racial

privilege, will improve feminist theories. Considering the problems in feminist

thought that I have presented thus far, I believe it is imperative that feminist

theorists conceptualize and implement critical white feminism in order to

overcome exclusion, racism, and oppression in white feminist thought and

visualize a more inclusive and effective framework for the liberation of all women.

As I envision it, the purpose of critical white feminism is to a) conceptualize

an inclusive and transformative antiracist feminist framework and agenda, b)

challenge white feminist racism and white feminist hegemony, c) encourage open

and honest communication between feminists across differences, and d) facilitate

feminist solidarity and mobilization. Specifically, critical white feminism has

several objectives: to establish racism as a feminist issue; to expose whiteness as an

invisible, normalized, hegemonic, and privileged racial identity; to explore the

interconnectivity of white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism, and other systems; to

address hierarchical power structures that exist within feminism; and to decenter

white women and demarginalize women of color.

A critical white feminist framework will not only inform white feminists, but

critical white theorists and feminists of color, as well. The inadequacy of both

white feminist theory and critical white theory is displayed by the tendency to

reduce the cause of oppression to a singular source. Instead, oppression must be

understood as a result of a multidimensional matrix of domination. While feminists

of color have advanced the concept of intersectionality that is invaluable to this

formulation, I believe that critical white feminism‘s emphasis on privilege

encourages all people, not just white feminists, to consider the privileged

interconnections of their dominant and normative identities. So, while feminists of

color may not receive white privilege, per say, they may, in fact, benefit from the

privileges of religion, able-bodiedness, class, or sexuality. Comprehensive

intersectional theories that address privilege as well as oppression, such as critical

white feminism, are crucial to the production of liberatory theories that have the

capacity to formulate new ways of conceptualizing social change. For example,

new methods and tactics are needed in both scholarship and activism that do not

reperpetuate oppressive behavior, as so many approaches do. Critical white

feminism offers a theoretical framework necessary for antiracist and antisexist

consciousness and action. With this potential, there is a possibility to combat the

dangerous post-racial ideology that is pervasive in mainstream thought and also

Third Wave feminism. The emergence of critical white feminism, its integration

into feminist dialogue, scholarship, pedagogy, and activism will contribute to more

inclusive and antiracist feminist theories. White feminists must interrogate

whiteness as a racial identity along with its attached privileges, hegemonic

influence, and structural manifestation as a system of white supremacy.

Because of the demonstrated connections between white feminist racism and

whiteness/privilege as discussed throughout this work, I suggest critical white

feminism as a solution. In order to provide some examples of why this framework

should be utilized, I will refer to several of the problems that I have presented thus

far and discuss how critical white feminism might be applied to each. To begin,

white feminists problematically universalize white womanhood and conceptualize

all women as white. Within a critical white feminist framework, this dilemma

might be attributed to white normativity in society, which conceals white culture as

normal. The transparency of whiteness causes white feminists to think that their

experiences are normal and natural for all women, and thus, when they theorize

about ―women‖ they do not consider the fact that they are only theorizing about

white women and disregarding those women who live outside of white culture.

White women do not see the influence of white culture or the influence of race on

their lives because they fail to see white as a racial identity. Therefore, critical

white feminism allows white women to perceive how white normativity invisibly

shapes their lives, leads them to assume that their experiences as women as

universal as opposed to race-specific, and blinds them to the realities of nonwhite

women‘s lives. Furthermore, in this example, white feminists are able to recognize

that whiteness facilitates their racist and exclusionary tendencies, which displays a

strength of critical white feminism.

Additionally, critical white feminism provides the foundations for an

interrogation of racial privilege. When white feminists subscribe to white

normativity and universalize womanhood, they fail to take into account the

differences between women, even when women of color are included‖ in feminist

discourse. Here, an interrogation of white privilege can illuminate some of the

racialized particularities of women‘s differences. Conversely, an exploration of the

racialized particularities can also lead to an understanding of white privilege, if

analyzed with a critical white feminist lens. Either way, attention to specific

racialized experiences in women‘s lives could potentially allow white women to

conceptualize how white privilege influences their lives by awarding them

advantages that women of color do not receive. Lugones‘ conceptualization of

white and nonwhite feminists as ―faithful mirrors‖ is helpful to white feminists in

this instance because they are able to reflect on themselves by reflecting on women

of color (42). A thorough consideration and reflection upon the specificities in

individual nonwhite women‘s lives as they are compared and contrasted to the

specificities in white women‘s lives can reveal to white women, among other

things, their privileges which they might not have recognized. In this sense, critical

white feminism aids in the development of white feminists‘ racial awareness.

Critical white feminism might also help with feminist collaboration. As

discussed in chapter one, white feminist racism thwarts cross-racial feminist

relationships and organizing. Successful feminist organization requires open and

honest dialogue across all identities, a conversation that cannot be structured by

unacknowledged power dynamics between members. White feminists continuously

meet women of color unequally in their attempts to organize and dialogue, by

oppressing women through disregard, disrespect, and ignorance, and an insistence

on invading boundaries. While feminists of color have insisted that an antiracist

feminist agenda is needed for solidarity and community, most white feminists fail

to implement antiracism in theory and practice. In order for white feminists to

achieve antiracism, they must first understand their own racism, which requires an

understanding of whiteness. Additionally, an interrogation of whiteness unearths

the racialized power structures and hierarchies that white feminists do not readily

perceive. It is through this process that white women can resist their authoritative

inclinations and dialogue with women of color in an equal discourse that resists

power structures. Critical white feminism challenges white feminist racism and

emphasizes the exploration of whiteness, making it a beneficial approach to

understanding and resisting obstructions to feminist solidarity and action.

These examples display some of the practical applications of critical white

feminism by applying it to problems identified in white feminist theory. This

theory also proves to be beneficial, as we have seen in the productive outcomes of

its application here, such as white feminist recognition of racism and white

privilege through the analysis of feminist theory. This approach is also effective in

overcoming some of the obstacles preventing cross-racial feminist community and

activism. Overall, because of the examples illustrating its usefulness, critical white

feminism is a beneficial framework that should be developed.

It is particularly white feminists, as key contributors to racism in feminist

theory and action, who are in need of a transformative solution. Therefore, in order

to realize a critical white feminism, the following actions are necessary from white

feminists: commitment to acknowledge their power and authority; acceptance of

responsibility for oppressive thoughts and actions; respect, concern, goodwill, and

care for the contributions, ideas, perspectives, experiences, and boundaries of all

feminists; recognition of privilege; interactive acknowledgement of plurality; and

critical reflexive self-analysis. It is my belief that white feminists can overcome

racist and oppressive tendencies that they currently deplore.

In order for white feminists to achieve an antiracist transformation, they

must take a more active approach in recognizing women of color, and allow new

perspectives and knowledge to transform their perspectives and worldview in

response to it. I believe that it is particularly important for white feminists to

recognize the white feminist racism that may exist in their daily interactions,

unconscious perceptions, or theoretical discourse. Lugones uses Spelman‘s phrase

boomerang perception‖ to illustrate how white women should interactively

recognize women‘s difference and plurality (On the Logic‖ 41). According to

Spelman boomerang perception‖ happens when I look at you and come right back

to myself‖ (qtd in Lugones 41). Boomerang perception is a self-reflective process

that happens when one thinks about oneself after perceiving the difference between

oneself and another. This approach is necessary to counteracting and reversing the

problematic tendency to inactively acknowledging women‘s differences: to

consider another without reflecting on ourselves. In this way, Lugones explains,

white women and women of color are faithful mirrors‖ who are able to reveal their

true selves to each other (42). A true self is not an isolated self that engages in self-

reflection without cognition of others; instead, a true self interprets itself in relation

to others by comparing and contrasting similarities and differences. Thus, between

white and nonwhite feminists, reciprocal reflection and genuine critical regard for

each other provides the opportunity for a clearer and image of self, much like

faithful mirrors.

However, as demonstrated, many white feminists do not perceive their true

selves because they do not fully acknowledge differences between women.

Therefore, as Lugones argues, many white feminists avoid perceiving women of

color as faithful mirrors‖ because they wish to block identification with that self‖

that they see reflected back at them. According to Lugones, this blockage occurs

because the reality of the white self is inconsistent with the white perception of

self. In order to truly understand whiteness and truly understand their own racism,

white feminists must actively and reflexively regard women of color. As Lugones

says, knowing us in the way necessary for you to know that self requires self-

conscious interaction‖ (42). Critical white feminist antiracist transformation, then,

requires critical self-interaction and critical interaction with women of color, both

of which are missing thus far in white feminist theory and action.

It is important, also, for feminists to seriously consider the emotional

responses to the realization of critical white feminism. As Lorde reminds us ―Any

discussion among women about racism must include the recognition and use of

anger‖ (128). Feminists must regard the emotions within themselves and each

other. According to Lorde, We cannot allow our fear of anger to deflect us nor

seduce us into settling for anything less than the hard work of excavating honestly‖

(128). Furthermore, white feminists must recognize the fear, denial, guilt, blame,

and shame associated with the process of exploring whiteness and privilege.

Because emotions are a part of the human condition, it is impossible to separate

them from feminist theorizing and organizing. Instead, feminists must be aware of

them and prepare for the painful process of responding to their own and others‘

emotions.

As it is important to regard and explore the emotional implications of critical

white feminism, I believe that there are other subjects which this framework might

encompass. While I do not intend to provide a comprehensive agenda here, I find it

necessary to share a few thoughts that others‘ may be more able to explore. For

instance, I believe that critical white feminism could be greatly informed by the

contributions of mixed-race and racially-ambiguous feminists. Feminists who

theorize about the fluidity of race and the implications of mixed-race bodies can

significantly contribute to an understanding of whiteness, because they are often

able to transcend color lines. Race is socially constructed and thus malleable, but

the implications of this construct produce real life consequences that can be seen

most clearly by those who are able to experience race-fluidity.

An example of a racially-ambiguous scholar who explores race fluidity in

her work is Judy Scales-Trent, who identifies as a black woman who can pass as

white and is often mistaken for white. In the 1997 article Notes of a White Black

Woman,‖ Scales-Trent states that my very existence demonstrates that there is

slippage between the seemingly discrete categories black‘ and white‘‖ (475-76).

She also notes, ―There is something about living on the margins of race that gives

me a unique view of [racial] categories‖ (478). Scholars with insights such as these

provide a unique understanding of race because they explore the experiences of

both racial privilege and racial oppression. Additionally, Stephanie M. Wildman,

in the 1997 article Reflections on Whiteness,‖ argues that racial categories are so

powerful because of the stipulations of inclusion and exclusion. She argues that

thinking about the racial ambiguity of Latinas/os, since many of them are also

white, reveals ―the construction of race as not about race at all, but about power‖

(325). The insights of Latina feminists, therefore, are also invaluable to critical

white studies.

Adrian Piper also provides critical white feminism with vital insight. Like

Scales-Trent, Piper discusses her experiences being perceived as black or white in

different social settings. In her 1997 essay Passing for White, Passing for Black,

Piper claims that being a person of color is a social condition, more than an

identity‖ (427). She also destabilizes the meaning of whiteness in her work by

arguing that most white Americans have black heritage. In her 1988 art installation

Cornered, Piper digs into the white psyche by asking, ―What does it mean to be

white/black?‖ She asks those who have been living as white to discover their black

heritage and join the black community. In this way, Piper forces whites to see the

privilege of feeling white by asking them to feel not white. Her work is important

to white feminists who wish to truly understand their racial identities and the

meaning of whiteness.

Piper also argues that her very existence disrupts whiteness because of her

racially ambiguous body. In Flying‖ (1996) she says, I am the racist‘s nightmare,

the obscenity of miscegenation. I am a reminder that segregation is impotent; a

living embodiment of sexual desire that penetrates racial barriers and reproduces

itself. I am the alien interloper, the invisible spy in the perfect disguise who slipped

past the barricades in an unguarded moment‖ (229).

Therefore, her mere presence is a threat to the racialized structure of society, which

relies on rigidly defined racial categories to perpetuate racist domination.

Similarly, Jennifer Lisa Vest argues in The Internally Globalized Body as

Instigator: Crossing Borders, Crossing Races‖ (2008) that mixed-race women have

been marginalized in very specific and significant ways. According to Vest,

feminist activists... fruitfully employ appeals to cultural identities and homelands,

in order to unify women‘s movements‖ (76). However, Vest asserts that There is no

mixed homeland the mixed race feminist can appeal to in her organizing‖ (77).

Because of this special marginalization and oppression, mixed women have a

special positionality that can be utilized as an advantage. She states, Outsiders have

little to lose, and thus often without even trying, propose revolutionary strategies,

which are more radical in their proposal for change‖ (78). It is in this way that

mixed-race women have a unique standpoint that can produce critical stances and

enhanced opportunities. I propose that critical white feminism must explore the

work of authors like Scales-Trent, Wildman, Piper, and Vest in order to more fully

understand the complex and unstable dimensions of racial oppression and

privilege.

I expect skepticism towards the formulation of critical white feminism.

Throughout this work, I argue that feminists must interrogate whiteness; however,

some scholars disagree with this approach and argue that the attention on whiteness

is not a beneficial way to address racism. A major concern is that the focus on

white identity formation may be putting whites back in the center. For example, in

a 2008 speech delivered by Asian American scholar Fred Ho entitled Why the

Emphasis on White-Skin Privilege is White Chauvanist,‖ Ho argues against my

proposed interrogation of whiteness and white privilege as a means of antiracism.

He states, The political logic of anti-racism‘ or ‗fighting white-skin privileges‘

ironically privileges the target of struggle upon the attitudes and behaviors of

whites.‖ He argues that a focus on whiteness is harmful and hurtful and he therefore

rejects the dominance, centering, and emphasis‖ on whites. In response, I assert that

the interrogation of whiteness does not result in the privileging, dominance, and

recentering of whites. Instead, critical white feminism encourages whites to

examine whiteness and privilege in order to understand the systems that perpetuate

their privilege and dominance, which, I argue, decenters whiteness from its

invisible dominance. An understanding of whiteness reveals to whites the

racialized mechanisms of society that they are often not aware of because of the

normativity and transparency of whiteness.

Furthermore, this approach is recommended by feminists of color.

According to Combahee River Collective in A Black Feminist Statement,‖ (year)

white feminists must do the work of understanding and eradicating racism since

they are the perpetuators of it. They claim, Eliminating racism in the white

women‘s movement is by definition work for white women to do‖ (243). Grillo and

Wildman agree, and argue that the elimination of racism relies upon an exploration

of privilege and the articulation of white supremacy. In their opinion, this is the

only way for white feminists to talk about racism, since they cannot speak about

being victims of racism. They state, Whites need to reject this privilege and to

speak about their role in the racial hierarchy…whites cannot speak validly for

people of color, but only about their own experiences‖ (Obscuring‖ 49). Therefore,

critical white feminism does not recenter or privilege white issues. Instead, critical

white feminism is fighting racism by identifying racism as a white issue, one that

white feminists can only conceptualize in terms of their own white privilege and

identity. It is the responsibility of white feminists to theorize issues about

whiteness and the reality of living with a white identity, which includes the

recognition of racist tendencies. White privilege provides whites feminists with

authority and credibility, and thus whites often listen to and trust other whites more

than people of color. It is important, I argue, to use the privilege of authority

responsibly and respectfully. Using this privilege to promote critical white feminist

ideology can lead to antiracist awareness in more whites. Therefore, critical white

feminism does not perpetuate racism by putting whites back in the center. Instead,

it offers an alternative solution for antiracist white feminists by providing them

with an understanding of their privilege and how they can use it responsibly to

theorize feminism effectively, which, ultimately, is a fight for social justice.

It is my hope for the future that feminists expand upon, challenge, and

strengthen critical white feminism. While I am unable to formulate a

comprehensive outline for a new theory in this work, I do propose preliminary

thoughts that might guide future endeavors. For example, the goals of critical white

feminism might be accomplished through reconceptualizations of history,

challenges to post-racial ideology, reconsiderations of Third Wave feminism, and

considerations of media and popular culture. I also think that queer theory would

greatly inform critical white feminism because of its ability to critically examine

the underpinnings of normalization. Additionally, in-depth global and transnational

feminist analyses are also necessary in order examine intersections of nationhood,

broaden considerations of class exploitation to global capitalism, and continue

considerations of borders and boundaries.

I am optimistic that critical white feminism can provide an opportunity for

white feminist theory to transform into a more antiracist, inclusive, and liberatory

framework. The work is up to white feminists, and it is certainly not an easy feat.

But, as noted by Moraga and Anzaldúa at the start of this chapter, it is an act of

love for feminists of color to challenge white feminists in this way. I believe that it

is an act of love to accept this challenge.

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