Gender and Social Change

A Brief Summary on White Feminism: White feminism is a type of feminism that focuses primarily on white women’s issues and has a reputation for ignoring women of color and their issues, as well as ignoring the racism, homophobia, and classism in the feminist movement. This social phenomenon has been an ever present and pressing issue both then and now. White feminism is an ingrained thought process that is part of a larger, systematic problem, and because of this it can be difficult to recognize. Today, it has simply shifted it’s form. From being booted out to brushed under the rug. Historically, the idea of white feminism was born with the first feminist movement, often referred to as the first wave. Black women and other women of color, their issues and needs have often taken a backseat in the name of unity and keeping peace amongst feminists. This has led to years of Black women and women of color putting in the work and the effort in order to fight for white women’s issues, with little reward or support in respect to their own issues in return. White feminism is it’s own special form of oppression. During the suffrage movement, “white suffragettes often dismissed the voices of Black women, relegating them to the rear during marches and putting their own rights first. Many white suffragettes responded to the systemic sexism they were fighting against by adopting anti-black arguments for women’s suffrage.” [2] . The lack of solidarity and the emense racism many Black women faced during the fight for suffrage at the hands of white women, alienated them from the mainstream feminist movement. This intentional exclusion during the first wave would continue to persist throughout the coming waves of feminism. An example of how white feminism continues to harm women of color, specifically Black women, is how the feminist movement does not rally it’s support, it’s outrage, for the disappearance, abuse, and murder of women of color. Especially not the way it does for white women. Tens of thousands of Black women and girls go missing every year, and yet these cases never get the appropriate media attention.[3] However, when Gabby Petito, a white woman, went missing, her case was plastered on every social media outlet, exemplifying how social media perpetuates the ongoing issues with white feminism.

From Being Booted Out to Brushed under the Rug: Today, black women and other POC women’s voices are still being swept under the rug, but in a different, more subtle way. Before the age of the internet, in order to silence Black voices, one had to be much more direct. For example, in 1962, Fannie Lou Hamer was fired from her job after she campaigned to encourage African Americans to vote. Two years later, when she testified at the DNC in support of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, specifically its efforts to further black voter registration, President Lyndon B Johnson called an impromptu news conference to make it impossible for national television networks to cover her testimony. [4] Now, it is much easier to silence Black people because white people don’t have it at the forefront of their mind at all. Now, it can easily take the form of the censorship of Black voices via algorithms on social media platforms. I have witnessed this first hand on the social media app TikTok. I have often heard Black creators (people who post regular content on TikTok) discuss how their video was taken down for “violating community guidelines”, but they received no further explanation as to why the video was taken down. The content of those videos usually had been them discussing an issue they face as a Black person, or how white people’s behaviors and actions are harmful. Additionally, I have seen videos depicting a “glitch” on the app where a user is unable to follow a Black creator when they hit the follow button, but the follow button works just fine when trying to follow a white creator. Furthermore is this issue of being “shadowbanned”. From what I’ve gathered, it is when a person's account is not formally banned, deleted or the creator suspended from posting, but when they do post, their followers are unable to see the video, the video is blocked from appearing on the FYP (for you page), and/or their is an error with the upload and the video gets taken down. It should be noted that I have never seen a white creator discuss ever having any of these problems. These are just a few examples of the things that I have personally seen on just one app, but it is not just tiktok. Many platforms have gotten into trouble for similar reasons. For instance, a 2017 article by ProPublica reveals a trove of internal documents sheds light on the algorithms that Facebook’s censors use to differentiate between hate speech and legitimate political expression. Major inconsistencies concerning the content of what posts were censored and what was not was revealed. For example, a white U.S. congressman wrote a Facebook post where he called for the murder of “radicalized” Muslims. “Hunt them, identify them, and kill them… Kill them all. For the sake of all that is good and righteous. Kill them all”. This post was not taken down for hate speech. However, when Black Lives Matter activist Didi Delgado wrote, “All white people are racist. Start from this reference point, or you’ve already failed”, the post was removed and her Facebook account was disabled for days. [5] What these issues create is a perfect example of the core theme of white feminism - Black voices being swept under the rug and, subsequently, the promotion of white voices.

2. Dumont, Katana. “Embracing the Power of Intersectionality: How White Feminism Oppresses Black Women.” Blood & Milk, July 31, 2020. https://www.bloodandmilk.com/embracing-the-power-of-intersectionality-how-white-feminism-oppresses-black-women-2/.

3. Pruitt-Young, Sharon. “Tens of Thousands of Black Women Vanish Each Year. This Website Tells Their Stories.” NPR. NPR, September 24, 2021. https://www.npr.org/2021/09/24/1040048967/missing-black-women-girls-left-out-media-ignored.

4. Cargle, Rachel Elizabeth. “When White People Are Uncomfortable, Black People Are Silenced.” Harper's BAZAAR. Harper's BAZAAR, November 2, 2021. https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/politics/a25747603/silencing-black-voices/.

5. Angwin, Julia and Grassegger, Hannes. “Facebook's Secret Censorship Rules Protect White Men from Hate Speech but Not Black Children.” ProPublica. ProPublica, June 28, 2017. https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-hate-speech-censorship-internal-documents-algorithms.