cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/my_mouldy_memes/t/310874
THE FUTURE OF FEMINISM
IS ONLY AS POWERFUL
AS THE FUTURE OF ANTI-RACISM
CLEO WADE
this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2023
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Why?
Honestly, I'm surprised that OP is being so obtuse about this. It's clear once you're familiar with intersectionality, but I think it could do well to be explained at least a little bit for those who aren't.
Essentially, the argument is that feminism, while a good force, needs anti-racism to maximize it's potential, just as it needs support for LGBTQ+ rights, since a lot of people are impacted by racism, homophobia, transphobia etc. Focusing largely on cis-het white middle-class women does help them, but we need those other elements too to be able to truly liberate people
Lol I'm not being obtuse, I'm trying to get them to admit the quiet part of their objection out loud
I personally don't see this as the strength of the intersectionality argument. To be clear, I am not saying that your point is incorrect. I agree with you completely.
My point is that to people not familiar with the concepts of intersectionality might find this to be a bit of a flimsy position. I could be wrong and I am willing to discuss why in more detail if you like.
I personally think the incompleteness argument is more persuasive. Proponents of individual movements are already aquatinted with the inequalities of their own individual movements and getting them to recognize what their movement lacks is easier than getting people to recognize that integrating other movements will produce better results.
It also, explicitly, forces people to "say the quiet part out loud". They don't get to hide behind platitudes. I.e. the j.k Rowlings of the feminist movements get to out themselves as terfs or racists that much easier. When you get someone to admit that there are more inequalities faced by black woman than either movement alone covers and their reaction isn't immediate recognition of the problem... You have found your problem.
Reminds me of a saying:
"You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink"
Others can handle the horses that won't drink water, but that shouldn't hinder me from preaching intersectionality.
Why do you think?
This isn't exactly a helpful response. The two movements are different in myriad ways, and I see no reason to believe that the failure or success, however that may be defined, of one would cause the other to have the same fate.
Mostly because the roots of every discrimination are basically the same, and if you focus on only one aspect of it, you will not succeed no matter how much progress you think you're making. For example, both racism and misogyny is based on the old entitlement, on the old white men's unearned sense of superiority, and if you don't target that, you will never have an egalitarian society, even if you make them pretend that they aren't overtly misogynistic anymore. It's like TERFs teaming up with white supremacists to harass trans people, only to be incredibly surprised that white supremacists hate women too.
Kinda sounds like in that example, the reason for humans that are not white old men to be racist is those white old men. Sorry if I'm being ignorant here, but I always though racism is common among every demographic. I though it's more of a thing that's imprinted onto you and just not challenged because you don't interact with enough people you have prejudices against. I don't want to misrepresent your point, but from what I see, a racist black woman can exist without the white man to be the reason for that
And if we were living in the black matriarchy, we would be having a different conversation. But we live in the white patriarchy, so we are having this one.
But regardless, sexism, racism, homophobia, and every other types of descrimination have basically the same root, so there is no real way to get rid of one without getting rid of the rest.
Sorry, I'm just not that informed on that subject, but what is the same root? The old white men? So if we locked all of them up we would be living in a utopia?
Lmfao, and I get called obtuse... How about do even the most superficial research in to racism and sexism and why they exist before you demand other people do the work for you, that you promptly disregard to continue pushing your own deliberate misunderstanding of the subject you clearly care so little about ? Sealions be sealioning, while those who can spot you miles away and refuse to feed your bullshit get called obtuse...
And why is that?
Do you just have nothing to say
Lmfao, I'm just waiting for you (E: them) to explain to me how either feminism or anti-racism can succeed without the other.
I don't feel like I need to; the burden of proof is on you to explain why both must simultaneously succeed or fail
Lmfao, of course *you * think you shouldn't have to. But you do! You asked why, to explain it to you, I need to understand what you're struggling with.
You refusing to say the quiet part out loud just confirms to me what I knew from that first comment - that you're not genuinely interested, and that I have better things to waste my time on than on providing an education to someone who clearly doesn't want it.
If I make a meme which asserts that a giant Blahaj in the sky controls the American government, and you call it into question, is the burden of proof on you to explain what it is about the meme you don't understand, or on me to show you why I believe it's true?
To put it in less sarcastic terms, the answer is that what I'm struggling with is the whole thing.
You have put very little to no effort into your why question, and it was very effective at making the op mad, so if your goal was trolling I suppose it was effective.
If you are serious, then you don't have a good grasp of intersectionality and it isn't ops responsibility to teach you... Particularly when you are aggressive about your lack of knowledge being a good place to argue from.
I am not trolling, but was hoping for somebody, OP or otherwise, to explain why they believe the message of the meme to be true, so that I or other lemmings could learn a bit more about the subject. I'm glad that the community has stepped in to share their knowledge. My intent was not to be aggressive with my comparison to Russell's ~~teapot~~ Blahaj, if that's what led you to your judgement of my attitude, but to show OP that the burden of proof was on them to show why the two movements are as interdependent as they claim.
But they didn't post it. What came to mind, for you, when you posted it?
Oh, you're not even the same person lol
If you want to know my feelings feel free to scroll through my magazine.
Until then, get out of the way and let the person I was replying to explain to me why they see an issue with this post.
Because it widely breaks down to the same sort of discrimination. Feminism without anti-racism means that the discrimination we see towards women won't disappear, it'll just be shifted towards people of color. How successful is your movement if all you did was export the bad shit to other people so it's not your problem anymore?
If the response to "Women shouldn't have to do housework" is "Yes! Juanita should do the housework!" Then something failed.
This seems to assume that there's a certain fixed amount of "bad shit" that must be placed on one minority or another. If I eliminated all police brutality (which in the US disproportionately is aimed at black people), does that somehow make things any worse for women?
Do... Do you think Black women don't exist?
Are you just not even making an attempt to understand my point? In this scenario, of course black women would benefit, as they'd experience no police brutality. My point is that this magical elimination of a racial inequality problem would not make a gender related issue (e.g. the wage gap) automatically worse somehow, which seemed to be Leylaa's point if I'm understanding that correctly.