High-key sideeyeing Emma Stone said that that the Best Director nominees are four men and Greta Gerwig. When will white feminists learn that, just because they are not women, doesn’t mean that Jordan Peele and Guillermo Del Toro’s nominations are not as meaningful as Greta Gerwig’s?
And what was the first thing that Guillermo Del Toro said in his acceptance speech? He highlighted that he was an immigrant and a person of color.
I get the idea behind this post, and I understand why you feel this way, but these arguments don’t actually make sense, and I find this post really frustrating because it reeks of the “progressive” kind of misogyny you see on Tumblr all the time where people use the term ‘white feminist’ to bash any woman they dislike.
Don’t get me wrong–I also dislike Emma Stone, and it’s great that moc were nominated and that one of them won! But… they’re still men. What she said isn’t “white feminism” because feminism is about women. Being an “intersectional” feminist doesn’t mean that you should ignore issues that affect women because something positive happened to men of colour. A win for moc =/= a win for women. Marginalised or oppressed groups aren’t interchangeable. Racism and sexism are separate issues (that can intersect) and it’s incredibly detrimental to the feminist movement and to women as a whole to tell them they should stop complaining about their own oppression because another group either has it worse or had something good happen to them. (Because no matter what happens to other oppressed groups women are always told that they’re white feminists if they talk about misogyny.)
Besides, Emma Stone didn’t say Jordan Peele and Guillermo Del Toro’s nominations weren’t meaningful. She just pointed out the underrepresentation of women, which is an actual issue! Since 2012 there has been at least one moc nominated every year for best director at the Oscars, and five of them won. During that time, a single woman–Greta Gerwig–was nominated. In fact, the last time a woman won best director at the Oscars was in 2009. So like, I get that celebrating moc’s success is important, but can we also stop pretending that sexism doesn’t matter?…
A win for moc =/= a win for women.
This statement completely disregards the fact that WOCs do not have the luxury of disregarding race. This is precisely why intersectional feminism is necessary, and why white feminism–which is just a term for non-intersectional feminism that ignores the impact of race on WOCs–is necessary. This is the same line of thinking that has white women telling us that a win for white women is a win for all women, and it’s really really not. Not when WOCs are expected to stand at the back of the line and cheer everyone else on.
Do women need more representation and opportunities in the industry? Abso-fucking-lutely. Did it need to be said in a way that ignores and flattens the challenges that MOCs face? Hell no. Emma Stone isn’t being pilloried for the former but for the latter, and conflating the two is, guess what? Just another white feminist tactic.
This statement completely disregards the fact that WOCs do not have the luxury of disregarding race.
I didn’t say they did. What I meant is that men of colour and women (no matter their race/ethnicity) are still distinguished by their sex, so a win for moc doesn’t necessarily translate into a win for women because women of colour are still oppressed on the basis of their sex. Racism and sexism intersect for women of colour, but progress in terms of race/ethnicity (if I can phrase it this way) doesn’t mean the same progress is made against sexism, and it doesn’t even mean that the progress in terms of race that moc experience is also experienced by woc.
…and why white feminism–which is just a term for non-intersectional feminism that ignores the impact of race on WOCs…
That’s what it’s supposed to mean, but more often than not I see accusations of “white feminism” being made against women for reasons that have nothing to do with race. (Ex:
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a Nigerian feminist, was called a white feminist for saying that cis women and trans women don’t have the same experiences. Women who talk about reproductive issues, which affect woc even more severely than white women, are constantly called white feminists. A little girl at a Women’s march was mocked and had her picture captioned “white feminism” because her poster made a Harry Potter reference. Etc.) To me this post is just another example of this phenomenon because it suggests that not including men of colour in one’s feminism makes one a white feminist, which is absurd because men of colour are men, and feminism is about women.
If we want to be intersectional feminists, we have to talk about how race and sex intersect and how it affects women of colour. We can’t talk only about racism. (I mean, we can, but if we only talk about racism it isn’t feminism.)
Therefore, shouldn’t we criticize Emma Stone for not mentioning women of colour? Because the criticism she’s receiving right now isn’t about how she doesn’t understand the intersection of race and sex, and how it affects women of colour. People are saying that what Emma Stone said is white feminism because she disregarded the progress made by men of colour. They’re essentially calling her a white feminist for not including men of colour in her feminism, not for her poor understanding of the intersection of race and sex.
This is the same line of thinking that has white women telling us that a win for white women is a win for all women, and it’s really really not.
This is not what I meant at all, and I agree with you that this mindset is completely misguided. But I’m glad that you mention it, because I feel like OP’s arguments follow a similar reasoning, but applied to racism. A win for moc isn’t a win for all people of colour, and progress for moc doesn’t necessarily mean progress for woc. A lot of people also seem to believe that a win for any marginalised or oppressed group = a win for any other marginalised or oppressed group, which is just as misguided.
Did it need to be said in a way that ignores and flattens the challenges that MOCs face? Hell no. Emma Stone isn’t being pilloried for the former but for the latter
Then why aren’t people just calling her racist or ignorant if it was really just about her ignoring the challenges that moc face? (Because I agree that she did.) They’re calling her a white feminist and saying that she wasn’t intersectional. Intersectional feminism is about the intersection of sex, race, and class, and how this affects women who are marginalized or oppressed for other reasons than their sex. Why are people calling her a white feminist if the problem is that she disregarded issues face by moc? The terms and labels used to criticise her don’t make sense with their arguments.
Just say you don’t care about progress for WOC unless it helps white women, it saves time. News flash, Your Terfness, my precious womynly labia are as yellow as the rest of me. What helps alleviate racism is ABSOLUTELY a win for me, just like what alleviates sexism is a win for me, because I can’t parcel out racism and sexism separately. And if you don’t speak for WOCs that would be great too.
Just because some people misuse a term doesn’t mean it is automatically useless. It’s like terf that way. Also I’m a cis woman who does nothing but talk about reproductive issues on another blog which has gotten full support from trans people and harassment from terfs, so your attempt to paint trans people–actually trans women, who are we kidding–and their allies as enemies of reproductive rights falls kinda flat on me.
And no, you can’t erase the effect of race on MOC without doing the same to WOC, sorry. You don’t get to backdoor it like that.
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