or thought-deflecting, in some cases, as some of the very unfair responses prove. the article has a very useful critique, but many responses are so divorced from reality it shows just how hard it is to get people to address the problems in what too many of us take for granted.

Your movement does not exist in this world; not your feminism, nor your anti-racism, nor your social justice movement.
These things do not exist. They’re ephemeral—like language and so much else, they are constructed by people and their ide…

And to all of you who are getting paralyzed with White Guilt: You have no viable excuses for being paralyzed.

You do realize that the term and concept of “White Guilt” is used almost exclusively by conservatives who are opposed to assistance to disenfranchised groups or programs aimed at equalizing opportunity. Don’t like affirmative action policies; the “give ‘em bootstraps” crowd that believes helping someone is hurting them.

It’s because white liberal feminism presumes to speak for all women even though it is most concerned with advancing the interests of white liberal middle-class women. Jesus… How can people be too stupid to get that??

Has anyone denied this? And why not be consistent:

And yet, countless civil rights groups have presumed to speak for all African-Americans, Native Americans, Asian-Americans, and have thoroughly neglected the women and LGBT members of these groups. I don’t see this searing contempt or anger directed at them. Still less do I see the members of these civil rights groups getting angry at themselves for it to nearly the same extent as feminists do, despite the years of experience I’ve had with them.

This is a double standard.

The most marginalized groups in feminism and anti-racism are more aligned with class than race or gender. For example, feminism marginalizes the poor, sex workers, transgendered, the incarcerated, immigrants. Anti-racism marginalizes the poor, sweatshop workers, nail salon workers in toxic environments, the undocumented, sex workers, the uninsured, poor women of color.

sminbrooklyn said “what she’s saying is, white women shouldn’t be shamed out of addressing their own issues in the name of intersectionality. which is fine, but it means that you are defining ‘women’ and ‘feminism’ in ways that exclude many women who do not happen to share the issues of white upper middle class women.”

That’s not, in fact, what I was saying. I was saying that feminism is about equality of women. All women. And any area, whether it be immigration or prisons or glass ceilings, which has a gendered impact is a feminist issue in the context of that gendered impact.

When we’re looking at the areas without focus on gender, it’d not a feminist issue. That does not mean it is not a relevant issue to our lives or that feminists shouldn’t care. But if feminism doesn’t focus on women, meaning ALL colors and types of women, then it ain’t feminism, it’s absorbed by other male-run lefty movements for exactly the reasons that LadyV sets forth.

So, sminbrooklyn, while you’re trying to put me into some kind of entitled white woman box, that’s not actually a fit with my argument. Granted, the argument you want me to have made is easier to refute, but let’s not be lazy.

Also, your blythe “white women’s issues” is pretty demeaning to WOC. My sisters are WOC and we share many of the same feminist concerns. What are you trying to say here?