S4E12: The Origins of White Feminism

Margaux: Leen is screwing on her mic.

Bushra: Leen is fixing her mic.

Leen: Sorry. It's so far away from my neck.

Bushra: She's trying to get her ergonomics situated.

Margaux: I thought you said "arrogant nomics."

Harjit: You know what's so funny, Bushra? We had a whole conversation about ergonomics in the studio I think when it was our second season recording, and I'm like, "What the hell is ergonomics?" and she explained the whole thing to me.

Margaux: I remember that.

Leen: Let me just Google this real fast.

Margaux: I'm so excited that we're all here today. It's such a rare occurrence. It's going to be a party.

Bushra: It's still a virtual studio, FYI.

Margaux: True. But what else is new for the past year?

Bushra: I know. It's our new normal.

Margaux: It is. And also, in line with our new normal of this season of "Bundle Of Hers," this is going to be a two-part episode. So make sure you tune into the second part.

Today, we're going to be talking about feminism, specifically white feminism. So we'll go ahead and jump in just starting off with a definition of feminism. And according to the dictionary, the definition is "the advocacy of women's rights on the basis of equality of the sexes." And that could either be politically, economically, socially, so many other different subsets.

But this is the trouble with the idea of feminism in the first place, is that you have to buy into a gender binary according to this definition. And so I think as we go through this topic, we can maybe see the definition of feminism transform. Or I just wanted to see if you guys had any other definitions off the top of your head or to start with, because sometimes I think of it as more of the counterpart to toxic masculinity, but I think it is kind of a complex idea and definition.

Harjit: I definitely think that it's a complex idea and definition. I like that you brought up this dictionary definition in the beginning.

I think growing up, when I thought of feminism, it was maybe what this dictionary definition was. A girl, I'm born a girl, and if you've listened to "Bundle of Hers," you kind of know my story and background. My parents wanted a son, and so a lot of it was me directly fighting against "What does it mean to be a man, and how can I do all of those things?"

Initially, my thoughts on feminism was this as well, but I think I have developed my definition of feminism as I have grown, which I think will become evident as we go through this episode.

Bushra: I think that it's interesting that you pointed out that this definition just is solely encompassing the gender binary, which I had never thought about before. It just goes to show how narrow our viewpoints when it comes to definitions are. And so I appreciate that distinction being made because I don't think that's made very often.

Margaux: And challenging our definitions for sure. So I wanted to give a brief history of white feminism as told by Alok. Alok is a gender non-conforming writer, performer, and public speaker. They have an amazing series of book reviews on Instagram and Goodreads, as well as amazing photos and art. So I highly recommend that you check them out @alok to continue your learning.

But this specific history is a book review that Alok did of a book called "White Women's Rights: The Racial Origins of Feminism in the United States" by Louise Michele Newman.

And so you can read the full review on Alok's Goodreads page, but basically, in grade school, we were all taught on a surface level about the so-called "first-wave feminism," where it named Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, Susan B. Anthony. They should all ring a bell in most people's minds as heroes who paved the way for feminism in the U.S. However, what was left out of that narrative that I've recently come to learn was how racism was paramount to their movement.

So prior to the Civil War, these white feminists paralleled their oppression to that of black men. Both were held as property by white men. All the while never discussing that they themselves held racial power nor that white women too enslaved black people.

And so after the emancipation of slavery, the tune of white feminists didn't change, and that sort of can be characterized by a quote in 1884 by Susan B. Anthony when she said, "I have but one question, that of equality between the sexes. That of the races has no place on our platform." So very overtly stating that they were not going to consider race in their fight against oppression against them.

Harjit: So Susan B. Anthony basically found this flaw and she called it out. Is that basically what this . . .

Bushra: No, she was embracing that flaw.

Margaux: I guess the question of race was brought into the feminist movement. She was saying, "There's no space in our platform for that conversation."

Harjit: Oh my gosh. Okay. Sorry, it takes me a second to understand quotes.

Margaux: No worries. But it's challenging everything that we learned in grade school.

Bushra: They seem to leave out a lot of things when we get educated in our school systems.

Margaux: Truth. Also, during this time period, scientific ideals about gender were being published and pushed by white male eugenicists, which was further not only reinforcing the gender binary, but also white supremacy.

So they claim that the distinguished difference between male and female was a product of racial progress and that keeping women, specifically white women, in the domestic sphere was fundamental towards civilization and moving away from "savage or primitive lifestyles of black and indigenous peoples."

But white women's power ended there, and as white men feared, if they were able to vote, society would fall back into those primitive habits. And they justified keeping women from voting with "scientific ideal" that women were biologically inferior to men and therefore not capable of political thought, which is just BS.

But what's even more BS is that to counteract that idea, the white feminists leveraged racism against sexism to appeal to the white men, arguing that they were the mothers of the white race and therefore contributed to the development of civilization and thus deserved voting rights to help propagate civilization.

Harjit: Margaux, it seems like to vote was kind of their right that they wanted. That's what they were pushing initially in this first wave of feminism?

Margaux: Yes. That was the pivotal point that they were trying to get to be able to do amongst other things, but the right to vote was probably the biggest.

Harjit: I think as this conversation unfolds, I find that for me, when I think of white feminism, that's kind of a recurrent theme. It's getting placed in that system to vote. Why is that the first thing that we think of?

Bushra: This is just my thought process. Obviously, people want to have a voice in things that are going to affect them, and voting is one of the most fundamental things that you can have to take some of that control back. And I think that's why that was the main goal.

I think it's just interesting that . . . I don't know. I think you can pinpoint a lot of things that are problematic within our society, and especially part of that is movements. The reason why they're problematic is because the goal is to assume the role of the most powerful, the people that are at the top, and not necessarily dismantling the system that creates that structure.

So their goal was to be equal within white men essentially because they are the ones that hold power in this society.

Margaux: That's exactly spot on, Bushra, and it's sort of that you're propagating what I call trickle-down oppression. They're further oppressing people in the way that they feel that they have been oppressed by white men.

So in that vein, while they were trying to climb that ladder to political power and away from the domestic sphere, they fostered campaigns to teach "primitive women," so black and indigenous and other racialized women, to be domestic. And in the eyes of these white women, BIPOC women had to demonstrate that they were ready for feminism by conforming to all these oppressive practices that the white feminists themselves were fighting against.

And so, in a way, BIPOC women became sort of the measure by which white women could prove their own moral status and social progress.

Harjit: This hits such a chord with me what you just said. But it hits such a chord with me. Like, "I'm here. Now let me teach you how to do things." I think I've felt that so much from white women. I realize I'm getting so emotional about this because it makes me so upset. Who said your way is the right way? Who said that? Who told you that's the right way? I don't know.

I think this encompasses a lot of my feelings when I got to college and I really dealt with a lot of these issues after high school. Anyway, keep on going.

Leen: Even beyond. Even in the medical field. I don't know. Harjit was like, "Oh my gosh." I was like, "Oh my gosh," too. And then people who have just agreed with what this is in the sense . . . they don't have to be white women per se, but anybody who agrees with that system, they try to also enforce it, not realizing that this is the basis of it.

Margaux: It's so true. Leen, you brought up that this is still true in healthcare. So white feminism still exists today. This has been propagated through the years since first-wave feminism. So I wanted to talk about what it looks like today, and especially in the healthcare world. I think we all just pointed out there's sort of this mentality of "if I had to suffer, then so do you."

Bushra: Oh, that rings familiar in freaking residency. Sorry.

Margaux: No, go ahead, Bushra. Tell them like it is.

Bushra: No, it's true. That mentality is so toxic, but we still kind of hang on to it. Because the generations before us had to do shitty things, we have to endure it too just because they did, even though there is no reason for that to be so.

Margaux: No, it's so true. And like you said, Bushra, it's very toxic and it continues the system of oppression. If feminism was truly about removing oppression of women, why do we feel the need to continue oppressing those that come behind us? Like our trainees or our medical students or high-schoolers. If there's something in the system that we thought was oppressive, why do they have to endure it just because we did?

Harjit: It's literally the motto of residency. "I went through this so should you." And it's like, "Wait, hold on." It's like a railroad track. There's a boxcar, and we're just painting the boxcar and changing the colors but we're still on the same freaking railroad track. Can we move to a different destination? I am tired of the destination we're going on. I am tired.

I hear this so much when it comes to any type of thing. "This is what we had to go through to make us stronger," but who said that's the measure of "I am going to be a better doctor"? No.

Bushra: Yeah, all it creates is generational trauma.

Leen: At this point, I feel like the system is so innate within people. You can tell people this, you can tell them that this is the fundamental of what you're trying to do and what you're trying to be, but at the same time, they'll be like, "That's not me personally. That's not what I think." But it's so innately built that this is the way that we bring power to ourselves that we continue to do it. And you can't argue with them at that stance either.

Harjit: Exactly, Leen. It's like, "I don't want the white man's power." What is the white man's power? The white man's power is freaking scary. I don't need that. We need to create our own power. We need to get out of those systems and create or re-create or re-imagine the way that we see even the word power.

Bushra: Do you ever think about the barriers to doing just that? Obviously, they have a stronghold in literally any facet of life.

Leen: But at this point, I also wonder is it that they have a stronghold or is that now that we have the white feminism persona per se actually upholding that status?

Bushra: Oh, that's a good thought actually, Leen, because that's true. The way that people try to pretend to fix things is they put in place little puppets in their spots that have these "demographics" that people are looking for and say, "Oh, look, we're 50% women and 50% people of color, so we've done our job," and really behind the scenes, nothing has changed.

Leen: And that is the most frustrating thing for me. From undergrad all the way to medical school, I'm just like, "You're not fixing the problem. You're painting it, you're covering it up, you're giving it another title, but innately deep at its core, it's the exact same thought process and it's just up there to uphold the powers that keep you in power and keep you in business and keep you in wherever you need to be." At the end of the day, it's all capitalistic gains or egoistic gains.

Margaux: So true.

Bushra: They never place people who ruffle the feathers in those positions. They never place people who have differing thoughts or ideas in those positions. That's on purpose.

Margaux: And when I was going through this history, I was wondering if the women had so much . . . they had power in their domestic sphere, because they were the ones cooking all the meals for the white men and cleaning the house and all this shit that was important to white men. But what if they had all just decided not to do that and leave? Why wasn't that the option?

Leen: Something that I was told growing up that I believe is actually a product of Western globalization, secondary to colonization, is that the power that you have is in your house. But at the end of the day, maybe at one point the men did this job and now we're going to put in that puppet there and make you feel like you have that power. Or, two, it's just another diversion to say, "No, look, this is your power." And so at the end of the day, whoever supports that system is essentially brainwashed by that fact, that, "Yes, I'm there."

Margaux: Other ways that I think white feminism looks today is sort of perpetuating this toxic imperialist mindset. And I think, Bushra, you mentioned capitalism earlier. And I think that is still very much perpetuated by white feminism today in the beauty standards that we see.

Fatphobia and transphobia are very much propagated by this mindset of measuring other people as our own moral yardstick. "Well, at least I have this and they don't," and sort of this always having to look better and there's never enough space for all of us to exist in one sphere on a positive plane, I think, to me, is what white feminism looks like today.

Harjit: Margaux, let's take those front leaders of the feminist movement in the past and look at the ones that are leading that movement now. It's a very similar image. I see a skinny white woman, blonde. They're the one speaking. The way they dress is very clean and neat. It's a very similar . . . like you said, it's all the way from the way a person looks to what they feel like. Everything is so . . . how do I say it? Rigid. So much like a track.

Bushra: Non-inclusive.

Harjit: Yes. Thanks, Bushra.

Leen: And it even extends down to your personality. I think that's something that I struggled with a lot. I still struggle with. One feedback I always get is, "Leen, you need to act this way to look more confident. If you start talking to yourself out loud, it just doesn't look confident and people don't like that and people won't trust you." And I'm sitting here thinking . . . for a long time, I was like, "Maybe I'm just a quirk and I just don't know," but I kind of started trying to put all the pieces together of who gives me these feedback and what scenarios.

And I realized at the end of the day, it's a very, very counterpart image of trying to be that supremacy to what a white male doctor looks like. So at the end of the day, it's like, "You're not acting like the confident white male doctor that we women want to mirror in order to be part of the system. And so at the end of the day, you don't look confident."

It's hard in the medical field because you can't approach people with that feedback when they give you that feedback, because typically they are your seniors. They are your attendings. So you can't go to your attending and say, "Oh, you're just perpetrating a system of what confidence looks like to a white feminist [inaudible 00:16:59] supremacy." You can't do that. How do you even approach it from that aspect?

I think professional clothes is another thing. That certain color, that certain suit, heels, whatever it is, I think that's all counterpart to men wearing suits and the whole business field. It's the same idea. It's so ingrained into everything we do and nobody notices it, and yet the people in power are in power and you cannot say something against it either. It's really difficult.

Margaux: It's so true and I think that's a good point to conclude Part 1. And to conclude Part 1, I'll just end with Alok's conclusions from the book review. They say, "From this history, we can learn how white women were more invested in privilege than equality, seeking the right to oppress others rather than imagining a more just world for everyone."

So join us next time on Part 2 as we continue with our personal stories with feminism and white feminism. Stay tuned for a sneak peek and join us next week on "Bundle Of Hers."

It's still hard for me to find the words for it, but something that I try to be intentional about recognizing every day, that I don't need to be acknowledged every day in the things that I do and/or say despite how I've been taught.

Leen: Maybe if we just have the mindset that nobody out there is powerful, nobody out there has power, and everybody who does have power more or less is obtaining it from whether it's a system of oppression or a system built to give other people certain egos and things like that.

Harjit: We're doing this for equality, but you're not uplifting voices that need to be uplifted. We're working in the same system and there is no understanding of even your own internalized stuff that we all had.

Bushra: As you grow up and you continue to learn and expand your mind, you do realize the people that perpetuate this are also being affected by it. So it's like women continuing on to perpetuate sexist ideals. And it's like that's kind of fucked up if you think about it.