The White Feminists Who Love Whitesplaining

[Content Note: Racism; whitesplaining.]

Three days after Patricia Arquette's problematic Oscar commentary, white feminists are still whitesplaining at marginalized women who took issue with her comments. And, to a far lesser degree, other white women who are taking them to task for their shitty, racist behavior.

I just had the following exchange on Twitter (with a woman whose racial identity I do not know, but who is parroting the same arguments being made primarily by white feminists), and look at how quickly this escalates into the utterly absurd:


Got that? WE'RE ON THE SLIPPERY SLOPE TO FASCISM, PEOPLE! Because women of color and queer women ask not to be written out of the womanhood and lectured on how much straight white cis women have done for them. FASCISM.

I replied, simply: "LOL. Okay." She came back with: "What do you really think that was about? That lashing out? You must cop it daily."

(Notice the repeated conflation of marginalized women's criticism with violent and silencing acts. "Attacked." "Shut down." "Lashing out.")

I said: "You literally just compared listening to marginalized women to fascism. This conversation is so the fuck over."

But naturally it wasn't: "No I soooo did not. Listening to any women is the opposite of fascism. Apparently unlike you, I'd defend a woman of any description who said something like that & got piled on for it."

I'm the bad feminist. Of course I am.

This, friends, is about one-zillionth of a percent of what black women and non-black women of color are experiencing as pushback, for the simple act of expecting more from a white woman who positions herself as a spokesperson for all women.