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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
I thought the hats were in reference to multiple things, one of them indeed being vaginas.
I can understand why that would make some people feel uncomfortable, and that could thus be an argument for not using them. However, I do think in context to what they're reference and opposing that vagina reference makes sense.
I can't help but think part of what makes discussing things like this touchy is that women, as a group, are so diverse that there's probably not a single issue that truly does affect them all equally. But like, in that case what are women's issues?
Edited by LSBK on Dec 30th 2018 at 8:40:16 AM
Well, for one, actually explaining what things mean when you do them. Two, not getting hung up on any one thing as "symbolic" of your movement, because doing that doesn't actually help move you forward as far as I can see. Which quite honestly even people who like the hats don't seem to be fanatically attached to them, so in this case I don't think it's a worry. Symbols like these come and go. Three, how about doing what the ladies interviewed in the article did and talk about said issues? It's not insurmountable, really.
I mean, people are kind of mountaining a molehill here. I think the hats were just kind of fading away in popularity recently regardless of other factors.
Well, I'd agree with all that. I'm not so much focused on the hats more than the larger point, but it's a touch larger point and one I'm not super comfortable bringing up myself because I don't want to be defensive and aren't totally confident I can phrase what I want to say in a way that isn't touchy.
From an outsider's perspective, a lot of the recent progressive feminist movement events (everything from #Me Too! to the hats to even elements of shows) have had a lot of backlash from the women who feel that white feminism is fundamentally different from feminism that benefits women of color.
There's a lot of anger there.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.And that's where I kind of run into a wall...I mean, I get that there are feminist issues which are specifically related to non-white woman, especially in relation to the criminal justice system, and that problems of racism and sexism often bleed together. I get that a white female from a nice neighbourhood doesn't face the same problems as a black one living in a poor area.
But there are also a LOT of topics which are universal. Abortion rights, help for pregnancies, help for women who have to raise their children alone, abuse in relationships, sexual harassment aso.
Are there any "white woman" problems which other woman don't face too? I get the accusation that white woman overlook problems other woman might have, but what exactly are supposed to be issues which white woman only have to deal with? I can't think of any.
I think there's the sense white women have unilaterally declared themselves the leader of feminism in the United States. That they absorb the majority of media attention and their causes drown out concern for others.
But, again, I can't really comment on the perspective.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.![]()
The issue is that while some of these issues are universal, this means they are championed by White Feminists and once they are achieved victory is declared and Women of Color are in the lurch.
Or Wo C being told that their specific issue is not important to the point that it is rarely addressed.
Reducing Feminism into the lowest common denominator aka "Universal" issues kinda sucks when "Universal" is defined by White people.
"You can reply to this Message!"Although the rifts within feminism are all too real, I'm quite suspicious about the size and nature of this backlash.
Because theirs one power bloc in the digital world that has made it clear that it finds rifts to exploit that will harm progressive movements, democracy in general and US integrity in particular.
And, also has a thing against its own Pussy Riot.
While true, I suspect the of women of color wanting to check the privilege of others is fairly real.
Moments like this.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.I get that Black woman are in the lurch regarding their specific issues and that there is a need to raise awareness for them, but I don't follow the logic that they are somehow left behind in general because, well, if there are better laws for planned parenthood aso, EVERY woman will profiteer from them, right?
Unless they ensure that states with a huge black population are somehow left behind….
Sorry to be so critical about it, I want to understand the problem, plus, the best way to stop a movement is to undermine it from within by playing up minor disagreements.
Keep in mind that alongside the obvious racial divide there’s a stark class divide (that also mixes with the racial divide).
Let’s look at the issue you listed Swan, because how one tries to tackle them from the perspective of middle-class white women can be different from how one tries to tackle them from the perspective of lower-class minority women.
Abortion rights in what sense? The legal right to have an abortion or the legal right to have an abortion that a person can afford? Middle-class White women often have the option to drive out of state to get an abortion or go to a private clinic, that’s not an option for many minority women.
Help for pregnancies is the same, are we talking about making sure doctors can’t lie/aren’t forced to lie to their patients (a key concern for those who can afford doctors) or are we talking about providing basic healthcare access?
Help for single mothers has a similar split, do we help them by making enforcing child support easier (great if the father is know and has an income), by providing direct state support (better for women where the father is unknown or has no income) or by removing societal barriers that prevent minority men from being there for their families (AKA stop locking them up for decades over minor crimes).
Next we have abusing relationships, this feeds into #Me Too!, where there’s been criticism for it having an overfocus on high flying women with strong careers, the focus is on the exploited aspiring (white) actress, not the just making it by (minority) hotel maid. That’s before we get into the fact that part of why minority women are so unprotected from abuse is because they (perhaps rightly) feel they can’t call the police on their abuser (or that if they did they would be sentencing said abuser to death).
With sexual harassment we come to the issue of how victims are perceived, minority girls are demonstrably perceived as older and more sexually eager than white girls (I’m using girls here deliberately, as I’m taking about children) by both the professional legal system and juries. That’s before touching on the historic horrific instances of white women using accusations sexual harassment as a weapon against minority men, it’s a touchy subject (that I as a white man am massively unqualified to speak on) with a lot of bad blood.
And that’s the universal issues.
Edited by Silasw on Dec 31st 2018 at 12:57:38 PM
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranSpeaking as an outsider myself, it's generally because the promised "universal" improvements are then made difficult for people of color to get access to - and sometimes there are issues in POC communities that aren't addressed at all, because none of them have voices on the leadership of the groups that are pushing for improvements. As the saying goes, a rising tide may lift all boats, but not if some of those boats have holes in them - and if the (white) leaders of women's rights movements are saying 'look, we can patch your boats later, let's focus on the tide for right now', then I can see the problem.
Of course, in even simpler terms, lack of POC voices and representation is the same problem in women's-issues-specific spaces as it is in the rest of society. If you're a big-name rights organization with reach across the country, why not reach out to famous WOC activists to give them a platform? Hell, why not start a program to foster more young WOC activists' involvement in the political process and getting their voices heard? The best-case scenario for an entire board full of white women is that none of them know any WOC and none of them thought that maybe they could use some different perspectives - and that's only the best because it assumes basically inexcusable ignorance instead of malice.
It's been fun.There’s the fact that a fair number of “universal issues” don’t actually affect all women. Associating right to abortion or maternity leave with all women is inaccurate. Oftentimes, those issues are decided by cisgender, heterosexual, able bodied white women. Feminism often focuses on those issues to the detriment of other issues, like my own right to go to the goddamn bathroom without being labelled a sex offender.
Every issue that affects women should get focus. Not just the ones that cishet white feminists care about. Black women, trans women, disabled women, they always get pushed to the side and told “not right now”.
While I get that the abortion issue is slightly less pressing for white middle-class woman, I doubt that many of them are happy about having to drive into a different state to get the help needed. And last time I checked the majority of americans of BOTH genders are for health care for everyone.
I don't know, this works of the assumption that there is no solidarity for anyone, but the last protests have shown exactly the opposite. the Teacher protests didn't end until the demands of bus drivers and cafeteria workers were meet too, despite the teachers union first trying to stop the protests and then trying to pit the protesting groups against each other. The Parkland students have gone out of their way to emphasis that the gun violence problem is on an entirely different level in poor neighbourhoods and called out the media for giving them more of a platform because they happened to be white.
Now the woman's march is a different animal, because there are so different issues collected under it, I can't even tell what their main goal is other than pointing out what the election of Donald Trumps says about the current state of society. A guy like him shouldn't be electable. And the Meetoo movement...wasn't every woman invited to tell her story? I mean, yes, actresses got the most attention, because they already are famous.
Again, I am not saying that it is wrong to draw attention to issues which might affect different woman differently. But wouldn't it be better to focus on instances where attempts to inform and speak up about those issues were supressed or pushed aside instead of, well, discussing the true symbolism of pussy hats?
Edited by Swanpride on Dec 31st 2018 at 5:34:31 AM
Really, Jewish women were harassed as well?
(It saddens me the trans part was not surprising)
Anyone got any good articles on the problems of the Women's March?
One of the criticisms of the #Me Too! movement was also the fact that it took off with Alyssa Milano in 2017 while it had been originated by Tarana Burke.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.

This whole conversion I thought they were meant to be vagina hats. I could totally see trans women being super offended by those hats if they didn't have the context that they were meant to be cat references, especially if people constantly referred to them as "pussy hats" and didn't use any other term. I don't even think people upset at that are in the wrong, literally no-one here clarified they were meant to be cat references until just now.