The Failures of Mainstream Feminism

Feb 13, 2017 17:59

It wasn't America's rampant misogyny that doomed Hillary Clinton ( Read more... )

feminism, donald trump, hillary clinton

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rainbows_ February 14 2017, 22:57:46 UTC
CONT.

"The much-quoted lines are symptomatic of the attitude towards marriage among bourgeois feminists. The mantra of “choice” is taken to mean that there are multiple kinds of feminism, including the sort where women relinquish their economic independence, or support the erasure of abortion rights. The feminism Traister upholds, as Hillary Clinton upheld, is what we might call a “Big Tent Feminism,” the sort that makes allowances for every possible variation of “feminism” under the logic that If Women Want It, It Must Be Feminist. No matter how poisonous the effects may be (such as Hillary Clinton’s vote to authorize a brutal war that killed many thousands of innocent women), an empowered woman’s act is always a feminist act.

But Albright, Clinton, and Traister’s feminism is not the feminism of working class or middle class women; it is inherently about solidifying the interests of wealthy women.

This lack of a serious vision of economic equality for women explains why Traister has massively overpraised Hillary Clinton’s significance for women. In her book on the 2008 election, Traister calls it “the election that changed everything for American women,” and has a chapter entitled “Hillary is us.” But Clinton’s 2008 campaign changed literally nothing for American women. They were still working the same jobs the day after she conceded as they were the day before she announced her run. And she definitely isn’t us in any important way. She’s not us, first and foremost, because she has several hundred million dollars of wealth, and because she doesn’t recognize that our lives are defined by the constraints of our economic conditions."

Intersection between capitalism and racism:

Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, assassinated on this day in 1969, explains how the ruling class uses racism to exploit working people. pic.twitter.com/h3fAbpfKs1
- Jacobin (@jacobinmag) December 4, 2016

Wall Street is insanely racist https://t.co/WPTBCX8HnR pic.twitter.com/Bkf51MnxUn
- ryan cooper (@ryanlcooper) February 14, 2017

Check out my Revolutionary Study Guide, a masterpost full of resources. Great for radical beginners. https://t.co/5BodVoS8Zp
- 🌹 (@desi_bitch) December 3, 2015

In terms of intersectional politics, here are some WOC and MOC leftists/socialists to follow: Yasmin Yonis, Josh Briond, Da'Shaun L. Harrison, Delo Taylor, Sankofa Brown, and Wendi Muse.

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bunnybutt February 16 2017, 03:12:06 UTC
Sigh. You continue to fail at intersectionality, and appear not to grasp the underlying concept. I strongly recommend you go back to google and attempt to educate yourself out of a viewpoint that continues to be deeply steeped in the most essentialist kind of white feminism.

Tossing out a few POC authors "to follow" while continuing to preach and defend the mainstream white feminist message from atop privilege mountain, with quotes and attributions only from other white women, does not move anything forward - it just defends the status quo.

Also, your quotes and references are pretty much non-sequiturs. How do those POC's writings fit within the premise of your original article? How do they inform critical inquiry into the issues you raise?

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