Comments | gaudior: WWS: On race, on fear, on anger.

gaudior

WWS: On race, on fear, on anger.

Jun 21, 2006 08:32

In a comment to a recent post of mine, homasse described "White Woman Syndrome," or WWS, a phenomenon discussed on a lot of the minority-focused forums on lj. She said that the usual explanation people there come up with for why White women sometimes act like complete, entitled twits is that "White women, being considered the ideal for beauty and such, ( Read more... )

links, race, psychology, commentsversation, navel-gazing, rant, public

Comments 15

ckd June 21 2006, 15:16:09 UTC

I think I needed to read this post today, even though I didn't know that before reading it.

Thank you.

sovay June 21 2006, 15:22:00 UTC

When I lose my temper and yell at my children, what I want to say to them afterwards is not "Sweetie, I'm sorry I yelled," but "Sweetie, I'm sorry I scared you. I yelled because I was mad. People yell sometimes. But even if I yelled so loudly that I blew the whole house down, that doesn't mean that I'll hurt you or that I don't love you. I will always love you-- even if you yell at me so loudly you blow the block down." This isn't about racism, but it is about anger. My mother told me a story recently. She grew up with parents who had met in graduate school, fallen in love, and three months later gotten married-and then, so far as any of their children could see, gone on to have a perfect marriage. They never fought with one another. They never shouted. They never disagreed. Or, if they disagreed, it was over small things and easily resolved and nobody was hurt or upset about it. All of which is, in fact, not the case. My grandparents, like any normal couple, did have arguments and fights and disagreements with one another. But they ( ... )

breadandroses June 21 2006, 15:50:32 UTC

All very true and perceptive. I let that last discussion slip past me, but I want to add to the idea of "White Women Syndrome" - I think it's not simply that we expect people to love us because we're pretty and perfect, but that it's the only kind of power that we often see ourselves as having access to. Because the correlation to being a Pretty Princess is that you are seriously fragile and need protection. My parents didn't intentionally treat me that way, G-d knows, but like you, I'm still trying to unlearn the idea that I will crumple when faced with anger or unkindness.

(btw, your link is wrong)

plasticsturgeon June 21 2006, 15:57:10 UTC

Re: "White Woman Syndrome"--yet another confusion of race with class.

homasse June 23 2006, 09:44:18 UTC

Why, pray tell?

I'm in the same middle class demographic as the people suffering from WWS, as are many Black women I know, and NONE of do the WWS crap--mainly because we are taught, and taught *early*, that we will get crap because of our race and no one will care. We are taught that, no matter what we accomplish, to someone, we will always be "just a nigger," the kind of thing White people are not.

So no. I disagree with you completely about it being a confusion of race and class, because *race is a factor*.

plasticsturgeon June 23 2006, 14:17:46 UTC

I never said race wasn't a factor--it just isn't as simplistic as that. The kind of woman parodied in "White Woman Syndrome" is a very small minority among white women. Yes, the mainstream beauty ideal is a white woman--but she looks and acts nothing like most white women. Yes, some upper-class women think the world revolves around them--but most white women are not upper-class, and of the ones that are, many expect hostility (not deference) from others, or feel their status as extra responsibility rather than extra privilege ( ... )

nucl3arsnke June 23 2006, 16:34:21 UTC

Also, I think it's a little suspicious that white women are the target here rather than white men

Agreed. My own thoughts on this include that WWS is about "whiney" women. I also personally think that "whining" is simply more likely to be applied to women because we generally have higher-pitched voices. Men don't "whine," they "complain."

Please.

Anger eredien June 22 2006, 00:20:39 UTC

Interesting.

I don't think that anger is ok.
Sometimes it is justified.
But however you express it--with loud yells, or verbal sniping, or even just with a quiet talk of the this-made-me-angry-let's-work-on-it variety with someone you care about--it is the symptom of something important that is broken or breaking, and needs to be fixed.
The thing that is important and breaking needs to be fixed; the anger will leave.

An example: I am very angry right now with the government's actions as a whole. Is this ok? No. (The anger hurts me).
Is it justified? Yes.
Is it making me do stuff? Sure; it is even useful.
But it is never non-harming. It points to something broken or breaking.

I also think that anger is threatening in and of itself; it threatens the wellbeing of the person feeling it, if nothing else ( ... )

Re: Anger rushthatspeaks June 22 2006, 02:25:59 UTC

Anger is, however, *necessary*, because it's a good deal of what motivates us to fix the things that are going wrong. And expression of anger is necessary for the person who has the anger, or it goes inward and hurts the person far worse than the anger could ( ... )

Re: Anger nucl3arsnke June 22 2006, 17:45:08 UTC

I want to ask you both about the concept of emotions as motivations, though. If you are motivated to do something *because* you are angry, and you want to make the anger go away, how are you not a slave to your emotions? How is that not like the scenario of taking a drug to make a bad feeling go away, rather than focusing on the underlying cause of the feeling/emotion?

Also, I'd love to hear more about the idea of anger as a source of self-knowledge, if you've got time.

Also, I'm thinking about anger being okay, and about anger hurting others or ourselves, and beginning to wonder if it is a valid conclusion that hurting others or ourselves is okay (in that it is a condition of human life that we can minimize but not escape, and may even find useful at times- like anger).