Feminism is about all genders having equal rights and opportunities. It's about respecting diverse women's experiences, identities, knowledge, and strengths, and striving to empower all women to realize their full rights. Both men and women can be feminists. Feminism is in favour of equality between genders, not dominance of women over men. Feminism is inclusive of people who are trans and who are non-binary. An intersectional stance strengthens this endeavor, because in this light feminism can function as  “a prism for seeing the way in which various forms of inequality often operate together and exacerbate each other,” as American civil rights scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw explains.

Many people are subject to various inequalities, based on qualities that are part of their identity, such as skin colour, gender, class, sexuality or immigrant status, and feminism is looked upon as a movement that includes all of these in the fight for equality in the world. However there those who would question whether this is truly the case. 

In recent years the debate about the ‘whiteness’ of feminism has come to the fore, raising issues about instances where feminism  assumes  that white women experience discrimination and misogyny in the same way as all other women,  ignoring how the phenomenon is related to racism, socioeconomic status,  and ableism, among other factors.  

Back in the early eighties,  philosopher, poet and civil rights activist Audre Lorde reminded us that we must stand up for one another and work towards a world where no woman is shackled by oppression. A new definition of feminism was proposed, one which is not limited to fighting for the equality of women and men (of the same class), but a movement committed to fight against, and end multiple forms of oppression such as racism and classism, besides  sexist oppression and exploitation.  

 

The relationship between white feminism and white supremacy

A  significant part of white feminism is profoundly rooted in white supremacy. Koa Beck (2021), author of White Feminism argues that it is an act of white supremacy when  white feminism homogenises mainstream dominant feminism by falsely holding it up as the only legitimate model of feminism. Beck continues that when the needs of marginalized women, poor women, women of colour, transgender women, or disabled women  etc. conflict with those of white supremacy, their needs will be dismissed or subjugated.

 

The White Saviour complex

White feminism is also closely intertwined with the white saviour complex. This is a widespread trope upholding the belief that people who are not ‘one of us,’ non-white,  or ‘other’, are submissive and helpless, and they therefore need white people or ‘people like us’ to come into their world and save them. This is central to the white saviour mentality, which in turn is firmly rooted in colonialism. It is exactly how white colonisers qualified their violent invasions of people’s lands. The colonized were ‘ignorant, barbaric and generally backward’, they needed to be taught how to live a more ‘civilised’ life, like the one in the West. This mentality justified war and violence, the imposition of the coloniser’s culture and lifestyle on a huge proportion of the Global South, and the slave trade for many centuries.

Rafia Zakaria (2021) writes about the legacy of the British feminist imperialist saviour complex, “the colonial thesis that all reform comes from the West,” and the conflation of sexual liberation as the “sum total of empowerment.”  Upper-middle-class white women have long been heralded as “experts” on feminism. They have formed a great part of what is deemed the feminist canon, espousing sexual liberation and satisfaction, LGBTQ inclusion, and racial solidarity,  whilst presenting the movement itself in their own image and speaking over the lived experiences of myriad other women in their endeavour  to uphold  perceived cultural superiority.

 

"Girlboss feminism"

Even though a lot has been written about white feminism over the past few years, it still seems to be viewed and (mis)understood as a loaded term. White or liberal feminism refers to a type of feminism that  prioritises issues that primarily affect white middle class women.

It’s also often referred to as "girlboss feminism," as the focus tends to be on equality and empowerment gained through capitalist means, such as calling for an increase in the number of female CEOs;  “feminist”- branded success here takes on a capitalistic form, in which individual elevation within a company, personal capital, and productivity on behalf of a company (rather than domestic labor), are deemed innately “feminist” despite their centrality to capitalism, which  is historically identified  as a key component of the oppression of women, particularly those who were not white or middle class. This is a feminism that prioritises the achievement of equality for white women, insisting that their equality will open up doors for all other women, including those living in poverty.

Orleck observes that from the beginning,  the working women’s suffrage movement spoke  a  different language from that used by more privileged suffragists. The working women argued for broader human rights, as distinct from possessing all that patriarchy possessed. This divergence was further manifested in how differently both groups interpreted the right to vote: working-class women wanted to use their vote to for the benefit of the working-class as a whole.

 

The blindfold of privilege

The lenses of white feminism do not apprehend ‘other’ realities, which are also largely or even completely absent from syllabi and curricula in educational institutions. Beck (2021) argues that white feminism does not encounter women where they are. Oppressed and marginalized women are somehow expected to miraculously change and "aspire" to resemble the image of their more privileged sisters.  The feminism of the privileged or white feminism, is accused of shifting the blame on marginalized and diverse women for not achieving certain 'feminist wins' (such as balancing motherhood with a career or home ownership) and doesn’t reconsider the forces that disenfranchise those who do not have the desired resources or capabilities.

It is important to note  that the term ‘white feminism’ does not refer to a particular group of people, but rather to a particular system and ideology  in the world of feminism, and that white feminism can be practised and asserted by anyone regardless of their racial identity. Poised as we are in our collective history where dominating forces in the world have brought us to the brink of ethical, environmental, and humanitarian disaster, the reminder that we are all one human race and must work together for our collective survival in this world is not simply an ideal or an opinion, but a call to action.