this example from this crt reader in the intersectionality section about a “hypothetical black woman” is so irritating to me… abortion is a concern that arises specifically out of the white female experience?
“White women want abortions while Black women want affordable childcare services” is profoundly racist and completely inaccurate. The American abortion rights movement was successful because it included women from all racial and ethnic backgrounds and income levels.
The 1970 Women’s Strike included explicit demands for legal abortions and free childcare.
This is also just like….such a transparent example of the sort of feminist-Goofus-and-Gallant shit that people constantly use to scare women away from feminism?? Literally this is just using pseudo-anti-racist rhetoric to legitimize the dynamic of “Sally says she is a feminist, but she only wants feminism so she can be a cold, selfish, power-hungry baby killer :( But Brenda is a feminist because she just wants it to be easier to do her job of birthing and nurturing babies :) So see, feminism is okay sometimes :)))” Like we’ve seriously gone full “Angel in the House” in regards to how we talk about poor and/or racialized women sometimes and it’s mindbogglingly demeaning on both a racist and sexist level. If this hypothetical woman wanted to be a Fortune 500 CEO that popped Plan B pills like Altoids, the need to include her in the feminist movement would be no less urgent.
The idea that black women wouldn’t be interested in electing a female president sure aged poorly
the reader that text was from was written in 2001; I think the authors meant well, but they weren’t walking their own talk enough yet to realize that maybe they should have asked some of their Black colleagues to provide the examples involving Black people. (Richard Delgado is of Latino background, his wife Elise Stefancic is white). Interestingly, in a 2011 interview, Delgado talks about the difficulty when you’re a scholar talking about race to a primarily white audience, how easy it is to get watered down trying to keep that audience listening long enough to do anything, makes me wonder if that was part of the gross example choices.
But yeah, also maybe people arguing in good faith should be using examples of “feminist” writing that isn’t old enough now to fuckin’ vote as representative of “feminism.” Particularly when said example is from a critical race theory reader, not something purporting to be primarily about “feminism,” intersectional or not. Delgado and Stefancic are in their 80s. A lot of 80-something academics said shit that sounded progressive 25 years ago but would be pretty dated and cringey now. Question: Why are we calling this out now, stirring up ancient discourse?
A long way around to say:
How about let’s NOT recirculate outdated conservative boogeyman-texts to spread division. Maybe instead of doing that, boost actual Black peoples’ voices. Or if you MUST be the purity police, call out racism that’s happening NOW in the feminist community, not a quarter century ago, instead of getting in a lather about shit that was written before a lot of you even existed and doing the likes of goddamn Tucker Carlson’s work for him.
