Women of Color and the Women's Movement

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>It seems to me that with a few exceptions this discussion has been mostly
>among
>white women commenting on the exclusion or inclusion of writings by women of
>color, of their feelings about this past history of connection to women's
>studies, etc.
>I think this speaks for itself about our continued tendency to speak for
>others,
>as well as the lack of other voices. When we start working with rather
>than just teaching about the voiceless then perhaps this discussion will 
>take a different thread.

No offense, but I don't think women of color or class-oppressed women are
"voiceless"; it's a very different matter not to get access to a platform,
or to have your voice magnificed at a volume loud enough to be heard, and
to be responded to, than it is to be voiceless.


Max Dashu    <www.suppressedhistories.net>
International Women's Studies since 1970
 <maxdashu  @  lanminds.com>

[In response to Max Dashu]:

My reference was not to academic women of color, but to those women who some of
us write about, i.e. indigenous women living on reservations, welfare mothers,
working class women, etc.

Benay Blend
blend  @  nm.net

Disregarding D. Miranda's offensive tone and rewriting of my comments, I
will merely repeat what I wrote several days ago:  check out Florence Howe's
new book of testimony by thirty "founding mothers" of women's studies.
---------------------------------
daphne.patai  @  spanport.umass.edu

This is in response to Deborah Miranda's post from Tuesday, Sept 12.

Deborah,
        I am very interested in the questions you raise about this
conversation.  I am a white lesbian, a teacher, a student and an artist and
agree very very strongly with the arguments you make below in response to
Daphne Patai.
        You've asked what the "white women on this list think about this
conversation" so I'd like to try to answer--in part.  On one level, as I
suggested in an earlier post, I feel that much of the conversation tends to
be like other conversations that white people--not just feminists have about
racism--the discussions tend to go nowhere.  White people in the
conversation tend to make excuses and manifest all sorts of frenzied
displacement behaviors--avoiding some probably very painful but also
straightforward truths and simple, if not "easy" remedies. (Not that this
doesn't raise some interesting issues.)
         I agree that we aren't past racism.  The questions--particularly
around pedagogy--make me feel hopeful and so does the fact that we are at
least talking around some of these issues.  But I feel the influence of a
kind of powerful conservative academic amorality.  There is so much at
stake. What is it exactly for each of us?
        I  love the work of a number of women of color--and I know with
great certainty that some of that work has helped me to survive. I strongly
agree with your statement, "It's not just that women of color students
deserve role models of our own background or hue; it is because white
students need as much information about the world as possible in order to
learn whatever it is they are in the academy to learn--and because they are
less whole, less human/humane, and lesser beings when they are isolated,
uniformed, and unprepared because their educations are inadequate."
        So I teach work by the writers of color I love and value and I've
never taught a course ***on*** women of color.  The work is central to my
view of the world and it should be known and taught.  And I hate it that, as
you have pointed out, a class on "Women's Love Poetry and Erotics" would not
have women of color on the syllabus.  As you have pointed out, this is a
major problem--and it does hurt white women too.  It probably hurts some of
us more than others.
        I realize this is a partial answer to your important question.  I
hope that the list explores this more.  Thanks.
Catherine green
New York University (Ph.D candidate & residency artist)
seecgreen  @  mindspring.com

The discussion of racism in women's studies is, as Daphne says, a very old
and much focused aspect of women's studies.  What's unfortunate about this
thread is that the discussion has become polarized.

It is true that women
of color were involved in women's movement and in women's studies from the
beginning in the early 1970s, *and* it is also true that women's movement
in the U.S. has been primarily focused on white women's experiences.  And
it is also true that many white women in women's movement have been
aware of that and have tried to do anti-racist work, on themselves and in
colaboration with women of color.  Many women of color have done
coalition work with white women and have also done work within their own
communities, feminist work.  Yet the media, as one post reminded us,
insists on presenting "the women's movement" as being about white
middle-class women.  I agreed with the post that said that the media
gives short shrift to stories about feminist work around
welfare, but inundates us with stories about glass ceilings. I liked the
post that said (paraphrase) "if you do anti-racist work you will take shit
you deserve and shit you don't deserve."  It is indeed true that those of
us who are white are going to deserve some of this criticism and are also
going to get some criticism that we feel we shouldn't have
received.  I'd like to see us get beyond feeling defensive when someone
accuses us of racism.  Yes, it's unpleasant.  But I would like to see us
try, instead of feeling attacked and paralyzed, to say to ourselves, what
could I have done differently?  How can I learn from this?

>      Yet somehow on this list the same accusations are made over and over
> again,

Yes, because the problem of racism is still with us.
It is true, as Daphne says, that many women's studies professors did
include material on racism very early, and also many in Women's Liberation
saw connections between racism, classism, and sexism.  Charlotte Bunch,
for example, was writing and speaking in the 1970s about how feminism
could not limit itself to just white women's issues, but must
be aware of the larger issues.  Angela Davis made connections between
race, class, and sexism.  I remember seeing in the Women's Archives at my
university, in the Women's Movement Collection, some flyers that read "ERA
means End Racism Now!"  The collection bears out that women in the labor
movement were also organizing against racism and for the ERA.  These were
not two separate movements.  I could name names of women of color and
white women in the 70s and 80s who were making connections among racism
and sexism and classism:  Barbara Smith, Beverly Smith, the Combahee River
Collective, Patricia Bell Scott, Gloria Hull, Audre Lorde, Pat Parker.
Minnie Bruce Pratt and Mab Segrest were two white Southern women I knew
who were writing in the 70s and 80s about the interconnectedness among
sexism, racism, and oppression based on sexual orientation.  They were
(and still are) activists and teachers of women's studies.

Yet *still* we can find courses
on "Women's Erotic Literature" (or something else) in which all the
authors are white.  What that means is, among other things, is that in
spite of very real efforts made by very many people, racism still exists.

That should not surprise us.  Did we think it would be that easy?
For all the work that has been done by anti-racists, there are still ways
in which racism prevails.

> and the same pretense that there are no orthodoxies in women's
> studies, that dissenting women have no grounds for feeling shut up or shut
> out (unless they belong to the correct oppressed group).

Of course there are orthodoxies -- there always are, in any discipline.
And there are always dissenters.  Women's Studies would be
extraordinary indeed if it were different.  And, as another
post pointed out, academia is one of the few places where one can be a
dissenter and suffer relatively minor consequences.  In fact, the
prevailing mode of academic discourse is argument.

> People on this list have no trouble disagreeing with
> viewpoints such as mine.

People on this list have no trouble disagreeing with *any* viewpoints, it
seems to me.  Disagreement is alive and well here.

> The fact that I am a *woman* (I'll leave out some
> other markers here) doesn't make people on this list automatically believe
> or confirm everything I say (nor should it). Why should any other woman get
> different treatment?

I don't know that other women are automatically
believed because of their gender, their race, or
anything else about their identity.  I know that I do try to listen to a
woman's charge of racism.  I'm not saying that I automatically believe
everything that *anyone* says, and I don't think that being anti-racist
means that I should.  It does mean that I should listen carefully, with
both reason and empathy, and be willing to hear criticism without
automatically jumping to my own defense.  (And that is not easy.)

> Are we really supposed to abstain from using reason
> and judgment because somebody plays the identity card?  I and others have
> been objecting to this for years, yet it seems not to change. Same games,
> same players, same charges.  Is this really what women's studies is supposed
> to be about??

No, of course not.  This seems to be overstating.  These posts on this
thread seem to me to be illustrative of both reason and judgement.

> Why then do women's studies
> professors often insist on needing "safe spaces" for their women students?
> Evidently there's an assumption that with men present in class some women
> might shut up and not express themselves. Does this really happen?  If so,
> why, then, is it hard to believe this also happens within groups of women?

This paragraph shifts the ground of the discussion from racism in the
women's movement to the question of "safe space."  That's all right; the
subjects are related.  I myself do not believe that there can ever be a
completely safe space.  Bernice Reagon Johnson wrote in the 70s or early
80s (I don't have the publication but it was, I think, *Sinister Wisdom*
or *Feminary*) that the idea of safe space was illusory.  If we
acknowledge and allow for the expression of differences, we will not and
cannot have space where every person present will feel at all times safe.
Safe space can exist only in a limited and temporary way. Many people can
feel safe only with those who are as much like them as possible.  Such
people are not, obviously, going to feel safe most of the time.  I think
that we should try to create in classrooms and in meeting places not safe
space but respectful space.  We need to try to create spaces where people
can disagree with what others say without insulting or showing disrespect
for the other as people.  Some women's studies classes at GSU have in
their syllabi a statement that says that the course deals with material
that may trigger strongly emotional responses, and that everyone is
expected to show respect to others when disagreeing, to refrain from
making personal attacks, and to take responsibility for their own feelings
and reactions.  All this is, of course, far easier to say than to put
into practice.  Yet I and others have found that saying that this behavior
is expected often encourages students -- and the instructor -- to try to
live up to it.

>   Group dynamics have their own force.  There are domineering personalities
> and fearful ones - and people often switch roles depending on the setting
> and the issues.  It's not simply a matter of race, or of sex.

This is most true, and a perceptive statement.  I believe that many
women's studies instructors and feminists are aware of this. Power shifts
and moves. Yet I also believe that institutional power is still unequally
distributed along racial lines (even though we can all point to
exceptions) and along gender lines as well, even though many strides have
been made.  Racism still exists, sexism still exists, classism still
exists.  It would be too extraordinary to think that it could be
otherwise.  These evils are too great to be wiped out in a few decades.

Charlene

M. Charlene Ball, Administrative Coordinator
Women's Studies Institute
Georgia State University
Atlanta, Georgia  30303-3083
404/651-4633
404/651-1398 fax
wsimcb  @  panther.gsu.edu
http://www.gsu.edu/womenpower

Kathleen Trigiani wrote:
> The public wants to believe that all feminists are "privileged" so that it
> can trivialize the women's movement.  The mass media gave very little space
> to the feminists who protested welfare reform.  However, it was quite eager
> to write another boring article about glass ceiling issues.

Kathleen has raised, somewhat indirectly, another important issue here, the
one of *class*.  How does class influence a woman's "right" to be heard?
  Why is there so much talk about glass ceilings in business and getting
more women
into politics when we don't talk about the women who get paid low wages
to clean many of these women's homes and offices and look after many of their
kids?  (No this is not a guilt trip on "successful" women. It is rather
a call to give these things some thought:  what structures are we,
consciously or inadvertently, contributing to perpetuating? Is it
possible for us to address that?  If so, how?) How bourgeois does a
"racialised" woman (or even a white woman) have to
get before she is heard?  What is the influence of class on how racism
operates (and vice versa! as we know who most of the poor are; that
said, there are also anglo working class or destitute women, just as
there is a minority of "upwardly mobile" women of colour [strange
expression that, as if white wasn't a colour]).

There is also the issue of straightness.  How "straight" or straight-looking
does a woman have to be before she is heard?  It's OK to be a TV-star lipstick
lesbian (and even then), how about the rest of us? And how about the
sorts of heterosexism women face in some sections of minority
communities along with the antifeminism one post referred to, just as
white women face "white" heterosexism ....and [hetero]sexism from
racialised men & women as well!  Yes, it does happen, I am not going to
paternalistically paint all the oppressed as perfect and inherently
incapable of oppressing others.  I am sure there are a number of
[in]famous examples all readers can think of to bear this out.  After
all, "being oppressed" is not an inherent characteristic of individuals,
it is the result of a social/political/economic/cultural relationship of
domination.  That relationship can be multiple and context will
influence enormously how it/they operate(s).

Racism affects all racialised women (and I would argue affects us all as those
who don't suffer from it benefit from it whether we want to or not,
whether we take steps to challenge racism or not=85=85) but other sorts of
oppressions and privileges operate too - as well as differences in
political choices: I don't agree with everything white women say just
because they're white, just as I don't agree with everything women of
colour say just because they're women of colour.

My point here is that it is paternalistic to assume that racialised
women are some sort of homogenous bloc, and just as paternalistic to refuse
debate/disagreement out of guilt/fear of being called
"racist"/unwillingness to be challenged/complacency/whatever. 
There is an objective political reality called racism with socioeconomic
consequences.  We have different analyses of where that racism comes
from.(For me, its links to male domination are obvious, but I aware that
not all share that view--this is another debate!) How we operate within the
reality of racism, and the degree to which protections can be found
against (some
of/the extent of) the damage it does, depends on so many other factors.
Where we were born, what ethnicity and social class our parents are
from, what political choices we make along the way, what compromises we
may agree to or be forced to make.

I firmly believe that as a white woman I have been brought up to be
racist, whether I like it or not, and that I have a reponsibility to do
what I can about that without unproductively chest-beating about it and,
I hope, without boring everyone silly with turgid and narcissistic
analyses of my own "subject position" of the sort I see more and more
when white women write about racism. I also believe, however, that we
cannot just assume that everyone comes from the same context, is
affected by this in the same way, thinks the same things or operates
within the same cultural structures.

We cannot even assume that consciousness of racism is enough to make us
all, whatever our "colour", immune from indulging in all sorts of
political blackmail and self-delusion. Yes, this happens too, as some
contributors have attempted to point out. This is not about point
scoring or engaging in what one contributor called "oppression Olympics"
(a metaphor that, as someone living in Sydney, I find particularly apt
at this point in time ;-)  ). It is about attempting to be honest
and engaging in debate which will lead to greater solidarity and
understanding in the interests of us *all*. Certainly, it is
extraordinarily difficult to move beyond the politics of name-calling
and guilty chest-beating to something more meaningful, as when we have
suffered damage, we will be hostile to those that represent the class
responsible for that damage, however "unjust" that hostility may seem to
those on the receiving end.  As Marilyn Frye once wrote (I am
paraphrasing), whatever white women try to do to address racism, it will
somehow somewhere always be the "wrong" thing. But we have a
responsbility to keep trying. Another post to this discussion said
something similar. The same or another post also pointed out, in a
less blunt way than I am about to, that we need to separate the honest
debate from the bullshit.

Finally, another perspective on the way cultural/historical/political
context will affect us: 
I come from Australia and have lived a long time in France, to the
extent that I have internalised a lot of French culture (now how many
stereotypes flash through people's minds when I say "French culture"?)
and often feel 'foreign' in Australia. There are of course similarities
to the way the issues are articulated in these countries and the US, but
there are many many many differences. I come up against US (I do not say
American as America is at least two continents, three depending on how
one situates Central America) - against US cultural /political
assumptions, and worse,
prescriptions, including about how racism "should" be talked about, *all 
the time*, and frequently have to go into lengthy explanations/discussions 
about things as basic as meanings of words/expressions like "woman of colour" 
(not used in Australia and racist in French translation) or "indigenous"
(once again, has racist connotations in French) "liberal" (does not mean
the same in the US, Australia or France), and so on.
Sometimes this is amusing, sometimes it is downright galling.  And even
distressing, when I realise that US hegemonic thinking is not always
just a "white/gentile" phenomenon. That is, attitudes of US-born women
can often have more to do with US culture and US-conditioned assumptions
about the
world and the USA's place in it than they do with "race" or "colour".
e.g. assumptions by US people travelling overseas that everyone speaks
English so they don't even bother to ask if people do. e.g. (2)
assumptions that issues of race and class are going to be articulated
and debated in the same terms elsewhere as in the US. Such things are
symptomatic of a form of cultural arrogance that is not, unfortunately,
wholly colour-coded.

This is a hard thing to have to say, but as somebody from outside the
US, when (esp. academic) feminism is so terribly US-dominated, I and
many of my friends and colleagues (from all sorts of ethnic & national
backgrounds) are constantly having to deal with US ideological/cultural
blinkers.  So when we talk about racism/antiracism, we also need to talk
about what context we're dealing with, and understand that context
rather than just assuming it's just the same as some other (usually US)
one.  (I suspect this argument also holds for *within* the US:  from
what I have observed, there are many regional
cultural/political/economic differences that impact on the way things
get articulated)

Well, I don't know if all this is useful, I am trying to say a lot of rather
complex things in a very small space of words and have strayed quite
far from my original response to Kathleen.  To sum up:  yes we can
identify the "universal" characteristics of racism and speak out against
it on a "universal" level, but its articulations, and responses to it,
are so complex, and so imbricated with all sorts of other relationships
of domination, that we need to try to understand if we are to get beyond 
angry accusations or guilty or defensive retreats, however justified any of
these may seem.  And yes, it's bloody difficult.  And certainly
impossible to do without
offending people, particularly when one is attempting to unmask bullshit
(a perilous exercise in any circumstances).  But well, as another post more 
or less said, there are some things that are more important than offending
people!
(NB I *don't* mean let's all engage in personal attacks, I mean let's
not throw critical thinking to the winds!)  After all, we're not feminists 
because we want to be 'nice', are we?

Bronwyn

this is a long overdue conversation, and one that would be well worth
some "normative" analysis in itself.  one the one hand we have nonwhite
women scholars (who are certainly as "scientific" and "professional" as
anybody else) and some white women scholars saying we have a problem
here.  on the other hand we have another group of white women scholars
saying don't be ridiculous, stop whining, we've all bent over backwards
for y'all--and by the way, use as a "definitive" reference point a group
of white women scholars, selected by a white woman, who (literally)
institutionalized the problematic conceptualization in the first
place...

now, i may be unfairly jumping to conclusions about who is included in
the "founding mothers" anthology (maybe flo threw in a couple of women's
studies pioneers "of color"--it's hard to tell because neither amazon
nor feminist press includes the table of contents on its website and the
book itself hasn't been released yet)--but historical precedent would
suggest that if any are included they either share the institutionalized
viewpoint or appear as aberrant voices in the wilderness...

use of "women's studies" academic scholarship--or indeed, the literary
genre itself--as the last word in historical documentation, however, is
flawed to begin with--they will NECESSARILY be the product of the same
ethnocentric values which have erased consciousness of nonwhite women's
contributions to the historical flow to begin with--this is not to say
that some of these works aren't accurate, it is saying that the
empirical universe is a lot bigger and we need to reconstruct our
comprehension of the roots and development of american "feminism" and
"women's movement" (and the not always positive role of white,
middle-class women in it) from other--less vested, self-interested, and
politically limited--sources as well...

it is also a good idea to remember that white working class and poor
women have been excluded to the same extent as nonwhite women from
mainstream "feminist" history, as they have been from mainstream women's
organizations in each of the recognized "waves" of political
action--even, as with nonwhite women, where they precipitated that
action...

debbie <louis  @  umbc.edu>

Regarding the most recent comments of Benay Blend
Deborah Miranda, and Susan Kane:

There is much irony and inconsistency there.

On the one hand, Patai is lambasted for suggesting
that colleagues lose their voice in response to a
blanket, baseless accusation by colleague of color.
They "chickened out", Kane tells us.

On the other hand, women of color, who have (in Canada
at least) occupied dominant positions in feminist
organizations for a long time, are given a blanket
cliche-designation of "voiceless," and calls for
"chilly climate" legislation continue.

Surely everyone on this list knows what happens to people who
challenge political correctness on modern campuses. Surely
everyone on this list knows that, rather than being voiceless,
people of color often are treated like celebrities on modern
campuses. Next time you are at a meeting involving
administration and faculty, watch the body language of administrators 
and faculty when a faculty person of color speaks.
They'll lean forward, the room noises will diminish,
all in signs of respect.

The same phenomena exist when faculty interact
with students. Every faculty member knows that a
charge of discrimination, no matter how baseless,
can be a career-stalling (or career-ending) event. I have
written testimonials from various minority women and gay
people to the effect that I am "the first person" they have
encountered who "treats all people equally." Actually,
I think I try extra hard with gays and minorities.

6 years ago, Sunera Thobani, a woman of color heading
the powerful NAC group, appeared
here during "Chilly Climate Week" and
vehemently denounced "academic freedom" as a
white male plot, an excuse to deny others a voice.
The gist was, feminist writings needed to be protected
against criticism, even if at the expense of academic freedom,
because the critics would create a chilly
climate. In keeping with this, an administration paper
described criticism of feminist scholarship as a sign
of a "poisoned environment."

When I questioned Thobani's rhetoric, and the
administration's position, I was subjected to a variety of ad
hominem attacks, hate mail, calls to ban me from teaching,
(the student newspaper devoted several pages *on several
occasions* to attacking and lampooning me) etc. I suspected
in advance that this would happen, but I spoke
out anyway. When I was under attack, not a single
one of the dozens of women students I'd helped and
promoted defended me publicly, although many
gave me private expressions of support.
(Voicelessness can indeed be situational.)

So whereas I practice what Kane preaches, I
find her comments more than slightly disingenous,
and, indeed, ironic.

--Jim Steiger

James H. Steiger
Department of Psychology
University of British Columbia
2136 West Mall
Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6T 1Z4
Voice and Fax; (604)-822-2706
EMAIL: steiger  @  unixg.ubc.ca

Deborah Miranda wrote:

> Why have women on this listserve dropped out
> of this conversation?  Or, alternatively, if you have been reading and not
> commenting, what are your reasons for not commenting
 [snip]
>I'd
>like to know what the white women (and again, *sorry* for the poor
>terminology) on this list think about this conversation, and the obvious
>tensions it has brought to the surface.

Well, here's what this white woman thinks:
I've been contributing, but I've contributed less than I otherwise
would have because it seemed to me that the discussion shifted
away from being a productive one in which we were moving from
discussing the problem of white-centered WS courses to concrete
ways to address this problem, to a debate over whether or not
racism exists in Women's Studies (or the academy).  I'm more
interested in sharing ideas about how to construct syllabi so that
they are not white-centered (although I will certainly join in the
most polarized debate if provoked enough! <g>).

I'd love to see intro WS and fem theory syllabi that have a
multicultural focus.  I'm trying to put together a fem theory
course that looks at the evolution of different threads of
fem theory (Chicana, Black Feminist, Lesbian Separatist, etc.)
and shows their connections to each other without placing
white feminist theories at the center, and I'd like to know if
others have done this successfully.  Maybe this is something
the whole list membership would enjoy?  If not, please contact
me privately.

Deborah, thanks for your posts, and your attempts to keep
the conversation a productive one!

Jessica

Jessica Nathanson
Doctoral Candidate, American Studies
Women's Studies Concentration
State University of New York at Buffalo
jan3  @  acsu.buffalo.edu
janathanson  @  yahoo.com

I am struck by  D. Louis's dismissive comments about a book she hasn't
read -- a brief disclaimer that she hasn't read it and a sarcastic reference
to Florence Howe hardly justify her words.  As for the vague accusations in
the preceding lines about white women who "use as a 'definitive' reference
point a group  of white women scholars, selected by a white woman, who
(literally) institutionalized the problematic conceptualization in the first
place..."  I can't even tell who is the supposed target here but gather it's
Florence Howe and her book.  What an illustration of  the very orthodoxies I
referred to in an earlier message.  I guess there are no limits when white
women get into the competition over who has the "right" attitudes on the
issue of race.  To my mind, this is all pretty shameful.
D.
-------------------------------
daphne.patai  @  spanport.umass.edu

I am continuing to follow this thread, although the past few days I have
only had time to read and not to post.  However, Jessica's comment strikes
me, and I would like to pose a question back to all of us -- Is a discussion
of "... the problem of white-centered WS courses [and] concrete ways to
address this problem.." mutually exclusive of "... a debate over whether or
not racism exists in Women's Studies..."?  I, for one, do not see them as
mutually exclusive, and in my experience, are most productively discussed
and wrestled with when considered together.  I see that avoiding the
"question" (and I am not sure we can use debate or question accurately in
re:  racism in Women's Studies or the Academy since it is a fact that racism
does enter into both arenas) is actually  not fully grappling with or
resolving the issues surrounding the voices, perspectives, experiences that
shape what is taught through a course, i.e. through the construction of a
syllabus.

For me, and I guess I should clarify that I am a woman who is white, both
questions are critical to the ongoing process of both personal and
institutional transformations.

Lisa
LBurke2  @  njcu.edu