Technically, feminism has one definition: the advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of political, social and economic equality to men. However, there are many different types of feminism — and not all feminism is created equal.
Patricia Arquette’s Oscar speech — and the comments she made backstage — spawned a million thinkpieces on “white feminism,” a type of feminism practiced by certain white women. The best example of white feminism in pop culture takes place on the TV show “Girls.”
During the second season of “Girls,” Lena Dunham’s character, Hannah, has a two-episode relationship with a black man, played by Donald Glover, who happens to be a Republican. When Hannah decides she can’t date a Republican, she tells Glover’s character they should just be friends.
An argument breaks out between the two, which leads to Hannah telling her new ex that she never once saw him as black because she “doesn’t live in a world where those kinds of divisions exist.”
Glover’s character tells her she’s lying and she absolutely does live in a world where race still matters. He ends up throwing her out of his apartment because he can’t stand any longer to listen to her asserting that she doesn’t “see color.”
After the break up, Hannah’s best friends — who happen to be a white gay man and a white woman — question her about what happened.
“Your rights happened,” she says indignantly, pointing to her gay friend, “and your rights happened because I can’t be with someone who isn’t an ally to gay people and women.” Her perplexed friends thank her, not out of genuine appreciation but because they know that’s what she wants to hear.
This is white feminism. It is feminism that believes the biggest struggle is that of being a woman. The things that could possibly intersect with that struggle — such as being a minority, disabled, part of the LGBT community — do not factor into the white feminist’s views.
When “white feminists” take these intersections of discrimination into account, they do so myopically, choosing to speak for these people instead of with them or letting them speak for themselves. They ignore the work being done within these communities, assuming they know what’s best for other women.
Not all white women who are feminists are white feminists. Only the ones who fail to realize their fight may not be the hardest fall into this category. Women of color and LGBT women can also be white feminists, if they subscribe to the idea that their race or sexual orientation is not something that should be taken into account when examining their struggles, believing that simply being a woman contributes to their statuses in life.
Feminism has a long history of racism and discrimination. The first wave of feminism, women fighting to earn the right to vote, would often claim it was in America’s best interests to grant women the right to vote so they could offset the votes of the black men who had recently been granted suffrage.
The second wave of feminism also was notoriously exclusionary to black women, who were allowed into feminist spaces but weren’t allowed to speak for themselves. This movement had a bad habit of using black women as props that groups could hold up to show how progressive they were. Beyond that, it largely ignored black women and the ways in which their struggle was different than the struggle faced by white women.
The second-wave feminist movement took place at the same time as the Civil Rights movement, which also notoriously ignored women and kept them out of positions of power. With nowhere to turn, black women created the reproductive justice movement.
This movement, which merged the fights for reproductive rights and social justice, was inclusive. It allowed anyone who identified as female to contribute and examined the ways in which belonging to various minority groups can intersect to change the way a person lives.
In addition to marginalizing women of color, second-wave feminism was also notoriously transphobic. Many believed that transgender women were men trying to invade their safe spaces and destroy the movement.
Reproductive justice, on the other hand, welcomes anyone and everyone who identifies as female and their allies. The very framework of the movement is inclusionary in a way that white feminism refuses to be.
This is why, when Arquette stood backstage at the Oscars and said it was time for “all the gay people and people of color that we’ve all fought for to fight for us,” she received such huge backlash.
It’s not because minority communities didn’t agree with her that equal pay was important. It’s because she erased the struggles women of color and women in the LGBT community face, as white feminism is wont to do.
If Arquette really wants to discuss wage inequality, she should examine the statistics in context.
For every dollar that a man makes, a white woman makes 78 cents. A black woman, however, makes 64 cents, and a Latina or Hispanic woman makes 54 cents. Studies have also shown that gay and bisexual white men make somewhere between 10 and 32 percent less than their straight counterparts, and transgender women make significantly less money after their transition, while transgender men make slightly more.
To talk about the wage gap without also acknowledging that it’s worse for some than it is for others is irresponsible. To then call on those communities to give up their own fights in favor of fighting for a movement that has largely ignored them since its inception is dismissive and ignorant.
Arquette’s backstage comments show that white feminism is alive and well, especially in Hollywood. The swift and cutting backlash to those comments shows that the women excluded from the white feminist movement are going to make sure their voices are heard.
Hopefully, the dialogue started by the speech leads to some white feminists widening their scope, allowing society to begin equalizing all branches of feminism — because it is possible to fight for all women without ignoring the needs of those in minority communities.
But, based on the history of white feminism, the chances of those people widening their scope are, unfortunately, slim.
Logan Anderson is a 21-year-old mass communication senior from Houston, Texas. You can reach her on Twitter @LoganD_Anderson.