Catharine MacKinnon | White woman
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- čas přidán 12. 09. 2024
- A presentation of some of Catharine MacKinnon's ideas from her (1991) paper 'From Practice to Theory, or What is a White Woman Anyway?' She defends the idea that there is such a thing as being treated _as a woman_, regardless of other identity features, and she talks about what the caricature of 'white woman' as someone who would be oppressed but for her privilege overlooks.
This reminded me of how the Karen meme is used to dismiss women. I had not come across this essay of McKinnon before and it is still so relevant. Calling an argument 'white feminism' is the ultimate dismissal of its value. Thanks for another great video
yes! the karen meme is a great example of this. glad you enjoyed the video!
I don't think it's entirely a dismissal. In the round, it seems helpful for us all to be to point out types of feminist argumentation that might for instance subjugate other women.
@@TamR10 It absolutely is used to dismiss women and it is clear how males on both sides of the political spectrum (and patriarchal women) relish using it as a degrading trope to demean and silence women.
@@KaliMaaaaa To be clear, "Karen" is used to demean *white" women.
It's okay to point out anti-white racism, you know.
2 years later and the Karen meme has intensified and extended in scope, to have become a prejudice against white women, at least in the US. In SNL's weekend update, an African American cast member plays a con-artist exploiting the prejudice. Her advice, #3 [in being a crazed, chaotic shopper] is to, "Be black, because if you're white, acting like this, someone will take a video and you will lose your job...you see there's no such thing as a black Karen. I could slap the hell out of you right now and nobody would say a word. My job is safe."
I love this channel! Keep going.
Clearly some women exercise real harm upon others, including other women sadly, based on their race. It doesn't seem to me that it denies the universal harms these same women might endure, to point that reality out. It shouldn't be generalised but it should be discussed.
By my lights, it's black women who are openly hostile, even hateful towards white women.
/anti-woke ex-feminist
thanks, Holly. quite appropriate to the moment.
i thought so!
@Micah Starshine yes! i hope gender critical feminism will get bigger and stronger and take them back to its roots - radical feminism - and away from this insubstantial stuff we call feminism today!
@@hollylawford-smith Seems to me, all leftist identity politics based in grievance and Ressentiment (Nietzsche) lead to tribal warfare.
So now, it will not change. It will only get worse.
And you'll remember my comment in the future, ruefully.
/anti-woke ex-feminist ex-"progressive"
Thank you, thank you, thank you for sharing this! I was searching specifically for MacKinnon's thoughts on the "white woman" topic in feminism, and her explanation--as well as your commentary--speaks so clearly to the de-centering of women as such from feminism and to the assumptions/attitudes behind this shift. A book called Against White Feminism, which takes a position opposite to MacKinnon's, was recently released. If you happen to read this book, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts. Sadly, MacKinnon was right: people seem to take the humanity of a group and its treatment more seriously when men constitute some of its members.
You totally botched it at the end.
The attacks on "white feminism" are due to anti-white animus/racism, which has become the foundational virtue of the woke left, and the media (same thing).
Nothing to do with "patriarchy", which is a chimera in the West.
/anti-woke ex-feminist
Very impressive
Thank you
Random thought - I wonder why the drawing is grey pencil, not blue as usual.
my mum does a number of drawings for each, kate had already used the ballpoint ones in her videos so i went with the pencil!
"Whiteness" is considered synonymous with beauty in many cultures around the world. In those countries which formerly were colonies of European powers, the post-colonial era saw an emergence of a discrimination based on skin color. In India, light skinned individuals (who come closer to being white), are looked upon more positively than those with darker skin. Men normally dream of, ask for a bride who is "fair". However, the "whiteness" which is the "object of desire" may indeed turn into the "subject of exploitation". Fair-skinned women may feel unsafe from the voyeuristic, lustful gaze of men. The beauty that is desired by the society may indeed become the main problem for beautiful (white) women.
I think MacKinnon has clarified for me, why I will not identify as a feminist or any kind of 'ist'. These ranking, hierarchical models, or classification models, are inherently flawed, how can you get anything but a form of inequity if you use those as models? If that's what she's doing. Explains a lot why Libfems centre trans. There are other models than these to bring out equality and it doesn't seem the philosophical traditions explore those. I'll put it on my to-do list to look and see.
i see the problem as being a distortion of intersectionality, not feminism itself. but i agree with you that there's a problem wherever feminism becomes identity politics. (bell hooks said we should say we advocate feminism, rather than that we are feminists, for this reason, which i think is interesting).
@@hollylawford-smith Advocating feminism rather than being feminist, that i can do. Bell Hooks? "Teaching community: a pedagogy of hope. " I'll see how she handles that. Are there any other models than classification or hierarchical?
that's why radical feminism is important. libfems do a lot of absurd defending of misogynist trans and other nonsense. radfems stick to the basics
McKinnon don't hierarchied the oppressions. She said the racism system make symbol with white women in the men who oppressed perception. She generalized the oppression at all women because, its the situation. The experience are all differents, but the oppression of women exist everywhere. She don't hierarchies, she explain the social hierarchy conceptions, not the reality. You hierarchised when you deny the oppression of certain women, like the all white feminist who they don't really understand the intersectionality tool and they add the oppressions. Think nothing is common is bad because when you fight, we need to used the common. That create division in the feminism mouvement and we forget our ennemi. Usually, the division are from antifeminism!