Kimberle Crenshaw coined the term “intersectionality” in 1989. But before there was a word for it, women of color have juggled aspects of identity that remain steeped in oppression due to a misogynist, white supremacist society (and dare I say, world). While Betty Friedan wrote about “the problem with no name”, Black and Brown women were raising white children and cleaning the houses of whites. That book was not meant for them. The rallies and marches that followed were not meant for them. Crenshaw later dubbed the term “interlocking” oppressions to describe the nexus of racial, class and gendered oppressions; the same horrid trifecta that Black women have dealt with since slavery.
These were just some of my thoughts as I read the article “Hashtag Feminism…”. Loza thoroughly excavates the reasons for and against hashtag feminism in general as well as the viral hashtag “Solidarityisforwhitewomen” particularly. The power of the hashtag lies with the ability for users to share experiences and call out hypocritical practices in real time. My only critique of the hashtag is that it conflates ‘solidarity’ with ‘feminism’. Kendall is really saying that feminism as it currently operates mostly benefits white women. It was for this reason that Alice Walker created the term womanism; as it was another attempt to bring the margin to the center.
Speaking of the margins, people of color have never been appreciated for the work we produce. We are overwhelmed with labor for which we are not paid. And yet, the expectation remains that we will work for “exposure” or out of the goodness of our hearts. This holds especially true if one is a woman of color. Dr. Lee’s story in Scientific American underscores this. Would Ofeke have dared to call a man or a white woman an “urban whore”? Dr. Lee’s choice to publish the emails and video response allowed her to simultaneously shame Ofeke, but more importantly, give sound advice to those who may find themselves in similar situations. Our time and energy is limited. Our skills are important and the use of them is worth compensation. Since when has anyone been able to pay bills with “exposure” and the promise of future goodwill? Also, slavery is over. And Black women are entitled to anger when insulted, caricatures and racist stereotypes aside.
Questions:
What are your thoughts of and/or experiences with hashtag activism?
In what ways can we work together to create true solidarity for the purposes of authentic equity?
In what ways can this week’s readings serve us pedagogically?
I find hashtag activism thorny — while I appreciate the spontaneous issuance of ideas about a subject, this same immediacy gives ample ground for misunderstanding and fighting. As one who has agonized over texts’ meanings for longer than I care to admit (as described popularly in Key & Peele’s video: https://youtu.be/naleynXS7yo), I worry about both undue offenses taken and justifiable anger at intended ironies surrounding hashtags. You can read sentences in many ways and in a fast-paced medium like Twitter, people are not as measured as they might be. Perhaps this velocity enables arguments that might otherwise fester, and perhaps these precipitations work on a mass scale. I guess I just tend to be on the side of attention to articulation over verbal action.
One example of hashtag activism which appeared in 2015 South Korea was #나는페미니스트입니다 (“Hashtag I am a feminist”). It made apparent the pervasive misogyny in the country—apparent in many aspects of the society, including a reluctance to embrace the notion of feminism or it being the “worst place to be a working woman” (http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/03/daily-chart-0?fsrc=scn/tw/once). For me, this adds another (international) layer of disparity to the common problem of gender power structure- although I have to work a lot more on articulating the difference/similarity relation quite well yet, here is a link to what I wrote a bit ago with a bit more detail: https://commons.gc.cuny.edu/papers/hashtag-i-am-a-feminist-and-megalias-daughters/
This is awesome, Achim. Thanks for bringing in an international perspective. Is this movement still going strong?
Tone is quite hard to read via text message/tweet/blog post. But I like that in some ways, it forces people to be more thoughtful because they have to write instead of speak. I think this is why offense is taken in many instances because so many people write carelessly or have their bigotry exposed (and there is a paper trail).
On the other hand, the thin veil of anonymity afforded to people over the internet is a double edged sword. In some cases, it allows for powerful truthtelling and alliance (#whyistayed, #youoksis). On the other hand, it gives prejudiced people even more hubris (#allivesmatter, #notallmen). Technology is neutral but people almost never are.
In what ways can we work together to create true solidarity for the purposes of authentic equity?
The issue of solidarity is really interesting when discussing issues of gender, race and intersectionality (of those things and other things like sexuality, class, culture and relegion, (dis)ability, language). First, what does solidarity look like in a world fragmented by vastly different subjective positions and experiences of what it means to be man/woman, person of color/person of other color etc etc. Those experiences are not the same, and they are especially not the same at the juncture of a variety if different kinds of difference (in other words, the various intersectionalities that exist). I think the first step to solidarity is to re-conceptualize what difference means. I say this because we tend to want to say things like being different is okay and that people are different, without really apprehending what that means since we are missing those experiences. We try to locate commonalities- points where empathy is possible. But this is not always feasable in the different contexts that we come into contact with one another because we are not static either, and we live different parts of ourselves throughout the day. I guess what I am trying to say is that our existance is dynamic, and those points of contact where empathy can authentically occur and spark a meaningful connection can be few and far in between. The attempt to re-conceptualize difference is to really attempt to have a different kind of relationship to ourselves. What do we mean by different? What kinds of connotations does that carry? Do we normalize our own subject position by looking at others through the lens of difference? I don’t know, it only bears to mind that these issues of intersectionality and dynamism are super tough, making authentic solidarity difficult to sustain as we evolve.
These are some great questions! Part of the issue that Loza seems to bring attention to is that idea that a hashtag can be used to point out the ironies our modern society. At the same time, hashtags can be either extremely direct and effective in terms of communicating an idea and linking to across sources to develop a community of users, it also has the potential to become exclusionary. In the case of the solidarity hashtag, it seems to represent a criticism that could be shared by people who wanted to bring attention to others who had been marginalized by expectations of how a feminist or activist should act or appear. Bailey also points out the insufficiency of having a one-size model for the digital humanities. Given the recent resignation of MHP from MSNBC, this article published serves an important reminder that intellectual freedom is at stake when we refuse to acknowledge the viewpoints of others.