If you have access to a phone/the Internet, I’m sure you’ve heard about some of your favorite celebrities being described by the term “white feminism”. For example, Taylor Swift, Lena Dunham, and Amy Schumer have all been used as examples of white feminism. "But what does it mean?", you may be asking.
White feminism “is a form of feminism that focuses on the struggles of well-off white women while failing to address the distinct forms of oppression faced by women of color, low-income women, women in LGBTQ+ communities, and women of other religions.” When you’re a white feminist, you basically only care about issues that affect you, rather than issues that affect other women.
The opposite of white feminism is called intersectional feminism. Intersectional feminism is an all-inclusive brand of feminism that focuses on issues everyone faces, rather than just white cis women. This includes women of color, LGBTQ+ women, women of different religious beliefs, disabled women, low-income women, etc.
White feminists tend to focus on issues such as the wage gap, free the nipple, etc. But what they fail to mention are the issues that don’t affect them personally. They can go on and on about the wage gap for white women, but fail to mention that the gap is significantly larger for Hispanic women and black women. They can go on and on about “free the nipple” and normalizing female sexuality in the media but fail to bring up the fact that whitewashing is a real problem that exists and WOC representation in the media is sorely lacking.
For some reason, when you hear feminism being praised in the media, it’s always the white feminists being mentioned. People like Jennifer Lawrence, Taylor Swift, and Lena Dunham consistently get praised for their so-called “ground-breaking feminism” when it’s truthfully nothing of the sort.
A prime example of celebrity white feminism is Taylor Swift always preaching about girl power and women supporting other women while dropping a song and music video in 2015 bashing fellow female artist Katy Perry. A while back, Taylor also made a song dissing ex Joe Jonas’ girlfriend Camilla Belle saying “she’s an actress, and she’s better known for the things that she does on the mattress.” Not to say that Taylor isn’t capable of changing since then, but these are just examples of her hypocritical “girl power” narrative.
Please, make your feminism intersectional. Be there for all women, not just those who look like you. Start acknowledging your privileges and work to be better at supporting ALL women. The feminist movement will not get anywhere if we don’t support everyone, no matter what.
