In the last week the hashtag #WhiteGirlsDoItBetter misguidedly made its way onto the Twitter-sphere and other social media platforms; however, as usual, people are getting stirred up about something they probably don’t understand. The phrase originated in 2013 in the porn industry, referring to white women having sex with black men. Those beginnings are classy enough, but what gets to me is that this asinine little catch phrase has resurfaced. It has turned into a racism-fueled catfight, once again turning women against women instead of things like, oh I don’t know, the porn industry!
A group of black female activists then got a hold of the hash tag and flipped its meaning. Now, people are tweeting pictures of Beyoncé asking, “How can #whitegirlsdoitbetter when the Queen of the world is black?” A valid question, but wait, there’s more.
Once the hashtag’s meaning changed, it was turned around from the fetishism of white women and black men in pornography and morphed into an attack, presenting white women as less sexy, not as smart or savvy as all women of color. There was a mass cyber agreement that the only things white girls do better is “burn in the sun,” “steal from other cultures and call it their own,” and “age every 5 seconds.” You could say people were getting a little salty.
Naturally, being a young white woman who considers herself fairly liberal and inclusive of other cultures, I was a little offended. I mean, I guess I can see why Kyle Jenner’s Instagram post of her in cornrows was offensive, but black people straighten their hair, right? Is there a difference? The people of Twitter are lumping me into this racist and hurtful campaign to display white girls as vapid b*tches who will just never be Beyoncé, and I don’t deserve it. Why can’t it be #AllWomenDoItBetter? It wasn’t until I read a small sentence on the white girls hashtag from an anonymous account that it began to make sense.
“#WhiteGirlsDoItBetter excluding women of color in their feminist movements”
What??? SO not true. I mean, women are women and we all get paid like crap and put down when we wear certain things and have ridiculous societal expectations. Women of color are totally a part of the feminist movement… aren’t they?
The answer: not really. Other than the aforementioned Queen B, white female celebs are the face of feminism, hands down. Jennifer Lawrence, Taylor Swift, Emma Watson, all beautiful, strong young women, and all caucasian. Why? Because there is still not enough accurate representation for women of color in the media.
Beyoncé is blonde and lighter skinned and there is nothing wrong with that, except white people don’t want to recognize that maybe she is so widely accepted because of those things. Sofia Vergara is hilarious on "Modern Family" with her thick accent and big boobs, but do white women take her seriously as a feminist role model for their daughters?
I would love to say that all women do it better. I would love to say that we are better off lifting women up as a whole, but the reality is that there are things we all have to address first.
Whiteness is still the standard of beauty in Hollywood. We still only accept stereotypes about women of color in our television shows and movies. Mindy Kaling may be on the rise to stardom lately as the side-kick who provides comic relief or as a role model for the underdog in her own series, but when will we see her as the heroin in a rom-com? There are black Victoria’s Secret models, but will you ever see one with an afro or braids? Or is their hair always straightened? We have come a long way from white people putting on black face for the big screen, but there is just as far of a trek ahead of us if we don’t speed up that progression.
All of this appropriation of other cultures is wrong because white people still are not crediting those cultures for the things they are adopting from them. Let Kylie corn row her hair, but Kylie, be an activist for black women being integrated into a new beauty standard. We must learn the difference between cultural appreciation and appropriation. Recognizing something that you like from another culture, that’s harmless. Stealing hairstyles from black women to look edgy, but labeling them as “ghetto” when they wear their hair the same way, that’s appropriation.
Let’s not silence women of color in their moment to rise to the top, but instead, let’s celebrate them. Let women in other cultures catch up from centuries of damage white supremacy and privilege have done so we can start saying “All Women Do It Better,” so that someday we can all be better. Maybe someday, we won’t bash one another in the process of rising to fair wages and squashing the sexualized images of young girls of all colors, shapes and sizes.
Maybe someday, we can stop using senseless, fetishist hashtags that derive from pornography to tear down other races, but instead build our sisters from all cultures up like never before. Maybe someday, we will correct the misogynistic stereotypes of women that say we don’t stand for anything, and will stand for each other. Someday.
On second thought, I don’t really want to wait. We’ve all been waiting far too long. Let’s start today!
#AllWomenDoItBetter
