The Cool Table

Awhile ago, I was involved in a great but challenging debate with some of my intellectual superiors on the issue of ‘White feminism’. The initial discussions revolved around feminist imperialism (or imperialist feminism). A discussant equated this with ‘White feminism.’ This assertion, made in passing, was problematized by a White Muslim female revert, who found the term, in fact, ‘racist’. It immediately triggered an impassioned debate about the use of Whiteness as a socio-political category and a descriptively pejorative classification for a [large] brand of feminism. Most of the arguments struck against the point that to refer to a brand of feminism under the auspices of Whiteness was racist. If we could accept Women of Color feminism or Black feminism, then could we not accept White feminism as a feminism that is entrenched not in skin color  but a history of privilege and imperialism? After all, the Third Wave of…

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