White Feminism: When You Are More Upset About Barbie Oscar Snubs Than You Are About Genocide of Palestinian Girls and Women
While Palestinian women are experiencing miscarriages, c-sections without anesthesia, death during labor, and the death of their babies, where are the white feminists?
Miscarriages in Gaza have increased THREE HUNDRED PERCENT under Israel Bombing.
Read that headline again. And again. And again.
Read the entire article.
Miscarriages. C-Sections without anesthesia. Periods without tampons and pads. Death during labor. Death of babies.
DEATH, DEATH, DEATH.
Or more apt — MURDER, MURDER, MURDER.
You’d think these exceptionally grim facts would have feminists up in arms.
And plenty of feminists ARE raging against Israel — Black and brown feminists.
Notably absent from the outrage?
White American feminists. AKA The Pink Pussy Hat Brigade™
Where are they? You know . . . the hundreds of thousands of valiant white women who braved the cold in January 2017 to condemn the election of Donald Trump. Armed with their knitted pink hats and bundled in their liberal white supremacy, they courageously sipped their lattes, carrying their homemade posters bearing radical messages like: ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun-Damental Rights’ and ‘Warning: We Are Syncing Our Periods’.
Where are these radical white feminists when it comes to the Fun-Damental rights of Palestinian girls and women? They must know that Palestinian girls and women also have periods?
It doesn’t take a detective to find them . . .
ONE: There are those who are openly cheering on the genocide.
Examples: White feminists from Hillary Clinton to Nancy Pelosi and Amy Schumer are ALL IN for the miscarriages, the c-sections without anesthesia, the starvation of girls and women, cheering on their mass murder too.
One of the worst? Gal Gadot, the actress who played DC Comic’s Wonder Woman. If she wasn’t so violent, the jokes would write themselves.
TWO: Then there are those who are supporting the genocide not with open cheers but with white supremacy’s most popular weapon: SILENCE.
That’s right. Crickets from many of the same white women who snorted (or pretended to snort) anti-racism books when they discovered systemic racism after George Floyd was murdered (they promptly forgot btw),. In each and every one of those books, there is a version of: Silence is Violence and Silence is Complicity.
This is the white supremacy of good liberal whites, the ones who’d never come right out with gleefully supporting c-sections without anesthesia (because that would be uncouth) but who haven’t said one single public word about the torture and terror.
Examples: The white feminism of Hollywood. Oscar nominations just dropped — and folks are more upset that white actresses in the Barbie movie got “snubbed” than they are about genocide. Both the Golden Globes and Emmy Awards happened recently and you’d think that these actors and actresses, who adore performing activism, would be tripping over each others’ couture outfits to be the most vocal. You know like when white actresses carried Black and brown women activists as accessories to the Golden Globes in 2018.
This was during the ‘Times Up’ movement and these brave white actresses used Black and brown women to showcase their intersectional feminism in their stance against workplace sexual harassment and gender inequality.
You’d think white actresses would want to do the exact same thing now, you know — as we witness the greatest assault on women and girls in our history — livestreamed.
Right?
Nope. COMPLETE ABSOLUTE SILENCE.
No watermelon purses. No red, green, black and white gowns. No teary speeches. Not even a mention of Bisan, one of the bravest women to ever have lived.
Just a sea of silent white genocide deniers.
And genocide deniers are genocide supporters.
THREE: Finally, there are those white American women who ARE speaking up. In keeping with the theme of Hollywood — Susan Sarandon and Cynthia Nixon come to mind and along with them, thousands of other white women who aren’t famous. Women who are posting on socials, speaking out here, there, everywhere, marching, rallying, boycotting, calling their representatives.
Not all white women are white feminists.
Plenty understand that they won’t be free until we are all free — that none of us will be free until ALL Palestiniains are free. That we cannot call ourselves feminists if we are not actively fighting to liberate Palestinian girls and women.
CALL TO ACTION
If you fall into categories one or two, I hope you will change your tune, decide that your feminism isn’t steeped in white supremacy, that your feminism isn’t just for white women and girls and speak up LOUDLY against the Israeli and American war on Palestinian women and girls.
It is never too late to do the right thing.
If you fall into third category and are one of the many women — Black, brown, white — who DO care deeply about the torture and murder of Palestinian girls and women, please check out Jenan Matari, a Palestinian American woman storyteller, on Instagram.
She’s directing folks to donate to period care kits for Palestinian girls and women here.
forever grateful for your pieces 🤲🏽✊🏽 screaming accountability for imperialist feminists and FREE PALESTINE all day
"Where are these radical white feminists when it comes to the Fun-Damental rights of Palestinian girls and women? They must know that Palestinian girls and women also have periods?" Too busy shaking their fists at 'Entertainment Tonight'.