Analysis Of Too White Women Need To Stop Doing By Anne Theriault

Improved Essays
“White feminism” is a term that has become a hot topic in recent years. In the article “Shit White Feminists Need To Stop Doing” by Anne Theriault describes white feminism as feminist women who are cisgender and white only fighting for issues that directly affect their lives, while ignoring issues that affect women of color, LGBT women, and disabled women. Theriault claims at the beginning of her article that she is a feminist herself, yet effectively insults and oppresses other women throughout her article. Anne Theriault wrote a biased article filled with opinions and no facts showing that white, feminist women are less than anyone else.

In the article “Shit White Feminists Need To Stop Doing” Theriault claims that white women should stop
…show more content…
This simply is not true. Theriault is making a sweeping generalization about a large group of people, not knowing or stopping to consider that not everyone thinks this way. There are people who feel this way, and not all of them are white, cisgendered women. Theriault also claims that white feminists only support issues that directly affect them, which is another completely false statement. White feminists support countless organizations that fight a wide variety of issues. For example, Emma Watson, a white feminist, started the HeForShe campaign. HeForShe is a campaign for the solidarity movement of gender equality (HeForShe). Gender equality is not just a white feminist issue, but an issue for all people. Another example is the Hollaback! campaign that fights to end street harassment once again another issue that affects not just white women (Hollaback!). Ultimately, we are all on the same team and the fight for equal rights includes all people. A white feminist claiming that everyone is on the same team does not diminish her …show more content…
The author contradicts her earlier claim that she is a feminist once again by directly oppressing white women because of the stereotype that white women could not possibly know anything about hijabs, Burqas, or Sex-Selective Abortion. She does not consider the fact that there are white women whose religious beliefs require them to wear hijabs or burqas. Although it may be uncommon for a white women to be affected by sex selective abortion, to completely count them out of the conversation of it is oppressive.

Another subject Theriault thinks white women should not speak of is “Thinking That All Sex Workers Are All Miserable Wretches Who Hate Their Lives.” Theriault goes on to state “This one isn’t really white women-specific . . .” contradicting herself once more. Adding a topic that is not white women-specific to her article that is specifically about white feminism defeats the purpose and creates massive holes in this

Related Documents

  • Superior Essays

    During the civil war and reconstruction eras, America’s main concern was giving rights to people of color. In the chaos the country forgot that women need rights too. In today’s society, women and people of color have the same rights as white men, but unfortunately there is still an issue of equality and justice. In theory we are all the same, but in practice, white men still have all the power. This is why literature concerning these issues is as relevant today as it was in the mid-1800s.…

    • 1329 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As she grew up she was told that being white made her better than others but being white did nothing for her. She experienced abuse and poverty something that her race did not prevent. Being white on the streets of Ferguson she thought would earn her privilege over blacks to be able to walk the streets without having to worry about police officers confronting her for protesting. But police officers did not care that she was a white individual protesting the violence they automatically seen her equal to the blacks protesting. She then…

    • 1794 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The article “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” was written to inform the reader about white privilege and male privilege. It states that men necessarily do not realize that they hold an advantage over women just as though whites do not always realize they are more privileged than blacks. The author Peggy McIntosh thoroughly describes that just by being born with white skin, you automatically are at an advantage over someone who was not born white. She also explains that men do in fact recognize women’s status in the world and will do certain things to improve it. However, they are unwilling to do anything to lessen their own privilege.…

    • 773 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Research Proposal 1. Kimberle Crenshaw’s article “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color” is an essay that exposes the reality of being a colored woman today. It compares the unfair treatment of colored women to the treatment of white women in various scenarios. Colored women not only face discrimination due to sexism but they also experience racism. Facing both make it a hard intersection for many colored women.…

    • 883 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    While women involved in the black and non-white feminism movement were concerned with their race, mainstream feminism never had to cross that barrier. In the identities of the women the groups differed. The difference in their goals are apparent when works featured in Nancy MacLean’s The American Women’s Movement, 1945-2000, a chapter by Michelle Wallace from Gloria T. Hull’s All the Women Are White, All the Men Are Black, But Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women 's Studies, and Kimberle Crenshaw’s…

    • 1271 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The Color Of Fear Analysis

    • 1252 Words
    • 6 Pages

    As I sat in philosophy class, I listened to the discussion about “The Color of Fear” (documentary). Many people sat quiet in efforts to keep arguments and insults at bay. However, one female stated something that made my thoughts initiate. She loudly and proudly stated, “I’m a white female, as white as they come, and I do not have white privilege”. She finished her statement with a further explanation, “I had a rough life growing up and I never got everything I wanted; therefore, I’m sure I was not privileged by my race”.…

    • 1252 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Meanwhile in reality, if one receives the title of a lady, it doesn’t mean that they have earned a spot in the white society, it only enforces the fact that a colored women has to try harder to be ‘white’ and only to continue to be the ‘other’. Black women have enough of a battle when it comes to the stereotypes that white society labels them with. A black women is usually associated with being sexually active, too sexy, pregnant and not married, exotic, loud and the list goes on and on. Harris used Beyonce and Eryah Badu as examples of respectable and not respectable. Badu had children outside of marriage with several fathers which was immediately deemed as a ‘ho’ which made her a example of a bad example of respectability.…

    • 1031 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Privilege is an unearned advantage or a type of pleasure that is given to someone, and at some point everyone has had some kind of privilege. However,some people receive more privileges than others. These people are mainly white men. In Peggy McIntosh’s essay, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” she argues that there is a white privilege that is unknown and that those who benefit from it should acknowledge it. This is mainly directed at those who have white privilege and do not know it.…

    • 814 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Peggy McIntosh (1989), Associate Director of the Wellesley College Center for Research on Women on her essay “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.” Peggy argues how men have privilege of advantages and women have disadvantages. Her main focus is on “White Privilege” and how white people are unacknowledged that they have privileges that are unearned privilege, and that African American does not have. White privilege is hard to see for many white people who were lead to believe that whites are superior with access to many resources than African Americans. Peggy McIntosh essay mentions that many white people have a hard time acknowledging or know that they have unearned white privileges.…

    • 178 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Great Essays

    The Importance Of White Privilege In Society

    • 1560 Words
    • 7 Pages
    • 3 Works Cited

    White privilege is ignored by whites in society because we live in a nation of white dominance. Whites most often ignore the fact that blacks and other minorities do not enjoy these advantages. McIntosh defines white privilege as the many advantages white people enjoy, often seen as normal, and are largely unnoticed by society. Peggy McIntosh describes white privilege as “an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools, and blank checks. ”(Calihealth).…

    • 1560 Words
    • 7 Pages
    • 3 Works Cited
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Just as WOC are told bringing up race in the feminist movement is divisive, they are told bringing up gender-based issues deters from addressing the perceived larger issue of racism, “A lot of black men said we were airing dirty laundry by talking about rape. Someone called me an agent provocateur for talking about rape and said we must be allied with COINTELPRO—Black Nationalist men also adhered to the narrative that rape happened at the hands of white men” (Ross, as told by Nelson). WOC must address sexism in their communities because true liberation cannot be achieved until all parts of WOC are liberated. If women’s rights are achieved, WOC will still experience racism. If racism is resolved, WOC will still experience sexism.…

    • 743 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Privilege is a right, advantage, favor, or immunity specially granted to a specific individual, group, or class, and withheld from certain or all others. White privilege is a form of social privileges that solely benefits white people and excludes people of color. For some apparent reason many people become blinded, ignorant, and oblivious when white privilege becomes the topic of conversation. “White Privilege is the other side of racism” (Rothenberg, 53). Although we live in a country where we are constantly told all men are created equal, there is an overt contradiction to the ideology simply because of conspicuous white privileges.…

    • 828 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    White Privilege: Essential Readings on the Other Side of Racism is a book of articles compiled by Paula Rothenberg. The book consists of nineteen articles by twenty-three different authors and is broken up into four different parts. The book deals with white privilege and how white people do not recognize that they have it or do anything about it, specifically anything against it. Part one is titled “Whiteness: The Power of Invisibility.” This section introduces the idea that people with white skin do not have to think about the fact that they are white.…

    • 1463 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Frailty, thy name is woman”- Hamlet The above quote from hamlet clearly states the position of women in a patriarchal society. Woman are considered physically and morally weak. They are considered as beings of less intelligence and have lesser understanding of the world. According to (Z., 2011) , studies related to heroines of any play are somewhat underrated, even though the plot is strengthened due to female characters.…

    • 1795 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Feminist Disability Study

    • 1491 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Some women have been left out because they are not a part of the mainstream feminist image: that of the white, middle-class, heterosexual, able-bodied, liberated feminist. At one point, Moharty explains her concerns that Western feminist discourse is becoming relevant to only white women: “some American feminist texts and arguments [...] have been critiqued for their homogenizing, even colonialist, gestures; they have been critiqued, in fact, by those most directly affected by the exclusions that have made possible certain radical and cultural feminist generalizations” (Mohanty 88). She may not mention disability explicitly, but her broader ideas of homogenization are significant. These normative characteristics of a Western feminist have affected disability studies, where abledness and whiteness are…

    • 1491 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays

Related Topics