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I suspect this won't be a popular comment, but I feel like I have to speak up. I write this from Minnesota, where yesterday we set a heat record (55F), and where today we are under a tornado watch. Millions of people across the country labor in unsafe conditions, for inadequate pay, with unpredictable schedules, and under threat of the loss of their jobs. Can we afford to alienate potential allies in our efforts to make the world a better place for regular people?

I probably come off as defensive, and it is true that I am a white lady. But I couldn't help noticing that the only contemporary example of a problematic white woman Schullberg cites is Sheryl Sandberg. Sandberg is by no means admired by most white feminists! She herself wrote a mea culpa for Lean In after her husband died, in which she acknowledged that she had written from a position of tremendous privilege and hadn't understood the struggles of most regular people. Schullberg's other examples--Betty Friedan, and first-wave feminists--are from generations ago. I don't recognize myself or the white feminists I know in the exclusionary, privileged portraits I see in the interview.

My point is really about strategy: Think back to your favorite teachers, to the people who inspired you to give your best effort and to accomplish more than you thought possible. Were they the teachers who told you how terrible you were, or who accused you of something you hadn't done? Or were they, on the other hand, those who said, "I know you can do this! I believe in you!" and who knew you had something to offer the world? I know that whenever someone accuses me of something, especially something I didn't do, I become angry and defensive. I try not to, but it happens anyway. But when someone invites me in and asks for my help, when they believe in me, I am eager to join in and get to work.

If we allow only people whose souls are pure to be our allies, if we exclude or drive away good people who are imperfect but who nonetheless want to help, we will never change anything. Please consider calling people in, instead of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. Thank you for listening.

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I agree with you. Scholars are used to hearing about whiteness discussed in this way -- but ordinary people are not. White women will read the title, “The Trouble with White Women” and hear an insult. The reaction will not be “Oh no, how can I be better??” but rather “Screw you.” When people feel insulted over and over, they stop voting for Democrats, and we all have to live with the consequences.

This project could have been framed as an effort to publicize and celebrate the achievements of women of color and other marginalized individuals who contribute to feminism. It could have been positive—but as usual, it takes the perspective that the first step to being more inclusive is to tell white women they suck.

I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that women are called upon to make their movement about every oppression ever, while other activist movements are not. Yes, oppressions intersect with each other and impact marginalized people in countless combinations and ways. But we don’t ask why the anti-racism and LGBTQ movements aren’t working to end climate change, or why they aren’t working on the abortion ban – at least not nearly as often as we ask the feminist movement to work on everything else.

In reality, those working on women’s issues can’t even keep up with those fights. We’re going backwards on abortion. So if a group of concerned feminists manages to do something productive—raising funds to help women in Texas travel out of state, for example—does it really help to scold them for not also working on climate change or anti-racism?

Most ordinary people don’t know feminist history (white or otherwise) and barely follow politics. If they get involved in anything, it’s with limited time and resources. All of this conversation about who we center in feminist discourse is really just a bunch of elites navel-gazing and talking to themselves. We need a practical plan to make things better, and books that alienate a huge portion of the electorate don’t help. If your goal is to direct more energy to the concerns of marginalized women, there are much better ways.

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"But we don’t ask why the anti-racism and LGBTQ movements aren’t working to end climate change, or why they aren’t working on the abortion ban – at least not nearly as often as we ask the feminist movement to work on everything else."

Um, these movements are absolutely working on those issues. Some of the biggest players in the movement for reproductive rights are organizations for and by WOC. Here's a book that might interest you. https://nyupress.org/9781479812707/the-movement-for-reproductive-justice/

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That's not what I'm talking about -- of course there are groups that focus on reproductive rights for WOC, but that is their stated mission. I'm talking about accusations that a group isn't doing enough on issues that are not part of their mission statements -- such as asking BLM to do more about abortion, or Planned Parenthood to do more to stop police shootings.

All these big organizations say they support everything, but they have different core priorities as they should. BLM doesn't get criticized for spending more energy on police shootings than abortion -- if every group gives equal weight to every type of oppression, nobody will get anything done.

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The groups profiled in that book, and many reproductive rights orgs headed by WOC, absolutely serve the interests of white women as women. They aren't saying, "Abortion access for WOC but not white women!" They are fighting for abortion access for all women.

Obviously groups/people have to focus their limited energy. No one saying otherwise. This book, and this interview, are merely asking us (white women) to consider the ways in which we exclude other folks in our pursuit of equality. That's all. Its not more than that, really.

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I really have to disagree that this is a "perfect being the enemy of good" moment. I am also a white woman, but I recognize the damage and destruction of white feminism and how white women on the whole perpetuate white supremacy by acting as though feminism is simply about womanhood. Schuller laid that out incredibly well here and used modern examples, such as TERFism, to show how white feminism is still very much a problem all the way from the upper class down to working class women.

If you (general you) as a white woman are still othering and oppressing BIPOC and LGBTQ people, which many self described feminist white women do, you are absolutely a problem. I think this interview, and likely the book as well though I haven't read it yet, is a great call in for white woman who can't see or are struggling to work through their ties to and upholding of white supremacy. At no point was Schuller admonishing or attacking white women here, instead she was laying out how feminist history, like all history, has been white washed and how this white washing is a detriment to all people that is preventing true liberation for us all.

This entire interview reads to me as Schuller reaching a hand out to white women and saying "I know you can do this! I believe in you!" by showing us the ways the women before us failed our BIPOC and LGBTQ sisters through their efforts trying to grasp power that mirrors the power cis white men hold. Plus Schuller gives us multiple examples of BIPOC and LGBTQ activists throughout history and now doing this real, intersectional work that we can learn from and model.

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How is it not admonishing white women to call a book “The Trouble With White Women”? I have not read the book but expect that I would agree with the author’s substantive historical critiques and policy goals - and I still find this to be a counterproductive rhetorical move if the goal is something more than preaching to the choir.

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Its only admonishing "white women" if you are thinking individualistically. I can hold two ideas in my head at once: I am, categorically, A White Woman. I am a member of that group. A large and heterogenous group. But a book titled "The Trouble With White Women" is not written, necessarily, to and/or about me directly. The title of the book is not "The Trouble With You, Joannasburg, You Absolute Walnut." The title of the book (written by a white woman, it should be noted) is saying "Hey, white women, we've got some work to do."

And of course it is a rhetorical move. It is a book.

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First, brava for writing what you were nervous to write. Second, I think this interview and Ms. Schuller's book isn't only critiquing specific or individual white women who identify as feminists but rather the project and underpinnings of 'white feminism' as opposed to intersectional feminism. And that many of us who are white women who identify as feminists have been raised in/steeped in/swimming in a worldview that we thought (or assumed) was inclusive but in fact is decidedly NOT. So we are invited to unlearn, open up, and move forward. This interview IS a calling in.

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I want to take the opportunity to call you in and push back on your comment here. I understand the impulse to claim “not all white women” when reading about a book that's title is “The Trouble With White Women” what the author is trying to bring to light is that there is a history of white feminists and white feminism as a movement that reaches back 100+ years and that history has a day to day impact on the ways in which the modern day feminist movement(s) operate and the ways that modern day white women approach feminism and feminist acts.

This book and her interview with AHP are not about the individual souls of individual feminists, but instead brings to light forces that we might not notice or realize are harmful because they are the very foundation of movements we (as white women/ white feminists) have been taught are forces of good.

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I understand what you're trying to say, but want to ask you: If you knew this wasn't going to be a well taken comment, why did you make it? White women (myself included) often presume that our opinion is always wanted, when sometimes it isn't.

Perhaps its useful to remember a series of three questions that we white women should always try to ask ourselves before chiming in:

1) Does this need to be said?

2) Does this need to be said BY ME?

3) Does this need to be said BY ME, RIGHT NOW?

Often, we just answer #1 and forget the other two. But its useful to step back and think about whether or not the thing needs to be said, now, by us. And to be clear, maybe the answer to all three questions is "yes" in which case, say the thing. But its worth sitting with whether or not our comment is required right now.

To me the work is sitting the fuck down and shutting up, sometimes. So please know that I this is not just a call in of you; I am calling myself out, specifically.

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I would also encourage you to consider if these hypothetical white women who are so fragile that being gently called in by a Black woman makes them abandon the work entirely are actually willing to help at all.

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I made a mistake just now. Kyla Shuller is a white woman. I would argue my comment still stands as a critique of the fragility of white women. And it also is ironic that Marie seems to have made the same mistake I did and assume that the only people interested in calling out white women are Black women. The author is a white woman, Marie, she is talking to us. We need to listen.

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I knew she was white. My point was general—that any person, of whatever identity, who wants to recruit allies to her cause should not shame and scold people for their imperfections but rather welcome people for their willingness to help.

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Did you read the interview in the post? The author addresses the issue of the title of the book in the first question she answers.

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How is this shaming or scolding? Are white women so dang fragile that they can't handle the word "Trouble"?

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It seems like you're very focused on the idea that you, personally, are being accused of harming people - and to be honest, if you are so sure that you have not, you're probably wrong. We (white women) are likely do more harm than good if we wade in trying to "help" without first acknowledging and understanding the harms that have been done in our names, whether or not we personally have actively perpetrated them.

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I get hung up on the question - "When did you realize you were a feminist?" and can't focus past that point.

For me, it was in the aftermath of a breakup, when we'd been dating for almost 4 years, living together for half that time, and I'd found myself (predictably) responsible for all of the cooking (including catering to his food preferences) and cleaning, among other things, like knowing where the nearest hospital was in case we needed it, and being fully responsible for preventing pregnancy. I idly picked up a copy of Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future, which had just come out, and suddenly had language for the things that had been bothering me.

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Thank you for this interview! It sounds strange to say, but I have never felt comfortable identifying as a feminist and I never really knew why. I assumed it was because of my conservative Christian past that preached complementarianism and this negative boogeyman version of feminism that I couldn't fully shake. However, ​I see now that it's because most feminism I've been exposed to is white feminism that desires to create equality by squeezing themselves into white male supremacy, which has never appealed to me!

I will forever maintain that my two worst job experiences were at companies run by women (one white, one Asian) who played by the white male executive playbook in order to get to the top and expected everyone else to do the same. Both women prided themselves on creating companies that allowed themselves to balance home and work life - the white woman would even tell this story about starting the company at her dining room table with her six month old on her lap - but god forbid anyone working for them need flexibility! They ran their 9-5 companies harder and stricter than the white men they emulated, and I was incredibly anxious all of the time that I wasn't being productive enough despite working my ass off. I was always baffled that these women weren't innovative with how their employees could work and be caretakers with flexible schedules, but now I get it.

I literally just learned who bell hooks was on December 9th (may she rest in power). I happened to be looking up quotes about love and found this one by her that stuck out to me: "love is an action, never simply a feeling" and then ended up looking up her book All About Love and reading parts of it. I then started exploring more about her and her work and Black feminism and intersectional feminism and realized this is what I was hoping to find all along! I am so excited to read more from her.

I am definitely buying Kyla Schuller's book next pay day because I want to keep learning more about counterfeminism and how to be less destructive as a white woman!

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"So the trouble with white women is not only that they vote, in near majorities, for far-right candidates in national elections and in Alabama and Virginia. The real trouble is that a good chunk of these women call themselves feminists!"

Astounding! Any woman who doesn’t vote the way I think she should has no moral compass is the message here. This is incredibly tedious and wrong. Every woman (and every human as well) has the right to vote as they will without being accused of ignorance or bigotry. What transparent lack of inclusion in a public utterance! Shame on you. Someone who does not agree with your political views is nonetheless a human. Get off it already.

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"power materializes as ideas about sex roles — that’s what gender names! — and have doubled down on biological essentialism and identity."

"power doesn’t even belong to humans in the first place. Instead, true power is a quality of the universe, even of the divine. It is something we can tap into, but it extends far beyond our capacity to grasp it."

Which is why our species, in its arrogant ignorance, has so mindlessly minimalized its need to understand the role of other species, the earth on which all species depend, and our "importance" to the universe itself. Thank your for this lovely interview.

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Thank you for this interview! Would also point people interested in this to the book AGAINST WHITE FEMINISM by Rafia Zakaria, which really helped illuminate this thinking for me.

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I am shocked and thrilled to see Alice Fletcher even mentioned in this broader context -- I used to work at the archives where her papers are held and digitized thousands of pages of her work. I truly love to see it!

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Golly, I cannot wait to read Kyla's book. What an incredible interview - thank you so much, Anne! I wish all the folks out here at Culture Study a restful break for the winter!

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This is fantastic! I will be eagerly awaiting the softcover release, and maybe our library can get this hardcover? I'm very excited to see this kind of work being done and these conversations being hauled, shrieking and resisting, into a broader spotlight.

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founding

Well this book was an immediate buy. Can't wait to read it!

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Thanks for the interview. I recently read _Braiding Sweetgrass_ and glad that Schuller mentioned it and put the feminism within the broader context of intersectionality and climate crisis. Will try to read the book soon.

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