White Women: The Clandestine Arm of White Supremacy
One of my most vivid memories takes me back to that beautiful corner office where I spent two hours with the new female CEO, sharing my perspective on how white supremacy was showing up in my treatment at the organization. She paused her passionate notetaking to gaze up at me and ask, “But isn’t it all because of the patriarchy?”
It was in that very moment I decided that I never wanted to hear another white woman mention the word “patriarchy” ever again. Even as she failed to empathize with me and my experience in the workplace, she suggested that the patriarchy was squarely to blame for the state of things, implicitly absolving herself, and the many other white women in positions of power at the organization, from any responsibility.
They seldom admit it, but white women have played and continue to play a major role in the perpetuation of white supremacy, in professional spaces as well as in wider society. While on a surface level this is understood and even acknowledged, there is a striking failure to practically address the reality of white female advantage in our initiatives to assist “marginalized” groups. If white women access the same level and type of support as racially oppressed people, does that reduce or amplify the prevalence of white supremacy?
For centuries, white women have been able to leverage their whiteness to exert power over the racialized “Other”. Now, in the age of mainstream social justice rhetoric, they are able to leverage their sex to attain benefits meant for “minorities”, thus accruing and consolidating even more power. The question is not whether white women reckon with their ability to embody both “victim” and “victor” on a personal or interpersonal level. It is a matter of whether society has already solidified their “oppressed” categorization, thus limiting the extent of true racial equity.
Although white women faced social and legal discrimination from white men, their whiteness and proximity to white men conferred a significant amount of power in racially stratified societies, which they used and abused in many ways. The study of “Maternal Colonialism” by Margaret D. Jacobs reveals that white women believed it to be their duty to “save” indigenous children, becoming active participants in their removal and indoctrination. She notes that the reluctance to view white women as “agents of colonial control” resulted in the whitewashing of their role in the creation and implementation of harmful policies. Similarly, author Stephanie Jones Rogers exposes the history of brutal white mistresses contending with their husbands for control of the enslaved in They Were Her Property, debunking the mythology of white women as hapless bystanders during the era of slavery.
As the years progressed and white women fought for their own rights, they also played a significant part in the subjugation of people of color. The suffragettes promoted segregated women’s rallies and excluded black women from their activism so as to not offend the (more) racist Southern white women. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was outraged at the prospect of “degraded black men” being able to vote before white women, publishing her sentiments in a newsletter she edited alongside Susan B Anthony. White women pushed for and achieved membership in the KKK, white women were at the forefront of the grassroots movement against the desegregation of schools.
Today, an emphasis on the importance of white women holding positions of power for the sake of “diversity”, dismisses the ways that white women in power can and will uphold white supremacy. For the podcast “The Ethical Rainmaker”, racial justice consultant Fleur Larsen delves into the notion of white women as “gatekeepers” who control access in fields ranging from nonprofits to healthcare to education. Regarding education, she notes that “the school to prison pipeline is really just this thing about do young black and brown bodies conform to white women’s norms of what’s studious and polite.” Statistics confirm the alarmingly disproportionate rates of discipline for black children in schools, with children as young as 5 years old being subject to violent interventions and police interactions. And it is a white female judge in Tennessee who has recently come under fire for illegally jailing dozens of kids, in some cases charging them with crimes that do not exist.
It is time for us to realize that the current “white women and minorities” approach is counterproductive to racial justice. The term is typically used in its colorblind version (women and minorities), which successfully hides the fact that white women are positioned to benefit more than these so-called “minorities”, particularly when the criteria for “oppressed status” is made broad and vague enough to include them. Here we have half the beneficiaries of racial oppression, being afforded the same supports often meant to combat racial oppression.
Affirmative action was initially designed to counteract racial inequalities, but Kimberlé Crenshaw found that it ended up benefitting white women the most. The Biden Administration took the “white women and minorities” approach to its COVID-19 relief rollout, and we might have been able to measure the outcome had it not been challenged in court for “racial and gender discrimination”, thanks to disgruntled white men. How many well-intentioned programs have spotlighted gender discrimination alongside racial discrimination, with the effect of propping up privileged white women more than women of color or men of color?
The deception is hidden in the very language — if women are considered a “minority”, wouldn’t it be redundant to state “women and minorities”? But the word minorities is most often used to refer to people of color, so the only way to include (and prioritize) white women, would be to include women as a distinct category in the discussion. Not only does this dismiss the intersecting identities of women of color, but it also ushers white women to the forefront of the conversation, both in theory and in practice.
The article “Women are advancing in the workplace, but women of color still lag behind”, has a headline that speaks volumes by itself. In the piece, writer Adia Harvey Wingfield goes on to stress that “race and racism create specific, unique challenges for women of color that are too easily ignored with broad platitudes that seek to advance women’s representation without questioning which women are likely to benefit.” Ruby Hamad, in her book White Tears/Brown Scars, makes the assertion that “the gains made by white women all too frequently consolidate white power by further disenfranchising people of color.”
Taking it back to The Ethical Rainmaker podcast, Fleur Larsen poses an interesting reflection — “[As a white woman] Am I gonna use this gatekeeping status for good or for evil?” The more significant question though, is whether white women should be allowed to retain their “gatekeeping status” at all. When it comes to white men, the racial justice movement has demanded that they step back, step down, and relinquish power so that it can be distributed more equitably to those they have historically disempowered. Are white women not expected to do the same?
In a nutshell, white women’s relationship to power is often solely considered in conversations about race. In practice, we treat them exclusively as an oppressed group, which has the effect of reinforcing white supremacy. An overrepresentation of white women in powerful positions might equate to “gender equality” in a homogenous society, but in racially plural societies, it perpetuates white supremacy. There must be a willingness to interrogate white women’s role in causing harm within institutions, and a serious analysis of the level of power and control that they hold, particularly when it pertains to black and brown populations.
In hiring, promotion, program offerings and internal equity discussions, we must take a more critical look at the spaces filled with white women and their voices. Is the goal of “diversity” considered to be achieved once there are more white women and less white men in the room? During conflicts between white female staff and female staff of color, whose perspectives take precedence? According to Hamad, “the white women of history have been given a pass for their role in colonialism and the institutionalization of white supremacy.” At some point the passes must end. At some point they must give way to practical accountability, and a reassessment of the extent to which white women should be empowered at the expense of people of color.
