The limits of feminist solidarity
This article builds upon the countless calls for white leaders working in global development to show up and do the work to dismantle racist structures in our sector. But it is, in particular, a call to action for white feminists.
Since the murder of George Floyd last year, there is one refrain that is ubiquitous — you will hear it uttered by women of colour working in many sectors, and global development is no exception. ‘I’m exhausted,’ we say. ‘I’m so tired of this,’ we declare. ‘I can’t deal with this any more,’ we confess to each other. We are referring to the failures of so many development institutions to take meaningful action on anti-racism beyond high-noise, low-impact posturing. We are referring to the demand that women of colour explain themselves and educate our white peers without compensation and in a climate of white fragility. And, without a doubt, we are referring to the resounding failure of many white women — several of them self-proclaimed feminists, many of them working on gender equality in international development — to demonstrate solidarity with the women of colour they work with, and show up as anti-racists.
Exhaustion like this, as the scholars Akwugo Emejulu and Leah Bassel tell us, is political. It should not be individualised. It is a result of daily, systemic undermining and exclusion faced by women of colour in the global development system. And the sad truth is that many white feminists are complicit in mobilising and sustaining this exclusion.
This article is a result of an ongoing discussion with a collective of women of colour working in global development. Many, though not all of us, work in organisations that have a strategic commitment to gender equality or feminism. All of us would like our white feminist colleagues — several of whom are concentrated in the ranks of middle management, some of whom have positional power at the top of their organisations — to show up differently when it comes to anti-racism. Almost all of the women who have contributed stories to this piece are not able to publicly speak up.
Before going any further, I want to counter any accusations that, in writing this article, we are essentialising all white women. We recognise that some men call themselves ‘feminists’ and that white womanhood is not a monolith; that race and gender intersect with other types of social relations. In a largely elitist sector like international development, for example, social relations of class cannot be ignored. Some of us can give examples of white feminists who are doing the work to self-educate and then take action to address racism in their institutions. But most of us would say that these genuine allies are few and far between, and in the words of one of the women I spoke to: ‘When we see [allyship], it is too little, and too late.’
bell hooks gives us a useful definition of solidarity.
‘Solidarity is not the same as support. To experience solidarity, we must have a community of interests, shared beliefs and goals around which to unite, to build Sisterhood. Support can be occasional. It can be given and just as easily withdrawn. Solidarity requires sustained, ongoing commitment.’
Solidarity, then, is challenging. And it is work. Of course, failures of feminist solidarity are nothing new. They have many historical antecedents, and you don’t need to look far before you trip over contemporary examples. Take the London Women’s March in 2018, for instance. In trying to be inclusive, the organisers invited representatives from all major political parties, including UKIP — a political party that over the years has almost attracted more racists than your average Trump rally. When people complained, Women’s March organisers called them ‘divisive’. Here are the limits of feminist solidarity in action — buckling at the slightest sign of tension.
What are the impediments to feminist solidarity and coalition-building that women of colour in this collective want to talk about? Let’s break it down.
Demands for ‘positivity’ and ‘unity’
Women of colour regularly report that their employers — and it’s not just white women here, of course — insist that employees acknowledge all the progress that has been made on anti-racism, rather than focus on what is still to be done. Whiteness can distort our perceptions — whereas white colleagues may focus upon individual acts of progress, racialised groups cannot help but point out the entrenched nature of the wider system of racism. But when white feminists tell women of colour to ‘focus on what we have in common rather than what divides us’, they centre their own whiteness in the feminist project and are demonstrating an inability to bring an intersectional lens to their work. Coalition building always brings trade-offs — but here it is those closest to the pain who are constantly being told to compromise for the greater good. Solidarity must not involve rendering invisible those at the margins.
An interesting insight comes from the perspective of a woman in our group from an aid-recipient country, who has worked in development for many years. She says, ‘I’ve tried to engage with those who are considered “seasoned” white feminists in North America about the fact that they still don’t get us, let alone listen to us. But have been rebuked endlessly, simply because I don’t agree with them. That I am not in solidarity with “them”’. White feminists must begin to understand and accept why a politics of refusal is so important to many women of colour — we don’t want to be included in a status quo that isn’t working for us. Unity is achieved through solidarity and joint struggle — it cannot be imposed.
An unwillingness to share power
One member of our collective works for an organisation that is trying to diversify its staff. There is much more pressure on hiring managers in her organisation to make sure they no longer have all-white shortlists. But she has noticed a pattern: ‘When a woman of colour gets promoted into a relatively senior role over a white peer, I’ve noticed the behaviour of some of my white female colleagues. There’s a deafening silence. No effusive congratulations, nothing. We all know that if one of their white female peers had been offered the job, there would have been plenty of congratulations and celebrations about women breaking through the glass ceiling.’ Another woman in our collective said, ‘In my experience, white feminists in the sector are unwilling to acknowledge their own complicity in maintaining and reinforcing inequalities. They are unwilling to even reflect on how the elite cliques of white women in the sector have stood to gain from sharing and creating exclusive opportunities for each other in a system that they would describe as a ‘boys’ club’ if it applied to men’.
Judith Butler famously told us that we must organise and build alliances in ways that ‘reconfigure the matrix of power’; but what we are seeing here is a lot of white feminists reproducing, or softly ‘tinkering at the edges’ of the matrix of power. For example, there are members in our collective who say that the white feminists they work with are only willing to reconfigure power relations on their own terms. One woman in our group said, ‘There’s a woman at the top of our organisation who’s been there for over a decade and shows few signs of moving on. Since last summer, she keeps telling us that she’s mentoring a handful of employees who are women of colour. But this feels very performative and paternalistic — why not just share power? So many women of colour are over-mentored — we don’t need more mentoring; we don’t need white feminists to tell us what to do, we need more white feminists to hand over the levers of power.’ Of course, sharing power is hard — we may fear becoming obsolete or irrelevant, and it requires a certain level of trust. But it is nevertheless is a core part of the work that all feminist leaders must do.
Some examples from our collective are more extreme, showing white women actively mobilising racist tropes about Black women in order to preserve power. One Black woman in our group works for a very large institution. ‘Black women know there are certain teams headed by white women in our organisation where we will never excel or progress. We avoid those teams as much as we can. There are also white women in our organisation who, when they are challenged by a Black woman, will ask a white senior male to ‘help’ them, suggesting that the Black woman is being ‘angry’ and ‘intimidating’. This example has disturbing historical resonances — of white women weaponising their perceived ‘vulnerability’ and asserting their dominance over women of colour by asking men for ‘protection’.
The crushing sound of silence
All of us in the collective can give multiple examples of how white feminists have failed to publicly speak up in solidarity with us when we have asked for more action on anti-racism. Of course, we acknowledge it is easier for some to speak out than others — some will be single parents, the sole earner for their families or employed on short-term contracts. It is hard to deal with the sanctions that may come from speaking out. Yet it is so often left to far more junior women of colour to absorb the risk of sticking their heads above the parapet to make demands for change. I once asked a very well-respected, influential white feminist if she could support my demand that a new senior leadership position could go to someone based in the countries where our programmes took place. Wasn’t it a shame, I argued, that Black and brown women didn’t have enough of a voice in our organisation? She shifted uncomfortably in her seat, changed the subject and the issue was never raised again. In assuming best intent from this colleague, I imagine that perhaps she was paralysed by uncertainty and fear of ‘getting it wrong’. Solidarity emerges from social action — but if so many white feminists are not acting, if they remain mute, if they are paralysed by their desire for perfectionism, then how can the building blocks of solidarity be laid?
Other members in the group have shared how they see silence being deployed in different ways and to different ends. One woman says, ‘I am seeing powerful white women in the sector, who call themselves ‘intersectional feminists’, buddying up to women of colour — especially Black women from the global south. BUT when it comes down to it — in the workplace — they do nothing close to allyship. They go… into silent mode — telling women of colour that what they are experiencing is terrible but there’s ‘nothing they can do about it; they are powerless’… I am seeing this more and more, and it’s worrying me. Especially at that middle to senior management level where these women do have power to speak up, but they don’t want to exercise it because they are worried about themselves. So, the whole thing from the beginning… becomes about white women’s career progression.’
The banality of using one’s privilege
There is also a form of banality to the way that some white feminists speak about how they are using their privilege and showing ‘allyship’ with women of colour. I recently listened to a podcast from an international NGO about this — again, it was all about offering mentorship, speaking up a little less in meetings, hiring a Black or brown woman on your team, and offering speaking slots to women of colour in your organisation. This is an ‘add a sprinkle of anti-racism and stir’ approach to achieving social justice. It involves surface-level interventions that leave existing power relations undisturbed. It addresses the low-hanging symptoms of racism rather than the systemic root causes. One member of our group explains: ‘I have seen how these professed anti-racist actions are undermined in practice. For example, the ‘listening sessions’ in some INGOs have been presented as invitations to people of colour to open up and share their concerns in safety. But all too often this has been met with defensiveness and denial. In one instance, one of the few white women to speak up and express the need for anti racism actions ‘to meet donors’ demands’ was singled out and praised for her articulately presented argument. None of the Black or brown women who had spoken were. Voice, power and a platform has been offered only then to be snatched away or appropriated.’
Failures of solidarity between women of colour
In writing this piece, we must also turn the mirror on ourselves. Women of colour in particular must have tough conversations about how we may be benefiting from white supremacy. Are we also displaying the same types of behaviours as the white feminists we mention in this article? We must do a similar type of self-reflection that we are asking white feminists to do and consider our own positions within a racist superstructure. Here’s the perspective of a woman based in the global south:
‘Racism and a lack of solidarity in global development isn’t just limited to white feminists. Many women who see themselves as feminists also harbour racist tendencies towards other cultures and religions. For instance there is deep seated racism towards Africans by many South Asians, solely based on skin colour. Likewise, some East Asians view South Asians unfavourably, as do many Africans, based on historical relations.’
The scholar Priyamvada Gopal beautifully sums up the importance of doing this work. We can learn much from her journey.
‘As an upper-caste woman from a liberal-ish Hindu family in India, I grew up with whole sets of unexamined assumptions and well-meaning notions that didn’t just magically disappear with my feminist education… It has taken a lot painful listening and learning from Dalit and other non-upper-caste intellectuals and campaigners for me to even begin the process of unlearning some of my habitual notions… It’s not fun and it takes a measure of humility… But it has to be done. ’
Solidarity and love
Feminist solidarity requires the difficult and very tiring labour of self-reflection and introspection. It requires brutal honesty about the power differentials that exist between women along the lines of race, class, gender identity, location, and other forms of social division. But we can also return to bell hooks, who tells us to live according to what she calls a ‘love ethic’. hooks’ ‘love ethic’ involves ‘embracing a global vision wherein we see our lives and fate as intimately connected to everyone on the planet.’ Solidarity work, then, can also be viewed as an act of love. I can see this love ethic in the work of those white feminists I count as genuine allies.
White feminists working in global development could therefore ask themselves:
‘How does my love ethic show up in the anti-racism work I do?’
‘How am I demonstrating public solidarity with women of colour in my organisation?’
‘How am I sharing power?’
‘When am I silent? And when am I speaking out?’
‘What inequalities or hierarchies of power am I perpetuating through my actions?
‘Who am I excluding and why?’
‘Am I leaving it to others to absorb the risk involved in doing anti-racism work?’
‘How am I holding myself and others accountable for this work?’
‘If reading this piece makes me feel attacked or defensive, why might that be?’
But the most pressing question, the one that should move us to action, to deeds not words, comes from Audre Lorde:
