Tag: women’s march

The whole thing with Scarlett Johansson is exactly why White (cis, esp.) women cannot and should never be allowed to be at the forefront of Women’s Rights movements.

yesbothways:

erykahisnotokay:

erykahisnotokay:

She shouldn’t have been allowed to speak anyways considering she supports Israel, victim blamed Dylan Farrow after she publicly denounced Woody Allen and those celebrities who still support him, and has taken roles from women of color. It’s especially gross she was given this platform when the majority of the organizers are women of color and one of the organizers of the Women’s March is literally a Muslim Palestinian woman.

Johansson said, literally out of her own mouth, that she would support Trump if he supported women and would give her [Johansson’s] daughter the same reproductive health care “privileges” as Ivanka Trump had in her youth. This is after she made statements like “don’t let the helplessness make you complacent”, as if standing in the middle of a crowd of thousands of women marching for their rights is the appropriate venue to talk about people’s complacency.

I won’t force myself to go through the full seven minute drivel she poured out on that stage before being cut off, but those two statements alone show the gigantic gap in understanding the struggle’s of being a woman in America when you come from the most privileged groups of women in the country, if not the world.

Reproductive health care is never a privilege and the fact that it is ever viewed as such is an affront to women’s humanity.  This isn’t the “March for Women’s Privileges and Special Treatment”, this is a march for the rights which women, by nature of being humans, are entitled to have recognized by the government and those in office. 

For Scarlett Johansson to make her speech about her as an individual and to even think to speak the words “I will support [Trump]” is abhorrent. It flies in the face of the entire purpose of the March. This isn’t about bargaining rights for patriotism, it’s about demanding rights and promising resistance if they’re not acknowledged. To stand in front of a crowd of so many women from so many backgrounds and say “I, a White cis woman, will support your oppression of others so long as I’m looked out for” is the epitome of White supremacism through the feminist lens.

White women don’t belong in leadership positions in movements for women’s rights, and honestly they don’t belong in leadership positions of any movement seeking to recognize and protect human rights. They don’t get it and they can never get it. They shouldn’t be given a platform to prove that time and time again at the expense of the women of color, trans women, disabled women, and etc. who they carelessly speak over.

I’m only doubling-down on this after seeing how many people are coming home from protests and talking about how many White cis women were at these demonstrations, nationwide, with nothing but trans-exclusionary, one-dimensional slogans on their signs. White women, and White cis women especially, only care about themselves. They don’t deserve platform or credit in movements intended to benefit all women, They don’t understand that concept of “all”.

I know other white feminists are going to get all sensitive about being told that we can’t be leaders in these posts.  My sisters, LET DOUBT SINK INTO YOU.  Don’t panic it out.  If you’re a feminist, and all your feminist icons, heroes, and teachers are white women, you have a SERIOUS PROBLEM that will undermine your feminist practice and theory until you address it.  You don’t even know yet how much you need women of color IN THE LEAD.  Go and read even a handful of their books, and you will know what I mean.  Start with bell hooks if you want my personal suggestion, her love trilogy, All About Love.  Google these women.  Follow them online.  Eventually, you will recognize who our real leaders are.  And they won’t look so much like you.  

Sharing this because it seems like some people do not know their history.  

The most powerful voices I have ever heard, voices that ring with an agony of a truth so hard-won, are the voices of black women, women of colour – and that includes trans women as well. 

White, cis women, even if you’re queer – push your pride down.  Understand what intersectionality means and recognise your privilege.  Gender politics and racial politics intersect.  That doesn’t mean we need to divide over it.  

Whatever suffering might be ahead, it’s always worse for them.  Respect their strength, their vision, their wisdom – and their voice.  If anyone can lead us to something better, it’s women who, for generations, have carried the weight of our worst. 

Here’s the Full Transcript Of Angela Davis’s ~Fire~ Women’s March Speech

thegiftedoneishere:

“At a challenging moment in our history, let us remind ourselves that we the hundreds of thousands, the millions of women, trans-people, men and youth who are here at the Women’s March, we represent the powerful forces of change that are determined to prevent the dying cultures of racism, hetero-patriarchy from rising again.

“We recognize that we are collective agents of history and that history cannot be deleted like web pages. We know that we gather this afternoon on indigenous land and we follow the lead of the first peoples who despite massive genocidal violence have never relinquished the struggle for land, water, culture, their people. We especially salute today the Standing Rock Sioux.

“The freedom struggles of black people that have shaped the very nature of this country’s history cannot be deleted with the sweep of a hand. We cannot be made to forget that black lives do matter. This is a country anchored in slavery and colonialism, which means for better or for worse the very history of the United States is a history of immigration and enslavement. Spreading xenophobia, hurling accusations of murder and rape and building walls will not erase history.

“No human being is illegal.

“The struggle to save the planet, to stop climate change, to guarantee the accessibility of water from the lands of the Standing Rock Sioux, to Flint, Michigan, to the West Bank and Gaza. The struggle to save our flora and fauna, to save the air—this is ground zero of the struggle for social justice.

“This is a women’s march and this women’s march represents the promise of feminism as against the pernicious powers of state violence. And inclusive and intersectional feminism that calls upon all of us to join the resistance to racism, to Islamophobia, to anti-Semitism, to misogyny, to capitalist exploitation.

“Yes, we salute the fight for 15. We dedicate ourselves to collective resistance. Resistance to the billionaire mortgage profiteers and gentrifiers. Resistance to the health care privateers. Resistance to the attacks on Muslims and on immigrants. Resistance to attacks on disabled people. Resistance to state violence perpetrated by the police and through the prison industrial complex. Resistance to institutional and intimate gender violence, especially against trans women of color.

“Women’s rights are human rights all over the planet and that is why we say freedom and justice for Palestine. We celebrate the impending release of Chelsea Manning. And Oscar López Rivera. But we also say free Leonard Peltier. Free Mumia Abu-Jamal. Free Assata Shakur.

"Over the next months and years we will be called upon to intensify our demands for social justice to become more militant in our defense of vulnerable populations. Those who still defend the supremacy of white male hetero-patriarchy had better watch out.

"The next 1,459 days of the Trump administration will be 1,459 days of resistance: Resistance on the ground, resistance in the classrooms, resistance on the job, resistance in our art and in our music.

"This is just the beginning and in the words of the inimitable Ella Baker, ‘We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes.’ Thank you.”

Those who still defend the supremacy of white male hetero-patriarchy had better watch out.

Here’s the Full Transcript Of Angela Davis’s ~Fire~ Women’s March Speech

WOAH WOAH WOAH

svpergirls:

gaygent-romanoff:

The media is WAY underplaying the women’s march in DC. there are OVER A MILLION PEOPLE. Not “around half a million.” OVER A MILLION.

It’s amazing. Chanting “Black lives matter” and “my body my choice” and “lgbtq and e; we just want equality.” Over a million people shoulder to shoulder with signs and anger channeled into action. THAT’S what the march was.

I talked to a police officer in DC today who said that there were about 1.6 million people. A guy who’s lived in DC for twenty years said that this was bigger than any Independence Day celebration he’s seen, which usually reach about a million.

Don’t let the news tell you that there are only 500k people (which would be impressive in itself). There are at least twice that.

Just from the aerial footage: at least a million people.  Los Angeles as well.  

Would love to hear more about marches in the mid-west/bible belt/south, though.