Quora

What Does the Hashtag #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen Mean?

This question originally appeared on Quora.

Answer by Eivind Kjørstad, nerd, nature-lover, penpal, runner, dad, feminist:

It’s a jab at the way some feminists act.

In principle, feminism is for equal rights (and perhaps equal opportunities) for everyone, regardless of things like gender or sexual orientation. This is the goal that most feminists I know say they aspire toward.

In practice, however, if you observe some feminist spaces, you can’t help but notice that the concerns, problems, and challenges of certain groups of people seem to be given a lot more airtime and be considered a lot more “relevant” than the concerns of other groups.

One such group that has been too frequently ignored is women who are anything other than white. Especially in a American context, black women in particular in many ways are more discriminated against than white women are, yet you’d never guess this if you read the most popular feminist blogs.

In short, if you read mainstream feminist stuff, you sometimes get the impression that the only group who really counts consists of white middle- to upper-class, academic, well-educated women.

That’s wrong. Feminism should be a whole lot more inclusive than that. #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen draws attention to this fact.

The way some feminist spaces handled Hugo Schwyzer may have been the direct cause of this tag trending, but he’s just a symptom, really, and not the root cause of anything.

More questions on Feminism: