Feminism and Diversity
Related: About this forumGender Wage Inequality Is White Feminist BS
Patricia Arquettes Oscar acceptance speech imploring for wage equality was met with applause by her peers, including Meryl Streep. However, as The Frisky told you yesterday, her backstage interview which was reasonably referred to as tone deaf where racial politics are concerned attracted negative attention and response. To recap, this is what she said:
Its time for women. Equal means equal. The truth is the older women get, the less money they make. The highest percentage of children living in poverty are in female-headed households. Its inexcusable that we go around the world and we talk about equal rights for women in other countries and we dont. One of those superior court justices said two years ago in a law speech at a university that we dont have equal rights for women in America and we dont because when they wrote Constitution, they didnt intend it for women. So the truth is even though we sort of feel like we have equal rights in America right under the surface there are huge issues at play that really do affect women. Its time for all the women in America, and all the men that love women and all the gay people and all the people of color that weve all fought for to fight for us now.
Now firstly, lets get this straight: Arquette is an actress and she is also imperfect. We must not forget that her words, well-intentioned but problematic though they may be, were merely an entry point to a much-need conversation about wage inequality. It is up to us to expand on and continue the conversation she attempted to begin. So lets go ahead and do that.
In truth, America does have a wage gap problem that needs to be explored. And that problem can, indeed, be labeled a gender-based problem. However, the biggest wage gaps are interracial and not necessarily gender-specific. In order to truly delve into the issue, here are some highlights from the U.S. Bureau Labor of Statistics 2013 December Report:
Asian men out earned all other demographics, with a weekly median earning of $1,059. In comparison, White men earned $884, Black men $664 and Hispanic or Latino men earned $594.
Asian women and White women (with weekly median earnings of $819 and $722 respectively) earned more than Black men and Hispanic men.
Black women and Hispanic women had the lowest median incomes earning $606 and $541, respectively.
While it is true that, as a whole, women still struggle to earn as much as their male counterparts, the largest income gaps are race specific. Only when we compare male-to-female differences in income among individuals of the same race does a gender-specific gap even become worthy of talking about. After all, I would much rather be a White woman and have a weekly earning of $722, than be a Hispanic man who earns $594 in that same time period.
In fact, according to the report, Earnings growth has been greatest for White women, outpacing that of their Black and Hispanic counterparts. Between 1979 and 2013, inflation-adjusted earnings (also called constant-dollar earnings) rose by 31 percent for White women, compared with an increase of 20 percent for Black women and 15 percent for Hispanic women.
http://www.thefrisky.com/2015-02-24/the-soapbox-heres-why-closing-the-gender-wage-gap-is-a-white-feminist-issue/
GeorgeGist
(25,426 posts)Sheelanagig
(62 posts)Keep 'em fighting among themselves, so they won't notice that they all learn less than white men, the largest wage-earning group of men.
draytontiffanie
(26 posts)The highest wage-earning group is Asians.
Response to Sheelanagig (Reply #2)
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draytontiffanie
(26 posts)My response to pay inequity is to look at the reality, not the figment of gender inequality that further supports a White agenda.
ismnotwasm
(42,443 posts)Wrong, but interesting
This in an Intro. which then further breaks it down by race
This is real life for women working in a country with a gender pay gap alive and well. The latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau illustrate how that gap affects women, who are the primary source of income for 40 percent of American families.
The Big Number
First, theres the benchmark. In 2013, the typical woman working full time, year-round in the United States earned 78 percent of mens earnings. That number rose a lousy 1 percent since 2012 a change that is not significantly different.
http://www.aauw.org/2014/09/18/gender-pay-gap/
draytontiffanie
(26 posts)"In order to truly delve into the issue, here are some highlights from the U.S. Bureau Labor of Statistics 2013 December Report:
Asian men out earned all other demographics, with a weekly median earning of $1,059. In comparison, White men earned $884, Black men $664 and Hispanic or Latino men earned $594.
Asian women and White women (with weekly median earnings of $819 and $722 respectively) earned more than Black men and Hispanic men.
Black women and Hispanic women had the lowest median incomes earning $606 and $541, respectively."
http://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/cps/highlights-of-womens-earnings-in-2013.pdf
ismnotwasm
(42,443 posts)It's a hobby of mine. I had actually read it elsewhere. I was pointing out that while you are quite correct as far as a significant racial bias in wage discrepancies, there is still a very real one with between white women and white men.
And white feminists aren't the only kind of Feminists, thank God. We're everywhere
draytontiffanie
(26 posts)Yes. And changing that discrepancy between white men and white woman will not help Hispanic or Black women in any significant way, since the biggest wage gaps are interracial.
Thus, the gender wage gap is a white feminist issue.
ismnotwasm
(42,443 posts)Not when according to your own stats, women of color make less than men of color. The way statistics work-- add it all up and women make less than men across the board. Period
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draytontiffanie
(26 posts)Yes, intra-racially, there is a wage gap.
But the biggest wage gaps are interracially.
I'd rather make the earnings of an Asian woman than a Black or Hispanic man.
ismnotwasm
(42,443 posts)So do we take gender-- whatever race, out of of statistics? Is that your solution? Ignore pay discrepencies of women whether white or not?
Or are you saying they don't exist?
draytontiffanie
(26 posts)I am saying that White feminism is, once again, marginalizing the struggles of POC and OWC by making wage gaps a gender issue when its more of a race issue. That was the point of the piece.
elehhhhna
(32,076 posts)Your own stats disprove your theory.
ismnotwasm
(42,443 posts)But he didn't look at them I think
ismnotwasm
(42,443 posts)As I said, it's not only white feminism concerned with this issue. Feminists of color as very aware of a gendered wage gap. And as far as your false comparisons, I've heard people say they'd rather make as much as a black male basketball star than a white women working checkout at Wallmart. This is called race baiting.
The gendered wage gap exists-- if we were having a reasonable conversation we could begin to talk about power-- most positions of power on the U.S. belong to White Males-- regardless of wages, but we are not having a reasonable argument.
draytontiffanie
(26 posts)Nope. Those two arguments are not the same. One is comparing exceptions. Another is comparing entire demographics.
The White and Asian Female DEMOGRAPHIC (ENTIRE POPULATION) makes more than the Black or Hispanic Male populous, in terms of median weekly income.
The argument is very reasonable.
Skittles
(158,548 posts)when women are over half the population?
Response to ismnotwasm (Reply #7)
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AverageJoe90
(10,745 posts)I mean, I do realize her comments weren't quite perfectly stated, yes, but she did in fact, make an effort to clear things up via Twitter; I'll try to dig that stuff up ASAP.
Response to draytontiffanie (Original post)
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aswanson
(50 posts)I don't know that i can agree that this is "White Feminist BS" but I do agree that it's really important to view this through racial lenses.
qwlauren35
(6,278 posts)She talks about white women, then black women, then Latina women and shows how the gap widens by race.
There has never been any surprise to me that white women make more than black men. I think this is what the OP is pointing out, and I see some women here reaching higher, instead of trying to pull everyone up. What we should be trying to do is to pull everyone, women, blacks, Latinos/as, up to the Asian male standard. So then we must talk about gender and race, because both are problems. To focus on one but not the other, in my mind, as a black woman, is inappropriate, and possibly blind to the problems of others.
So, no name calling about white feminist BS. That wins no allies, although it's attention-getting. Does it get the conversation started, not in a positive way. Look at how it has pit white women against women of color. I don't think that was the intent of the article. As a black woman, I want the wages of my black brothers to rise. We are partners, in many cases. If not husbands, then lovers, brothers, fathers, cousins, so on. I think that makes me different from white women IF they only think of this as a women's issue. If they see this as a white male dominance issue, it puts them on my page.
So, please, consider seeing this as a white male dominance issue, and realize that the standard has to be raised for white women, and ALL POCs, men and women. Leave no one behind.
Redness
(18 posts)Last edited Mon May 2, 2016, 06:18 AM - Edit history (1)
And unlike the gender gap, race gaps are manifestly uncompensated. That is, ethnic minorities possess nothing like the female's sexual capital, which compels many a man to surrender his bonus pennies, together with the rest of his dollar, as quickly as they're earned. To ignore such moments is analogous to ignoring that the slave serves the master and concluding from the former's greater consumption of food (servitude's fuel) that the slave has the advantage.
Indeed, overall gender inequality, by the only non-arbitrary measure (fecundity, which, as mother of all desires, reigns regardless of whether we list it among our goals), is an obvious impossibility. That's why it is precisely in patriarchies that we find, if we care to look, males at the bottom. And the more extreme the patriarchy, the more miserable is the omega male's state in relation to the female. But instead, we focus on the top: the maned idler the exploiter of lioness industry, ignoring that the typical male lion not only commands no harem, but, betrayed even by his own mother, is denied by the patriarch-female alliance even a decent opportunity to hunt. It is similar with humans, for instance prisons teeming with predominantly male slave labor, an issue we'll get to once every fabricated category of wage labor earns exactly as much per head as its negative.
Then again, there is an elephant in the room. It isn't any of the infinite subclasses of wage labor we may pit in jealous opposition to each other, dividing per chance to conquer. It is rather the class that, besides wage laborers, defines wage labor: the capitalist. He (the masculine pronoun is deliberate, rent's gender gap putting that of work to shame), who, in his capacity as capitalist, does no work, thereby "earns" infinitely more per quantum of work (the general form of the feminist "for equal work" than the wage laborer or any of the subcategories we may impose upon wage labor. What's the same, the wage laborer earns 0 cents to the capitalist's dollar per quantum of work.
And unlike stances on issues, in which one's stock of stances is as inexhaustible as it is impotent, movements must be economical. Time and effort spent cannibalizing our fellow workers' wages on the basis of random trait inequity is time and effort not spent reclaiming that vast part of our product that hides in profits. In times of chattel slavery, the abolitionist does not bother about the quantity of food received by the female chattel in relation to the male. The abolitionist does not accuse the master of prejudicial notions of female productivity relative to male. The abolitionist does not theorize that the female slave draws too gingerly from the trough as a result of low esteem owing to the subordinate status of women in African societies. The abolitionist is too busy being an abolitionist. Be an abolitionist.
He loved Big Brother
(1,257 posts)Isn't enough to disguise your sexism. 🖕🏻
Response to He loved Big Brother (Reply #25)
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annavictorious
(934 posts)is duly noted.
annavictorious
(934 posts)Did you write the piece that you linked to?
Is draytontiffanie Tiffanie Drayton?
Response to draytontiffanie (Original post)
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mercuryblues
(15,077 posts)I am so sick of this. Why should feminist fight for everyone's fair share? And if they don't they are some sort of horrid group of people. That is exactly what you are implying. FFS. There is a reason the FEM. There are all different groups who have the same and different focus. Should white women complain to the NAACP that they aren't also fighting for their rights? Why is it expected that only FEMINISTS should fight for everyone's equal rights?
FYI Feminists come in all different colors, sexual identity, sexes, heights, weights, eye color, and income backgrounds. I am really sick and tired of people's claims that if feminists do not fight every inequality ever on Earth, they can't support their cause/don't really care/have everything wrong. Many of these causes intersect and one group will see the benefits when another succeeds. There is a certain group of people who would rather flame bait and create discord between these groups. Therefor ensuring that nothing is accomplished and their privilege stays intact.
katsy
(4,246 posts)Excellent.
mercuryblues
(15,077 posts)It boils down to this analogy.
Someone who runs a dog rescue doesn't care about stray cat rescues.
katsy
(4,246 posts)equal rights, like dominoes, more equal rights are achievable and more quickly.
annavictorious
(934 posts)I don't understand the problem with pointing out a problem. That another issue also exists does not obviate the importance of the first issue.
At what point did this become a competition?