When White Women hide behind Racial Minorities.

One of the arguments made in the Google Memo controversy is that if he was talking about "Blacks" rather than women, people would have been more outraged. Given our history and culture with race in the US, this is a pretty obscene comment. This is also not the only time the comparison between race and gender has been made. There are many examples where the experience of White women have been compared to slavery.

There is no comparison.

White women have always been privileged in Western Culture.

Now let me be clear. Women in Western Culture were denied political power. Yes, there was violence (although wealthy women had status and protection, and if you were poor you faced violence period.) For centuries women were protected in war. They were save first on the Titanic (women were 50% more likely to survive the Titanic disaster than men).

But this is Western Culture. White Women had access to wealth, medical care, security, housing. White women owned and benefitted from slavery. White women have always been the second most privileged demographic in the Western World.

Racial Minorities have been horribly treated in Western Culture

I don't need to say this here. Black men were brutalized in the United States. Black Women were brutalized in the United States. Native American men and women were abused and eliminated. Asian men were used to build railroads, Asian women were abused and Excluded.

White Women benefited economically from slavery.

Gender is not race.

Every culture has some idea of gender. Gender is a biological fact... the role of gender has always been a core part of cultural identity. In every culture, even indigenous cultures with polygamy and gender-specific coming of age rituals, women have been considered part of the tribe. In the "us versus them" women have always been considered us.

When you define a "race" you are defining someone who is not part of "us". In America, women were considered Americans... to be valued and protected. Black people were considered slaves, and when they were free they were outsiders. Native Americans were to be feared as primitive. Mexicans, Asians were always outsiders with no rights and no dignity.

Saving Indigenous Women from their own culture

Western culture has developed distinct ideas about men and women. Our modern ideas are unique historically. We invented them. But along with this we invented a narrative that men from other cultures; African, Asian, Indigenous oppressed women.

The modern narrative leads to an uncomfortable place, where White People need to Save Indigenous Women from their own cultures. When White Women usurp the cultures of Indigenous women in order to further their modern Western Narrative, it disregards the indigenous cultures.

And is where this discussion always ends up.

When White Suffragettes opposed Civil Rights

The time of the Suffragettes was an uncomfortable time in history. Many of the Suffragettes specifically (with ugly language) opposed the right to vote for African Americans. Many of them openly saw black men as a threat.

http://www.npr.org/2011/03/25/134849480/the-root-how-racism-tainted-womens-suffrage

The Issue

In this thread, I again attack liberal ideology... this will likely end ugly, but I can take it. Piercing an ideological bubble is never pretty. I support women's rights in many areas; equal pay, abortion rights, etc. However, I think that we need to be humble about this. We are looking at things through a Modern Western lens and even liberals need to acknowledge their prejudice.