Of course I understand why WOC are reluctant to talk about intra-racial sexism. Yes, it’s very uncomfortable, it feels wrong, it can be taken wrong and used to perpetuate racial stereotypes of MOC. but what’s the alternative–keep on telling our daughters that they have to accept second class status because it’s part of our cultural tradition/our men are being emasculated by dominant culture/if they just learned to be more understanding, they’d see that their brothers really have it harder, despite their experiences telling them the opposite? It’s insidious–you have the same messages that every girl gets telling her she should be a good girl and take second with this “moral” and “cultural” mythology heaped on top to justify it–don’t speak up because you’ll be part of making every mother’s worst nightmare come true. Enough.

“Issues pertaining to how sexism affect different populations of women are core feminist issues. Issues pertaining to men who are related to women (as most/all men are) are not.”

Exactly. Exactly! Someone said above that GLBT communities are being pushed to address the exclusion of POC. But that’s POC GLBT people, not STRAIGHT POC! They’re not being asked to drop the focus on GLBT issues and instead focus on some kind of general advocacy that’s unrelated to GLBT core concerns.

I worked in Japan for awhile, and saw a similar phenomenon — women and men having similar educational opps, not similar career ops.

Pleasegos: Loved everything you said above, especially: “At best, I’ll get a little blurb nobody will read on What About Our Daughters? while the mainstream, big feminist blogs will pick out a well known, already wildely decried story about a MOC and say that that’s a feminst issue because that man had a mother who loved him. To me, that statement is the problem, not something that needs to be enshrined in feminism. I’m TIREDof not mattering.”

I am tired of people “misunderstanding” that concentration on feminism within feminism (totally fair, right?) means ignoring intersectionality. Issues pertaining to how sexism affect different populations of women are core feminist issues. Issues pertaining to men who are related to women (as most/all men are) are not. The fact that this has to be explained so often gets back to Violet’s cogently worded hypothesis: it’s a shut-up strategy.

Like white feminsts say, it does not translate into earnings. Black men earn more than black women. White men earn much more than white women. In fact, the gap is greatest between white men and women.

This is why it enraged me so much during the election when some white women attempted to convey the idea that some how being a black man in America is easier than being being a woman of race.

Men of color experience racism. Women of color experience both racism and sexism. Women overall are much more likely to be poor.

52% of the population is female.