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Against White Feminism: Notes on Disruption Hardcover – August 17, 2021
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A radically inclusive, intersectional, and transnational approach to the fight for women’s rights.
Upper-middle-class white women have long been heralded as “experts” on feminism. They have presided over multinational feminist organizations and written much of what we consider the feminist canon, espousing sexual liberation and satisfaction, LGBTQ inclusion, and racial solidarity, all while branding the language of the movement itself in whiteness and speaking over Black and Brown women in an effort to uphold privilege and perceived cultural superiority. An American Muslim woman, attorney, and political philosopher, Rafia Zakaria champions a reconstruction of feminism in Against White Feminism, centering women of color in this transformative overview and counter-manifesto to white feminism’s global, long-standing affinity with colonial, patriarchal, and white supremacist ideals.
Covering such ground as the legacy of the British feminist imperialist savior complex and “the colonial thesis that all reform comes from the West” to the condescension of the white feminist–led “aid industrial complex” and the conflation of sexual liberation as the “sum total of empowerment,” Zakaria follows in the tradition of intersectional feminist forebears Kimberlé Crenshaw, Adrienne Rich, and Audre Lorde. Zakaria ultimately refutes and reimagines the apolitical aspirations of white feminist empowerment in this staggering, radical critique, with Black and Brown feminist thought at the forefront.
- Print length256 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherW. W. Norton & Company
- Publication dateAugust 17, 2021
- Dimensions5.9 x 1 x 8.6 inches
- ISBN-101324006617
- ISBN-13978-1324006619
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Editorial Reviews
Review
― Sonia Faleiro, author of Beautiful Thing
"Zakaria’s Against White Feminism is a brilliant, bracing, and deeply necessary text. Showing how feminism had systematically centered white women’s voices, and excluded others’, this is a polemic that couldn’t be more urgent in improving feminism as a movement."
― Kate Manne, author of Down Girl
"This necessary book is a critique of how whiteness (not white women) has infiltrated feminism and how it should be razor-bladed out of the current form.… Zakaria is a warmhearted and sharp-eyed writer who brings compassion, intelligence, and a steady drumbeat of change to redefining term―feminism―a word that is old and soggy and full of white ladies yelling about things. This book is going to light fires everywhere, so if you are prone to combust, get right the hell out of the way."
― Kerri Arsenault, Literary Hub
"Intellectually resourceful and passionately argued, Rafia Zakaria's sharp and salutary essay expands and refines our ideas of freedom, justice and equity."
― Pankaj Mishra, author of Bland Fanatics: Liberals, Race, and Empire
"Full of painful truths about how one kind of feminism can dominate and silence women. A fantastic book."
― Nadifa Mohamed, author of The Fortune Men
"This ambitious, elegant and brilliantly argued polemic shows us how white supremacy harms Black and brown women, and offers a different politics in its place. I am grateful for this book."
― Myriam Chingona Gurba De Serrano, author of Mean
"Zakaria's frank, spirited critique of feminism's historical complicity with empire and capital, its appalling insularity, and its deep-seated provincialism opens onto a shimmering vision of true solidarity. This is, quite simply, a transformative book."
― Merve Emre, author of The Annotated Mrs. Dalloway
"Uncomfortable, often coruscating, always challenging in the best ways and never less than riveting, this book is essential reading, and especially for anyone white who identifies as a feminist. Rafia Zakaria neatly dismantles the stand-on-the-shoulders-of-giants school of white feminism that in failing to understand the intertwined history of the women’s movement and white supremacy continues to perpetuate the inequalities it purports to address. She doesn’t just deliver punchy, corrective narratives, but achieves something at least as important in questioning where we get our ideas and encouraging critical thinking."
― Catherine Mayer, author and co-founder of the Women’s Equality Party
"A lucid and persuasive argument that feminism must address its “problematic genealogies” of whiteness... Tackling complex philosophical ideas with clarity and insight, Zakaria builds an impeccable case for the need to rebuild feminism from the ground up. Readers will want to heed this clarion call for change."
― Publishers Weekly
"A reckoning and a wakeup call to the degree to which we really need to tear down and reexamine our systems of activism that we’re already trying to use to change the world."
― Dialynn Dwyer, Boston Globe
"[Zakaria’s] examination of current examples from politics and pop culture furnishes crucial evidence of the continued colonization of feminism by white women. She brings this conversation into mainstream view."
― Siobhan Egan, Library Journal
"An exploration of the divisive effects of Whiteness on feminism and a strong argument for transforming long-standing power structures... A worthy contribution to feminist and activist studies."
― Kirkus
"Zakaria lays out the damage white feminism has wrought in clear, unflinching terms and urges readers to commit to a feminism that is truly collective and global."
― Jenny Hamilton, Booklist (starred review)
"Passionate and provocative. . . the heart of what this book demands―a feminism that is less self-satisfied and secure in its power, more curious about the differences in women’s experiences, and more generous and expansive in its reach―is worth fighting for."
― Mythili G. Rao, Washington Post
"A bold call to action to eradicate white supremacy and neoliberalism from feminism in order for the movement to have a future, Zakaria analyzes the historical ties between white women-led suffrage and imperialism, and the dangers of global philanthropy that doesn't seek input from supposed beneficiaries."
― Kylie Cheung, Salon
"This steely, incisive critique deserves your attention."
― Jenny Bhatt, NPR
"Zakaria’s Against White Feminism offers the most rigorous critique of equality, especially when it is conceived of as an American ideal ‘gifted to’ or imposed upon the rest of the world."
― Marcie Bianco, Los Angeles Review of Books
"Zakaria sharply critiques the Betty Friedan-descended ‘trickle-down feminism’ that has long dominated politics, tracing the ‘agenda of colonialism’ in empowerment narratives and challenging white women’s support for existing power structures."
― Ruth Etiesit Samuel, Los Angeles Times
"A blistering revolutionary tract that seeks to expunge whiteness from the feminist movement…[Against White Feminism] will polarise opinion but is impossible to ignore."
― Mehreen Khan, Financial Times
"Combining personal anecdotes with historical analysis, these essays examine such linked phenomena as the ‘white savior industrial complex,’ ‘securo-feminism,’ and the commodification of sexual liberation. Zakaria calls for a feminism that is not only centered on the experiences of women of color but also, more broadly, seeks to counter 'whiteness'…Her argument spans centuries and continents."
― The New Yorker
"[Against White Feminism] is more than just a reframing of feminism; it is Zakaria holding truth to power."
― Brian Ng, Harper's Bazaar
"Glued to the pages, I read the book in one sitting. Want to think seriously about the exquisite power of ‘personal is political?’ Want to think carefully about privilege - and White privilege? This is your book... [Against White Feminism is] a call to address our complicity in structures of power."
― Ruby Lal, Arts ATL
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company (August 17, 2021)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 256 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1324006617
- ISBN-13 : 978-1324006619
- Item Weight : 13.6 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.9 x 1 x 8.6 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #628,039 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,167 in Feminist Theory (Books)
- #1,255 in General Gender Studies
- #4,774 in Ethnic Studies (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Rafia Zakaria is an attorney and political philosopher. She is a regular columnist for Al Jazeera America and Dawn Pakistan and has written for many publications around the world including The HIndu, The Calcutta Stateman, China Daily The Korea Herald and Le Monde. She is the first Muslim American woman to serve on the Board of Directors of Amnesty International USA for two consecutive terms.
Her book "The Upstairs Wife: An Intimate History of Pakistan" was selected by the American Booksellers Association as their Debut Selection for Spring 2015. It is also the Indie's best pick of the month for February. Published last week
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~ Rafia Zakaria, Against White Feminism: Notes on Disruption
In Against White Feminism, Rafia Zakaria takes the belief that feminism as it exists currently in the West is morally superior and strips it bare, exploring the how and why of it, as well as showing the often misguided and disastrous consequences that emerge when the rest of the world is seen and acted upon via this lens of white feminism.
She shows how white feminists, even those as celebrated as Simone De Beauvoir, or Gloria Steinem were unable to be truly intersectional. She describes how the aid-industrial complex, driven by white feminists at the helm, who disregard the voices of the people whom the aid is supposed to help, often end up causing more harm than good. She explores the hypocrisy of celebrating the successes of white women in war efforts, which by their vary nature are patriarchal and violent. She questions how it is taken for granted that sexual liberation is at the center of feminism. She explains how feminism has been corrupted and weakened by capitalism, and offers a scathing critique of “choice” feminism.
There is an additional reason why Against White Feminism resonated with me. As a privileged savarna woman from India, I have become increasingly disillusioned with mainstream feminism, aka, savarna feminism in the homeland as well. It is a feminism that I see holding on stubbornly to a gender-only narrative, and excluding not only people of marginalized genders, but also Dalit women, and Muslim women. It is a “lifestyle” feminism, that celebrates regressive, casteist and classist practices, just as long as a woman is doing them, and even prominent feminists — the ones who are held up as examples, have said disappointingly transphobic and casteist things publicly. Savarna feminism thus, mimics white feminism, even if some of these “feminists” are critical of colonialism and “western influences.”
Which is why I wish the author had a chapter on how white feminism is reflected within brown and black communities, and the alternate shapes it takes there. It might seem unnecessary in a book that is focused on combating whiteness, but if the answer to inclusion is “listen to brown/black women,” then it is worth considering which brown and black women.
This however does not take anything away from the book itself. Rafia Zakaria more than acknowledges that non-white women face oppression due to systems and structures in their own cultures. What she is questioning, is the unconsidered usage of “white” solutions to these problems, and the tendency of white women to ignore the patriarchy in their own backyards in favour of playing saviour in foreign lands.
It is a book I enjoyed greatly, and which I will be recommending heartily to all my feminist friends. It is a book that has restored my faith in feminism, and given me hope that change, after all, is possible.
The tone of these essays is simply thrilling. Dr. Zakharia understands a current state of affairs, how it manifests in the present, and explains elements of past history that brought about this state of affairs. One can construe the state of affairs she describes as not good, and can might then be rational response to it to be angered and want to replace it with something different. To have a person of this much substance share their anger and the reasons behind it is a gift.
It doesn't hurt that Zakaria exercises an effortless command of the lingo of the academic humanities, and of general 2020s blue state slang, in service of being flat-out funny. A female journalist who exploits her position and privilege to write salaciously about Lebanese girls is merely generating "white feminist clickbait". It becomes "so easy [for a white woman in an NGO] ... to replicate [a list of] unthinking, convenient sins as you forge ahead toward the glass ceiling with gritted teeth".
But the main reason to read this book is to learn things one did not know. Consider that there is no way someone like me, a white male biologist who studies effects of protein dosage on expression of mutant phenotypes, will understand from inside what it is to be a brown single mother studying for a degree while serving in shelters for victims of domestic abuse. But simple fairness and the desire for a better world demands that people in positions like mine listen, not talk, and try to understand. If there is any value in the listening and understanding exercise, such an exercise is only possible if other people are willing to speak.