When Patricia Arquette, a self labelled feminist, called upon “all the men who love women and all the gay people and people of color that we’ve all fought for to fight for us now,” (Bronner & Gray, 2015) it was a glaring affirmation that the white, colonial gaze is still, very much, maintained and perpetuated by white feminists.  Her words echoed the idea that womanhood is, by default, white, heterosexual, cis-gendered, and middleclass and any deviation from that “default archetype” is cast as other.

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          This centering of womanhood around the archetype of white womanhood perpetuates a colonial gaze that white feminists continue to express toward other marginalized groups. While there has been a push toward understanding intersectionality, white feminists continue to ignore the plight of female identifying folk at the intersectionality of women of colour, disabled peoples, LGBTQ2S+ and other marginalized groups. However, when we look at equality, the discourse is often lacking or missing when it relates to the very survival of these groups within colonial systems of power that we see in Western countries. Often, white feminists are silent.

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          In my essay, I will answer several questions, including: (1) what are the gazes perpetuated by white feminists; (2) what is the history of feminism that society has inherited; (3) how does white feminism continue to use the white colonial gaze to “other” marginalized groups; (4) is white feminism able to overcome its history and be used for equity for all groups? I will argue how white feminism continues to perpetuate the white colonial gaze through practices and theories that continue to serve only a select few and not the address the needs and inequality that many marginalized women face.

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          While my essay is not focusing on a suggested fix to the problem of white feminism perpetuating the colonial gaze, it will critique the problem and address the very root that is tied to the history of colonialism and the West.

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The White Colonial Gaze in Positionality

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          Before I delve into my essay, one point that needs to be made is my own positionality and the fact that writing an essay on how the white colonial gaze is still perpetuated by white feminists is a further reflection of that white colonial gaze. I am in the position to write this essay because of the systemic opportunities afforded to me by the colour of my skin.

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          I am white. I am a woman. And I must be aware of the privilege of that intersectionality to avoid perpetuating the same gaze that I am critiquing. I, however, have further intersectionalities. I grew up in poverty with violence. I am adopted and spent much of my life being othered. Never belonging to the very unit of my family. I was the “outsider within” (Collins, 1986), who found her own belonging in marginalized groups as a teen. I fit but was always aware that my privilege as a white woman was something that I could either lend or capitalize on.

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          Furthermore, while I can quote BIPOC and other marginalized people, they are often not seated at the table during this essay. As Mari Matsuda pointed out, women of colour are often viewed as a travelling diva within academia; a guest who is asked to visit but never to stay (1996). And in ways, that is the positionality of this essay where I am asking BIPOC and marginalized people to visit but in the end, it is my observations from my own intersectionalities that will shape this essay. I can see the perpetuation of the white colonial gaze; however, the scope of my view is limited by the very whiteness that I am critiquing.

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Understanding the Gazes

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          When we are looking at gazes, we are looking at the colonial gaze and the white gaze. To understand these gazes, it is important to look at them both separately and when they are combined. The first gaze is the colonial gaze, which is a broadly construed perspective from the vantage point of the white colonial point of view. This gaze sets marginalized groups as “other” (Yancy, 2008). It is important to note that while the colonial gaze looks specifically at race, it can be applied to anyone who does not fit the archetype of the colonist, which is seen as civilized, often white, heteronormative, cisgendered, etc. This shift of focus from racial othering, where any group falling outside the parameters are considered colonized, savage, deviant, etc., is often seen when there is an absence of racial diversity. For example, we see this in the othering along class lines where poor white people are viewed as morally and socially inept. This is an example of internal oppression (Kendall, 2021). Whiteness keeps them at a colonial level but their status of poverty (or in cases of LGBTQ+, disabled folx, etc.) places them on a slightly higher level of othering than racialized groups, but they are still othered. The colonial gaze works in two ways, first by othering a marginalized group and second by forcing the colonized to embrace their station within these colonial structures of power (Yancy, 2008).

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          The second gaze is the white gaze, which is a system of looking with a white lens. With this gaze, both the body being gazed at, and the actual viewer is conceptualized, and assumed, to be white, cisgendered, heterosexual, able-bodied and male. Any who do not fit this default archetype is othered (Asare, 2024).

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          With an understanding of the two gazes, it is important to look at how they connect with each other using a white feminist lens. Both gazes utilize practices of “othering” where they work together to create institutional and structural oppression that creates a lasting harm for marginalized people. Connecting feminism, specifically white feminism, to the colonial and white gazes, we look at privilege and power that many white feminists experience. White feminists often come from white, middle-class backgrounds that benefit from colonial and racist structures in place. However, they center themselves from a place of oppression (being female identifying) and can ignore the intersectionality of marginalized groups that are being further oppressed by white feminism and the behaviours of their allyship. To put it simply, “strategic White Womanhood [white feminists] makes personal what is political” (Hamad, 2020). This leads to “reframing legitimate critiques [of marginalized groups] as petty gripes” (Hamad, 2020). And this reframing is a tool of both the colonial and white gazes that has benefited white feminists since before the suffrage movement.

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The Feminism Society Inherited

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          To understand the perpetuation of the white colonial gaze in feminism, it is important to understand the feminism that society has inherited. First, feminism still struggles with a lack of intersectionality due to its very foundation. In North America, particularly, feminism is built on the white colonial gaze, which is white supremacy. Social and economic policies have been used since first contact to advance white people and these same policies have continued to inflict systemic oppression on marginalized groups (Loreto, 2016).

 

          Second, feminism was founded in the women’s liberation movement where feminists worked to dismantle the patriarchy and free women from being the property of men. However, in doing so, feminists “failed to confront the structures that maintain and promote white [colonialism]” (Loreto, 2016). Without dismantling them, how could they not perpetuate the white colonial gaze when they continually “organize in ways that reproduce these systems of oppression” (Loreto, 2016). Furthermore, many white feminist thinkers still rely on “old tropes rooted in respectability,” (Kendall, 2021) which further others marginalized groups that do not fit within the historical structures of respectable feminism.

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          Third, we need to understand that white feminism, and white colonialism, is rooted in biopolitics, which is a:

Concept that population management rather than direct control over the individual is key in maintaining the status quo. Schuller calls this the “sentimental politics of life,” or the notion that only the feelings of the civilized individual matters. Since the “true” civilized individual is, of course, white, then the fundamental of White Womanhood [white feminists] in this system is to feel and express those feelings so her emotions become the focus of attention. (Hamad 2020)

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          We often see these biopolitics at play when white feminists are called out for things they have done or said, such as in the instance of Patricia Arquette earlier in this essay or when Lena Dunham of Girls fame made comments that Odell Beckham Jr. ignored her and did not see her as “fuckable” at a Met Gala event. In that instance, Dunham employed white feminist emotions of being the victim, not seen as desirable, fat shamed and she brushed off any emotions from Beckham maintaining the status quo of both her white womanhood and her white feminism (Willaford, 2016). In short, Dunham was the colonizer (civilized with a “quirky sense of humor” (Willaford, 2016)) and Beckham was othered by the stereotype of the “over-sexualization of black male bodies”; a very common colonial device used for oppression (Willaford, 2016).

When we are looking at the history of feminism, it is important to understand that the Western feminist movement started from the social, economic, and political climate of the 1800s. In addition, it began as a fight along gendered and racialized hierarchal lines and continues to be fought on those lines (Hamad, 2020). If white feminists continue to use the “master’s tools” tools that white feminism has made stronger and built with the white colonial gaze, they “will never dismantle the master’s house” (Lorde, 1996).  

 

Of White Feminist Tears and Other Forms of Perpetuating the White Colonial Gaze

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          Although there are many tools of the white colonial gaze that white feminists use, this essay is only focusing on a few examples to critique. White feminist tears is an important starting point as it is often a place of power utilized by both white womanhood and white feminism. White feminist tears often occur when a white feminist is challenged by other marginalized groups, and she uses her status of being oppressed under patriarchy to find her footing in victimhood. It is a cynical invocation of womanhood in which white feminists are the moral judge of what is a feminist issue. Through her place in the white colonial gaze hierarchy, white feminist tears allows her to shift any critique back on those who are critiquing her (Hamad, 2020). Furthermore, white feminist tears is a “performance that is designed to empower the white woman [feminist] at the expense of the woman of colour” (Hamad, 2020) or other marginalized person.

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          Another tool of white feminists is the Lovejoy Trap, which is a way of using a cause to make oneself look morally virtuous and to divert the conversation while making a targeted marginalized group seem demonic or insatiable in nature (Hamad, 2020). In addition, one group is used as a wedge to help drive the narrative in the direction that is desired. An example of this is when white feminists coopted the personal stories of Black rape survivors to push for further restrictions of Trans women in women only spaces (Phipps, 2016). The Lovejoy Trap others marginalized women in both instances—the survivors and Trans women—for a white feminist agenda.

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          Lastly, when we look at feminism, we need to address the very fact that white feminists often approach the oppression of marginalized groups as one informed primarily, and often solely, by gender. They fail to see the white colonial structures that continually oppress marginalized groups and there is a failing to view any issues stemming from imperialism, and its history, as a feminist issue (Hamad, 2020). These blinders to issues that marginalized groups face leads to white feminists perpetuating the white colonial gaze.

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White Feminist Academics and the White Colonial Gaze

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          Finally, white feminism in academia maintains the white colonial gaze in several different ways. First, it is maintained only by opening up limited space for marginalized groups. As mentioned above, many women of colour are allowed token space within academia as a “travelling diva.” This usually occurs when “the gatekeepers of knowledge…enhance their positions by welcoming an occasional visit from the traveling diva” (Matsuda, 1996). In fact, Matsuda as an Asian-American woman found herself rarely being asked to stay at universities where she spoke. In addition, when a student asked a professor why there were no Asian-American women writers on a class syllabus, the professor answered with, “There aren’t any Asian women doing theory” (Matsuda, 1996) despite that not being factual.

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          Second, this points to a common critique of my own when it comes to academia where many of the women of colour that we read are limited to less than 20 writers from diverse backgrounds, although there are many other marginalized folx who are writing theory and putting that theory into practice. This limitation means that only the select voices, often chosen by white feminist academics, are being heard, and many of those voices are not challenging the white colonial structures in place throughout academia but instead, often focus on colonial structures within public spaces.

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          Third, this brings us back to that “gatekeeping” tied directly into the white colonial gaze. As feminism has moved from grassroots movements to “institutionalized and professionalized” degrees within academia, the white colonial gaze continues to create obstacles that many marginalized people are unable to overcome (Dowsett, 2011). For instance, feminism has become people with privilege, often “by the race, class, gender identity and/or sexuality” (Dowsett, 2011), discussing women’s issues but this institutionalization threatens politicized forms of feminism. And, as Jessica Yee has pointed out, “when feminism itself has become its own form of oppression, what do we have to say about it?” (Dowsett, 2011). The answer is, usually, not much.  

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          For example, when Mary Beard, a Cambridge professor, known for speaking on important topics of race and class, commented on a scandal where Oxfam aid staff abused sex workers in Haiti in 2018, Beard took to Twitter and wondered how difficult it was for aid workers to “remain civilized” in a disaster zone. When backlash occurred, Beard simply adjusted her stance to one of victimhood, including posting a photo of herself crying, which is a tool used to illustrate her overall power within the white colonial gaze. The majority of critiques that Beard faced did not come from academia, which remained relatively silent (Hamad, 2020).

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          Finally, when people from marginalized groups become a part of academia, they often find themselves in positions where they are an outsider within. While it can be a positive in that allows them to be a stranger in the hegemonic discourses where they identify problems within academia (Collins, 1986), it can also be an obstacle that leads marginalized groups to be viewed as the problem for challenging these white colonial norms that we see within white feminist academia (Hamad, 2020).

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          While white feminism has embraced many diverse thinkers and has begun the process of including intersectionality into its theories, much needs to be done to overcome the historical habits that white feminists have perpetuated. This begins with dismantling the colonial structures that continue to place whiteness as the default and everyone else that falls outside the colonial archetype as other. It continues through understanding that everyone, every marginalized group, is the default of humanity. Furthermore, it is important for white feminism to understand that women of colour, disabled peoples, LGBTQ2S+ and other marginalized groups are “not the supporting characters in feminism” (Kendall, 2021). For white feminists to overcome the white colonial gaze, they need to remove the label of white from the word feminism, the conceptualized default that this rigged system has been made for and stand in solidarity with marginalized groups. In the end, white feminists need to “step up, reach back, and keep pushing forward,” (Kendall, 2021) for solidarity, for equity, and for the white colonial gaze to stay where it belongs—in the past.

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References

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Asare, J. G. (2024, February 20). Understanding the white gaze and how it impacts your workplace. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/janicegassam/2021/12/28/understanding-the-white-gaze-and-how-it-impacts-your-workplace/?sh=4b6cfbcb4cd6

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Collins, P.H. (1986). Learning From the Outsider Within: The Sociological Significance of Black Feminist Thought. Social Problems 33(6), S14-S32.

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Dowsett, J. E. (2011). Media, religion and culture: An introduction. Scribd. https://www.scribd.com/document/545808172/Ojsadmin-Journal-Manager-Proof-Rev-Sajida-for-Upload

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Hamad, R. (2020). White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color. Beacon Press.

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Kendall, M. (2021). Hood feminism: Notes from the women that a movement forgot. Penguin Books.

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Lorde, A. (1996). Sister outsider: Essays and speeches. Crossing Press.

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Loreto, N. (2016, April 18). Feminism’s white default. Briarpatch Magazine. https://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/feminisms-white-default

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Matsuda, Mari J. Introduction of Where Is Your Body? And Other Essays on Race, Gender and the Law. Beacon Press, 1996.

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Phipps, A. (2016). Whose personal is more political? experience in contemporary feminist politics. https://doi-org.proxy1.lib.uwo.ca/10.1177/1464700116663831

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Willaford, M. J. (2016, September 7). Lena Dunham is a F*ckBoy. Medium. https://the-cauldron.com/lena-dunham-is-a-fuckboy-1c7cd247e45e

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Yancy, G. (2008). Colonial gazing: the production of the body as “other.” The Western Journal of Black Studies, 32(1). https://doi.org/https://go-gale-com.proxy1.lib.uwo.ca/ps/i.do?p=AONE&u=lond95336&id=GALE|A189747496&v=2.1&it=r&sid=bookmark-AONE&asid=6c66ef53