Articles
“Whiter Than Me?”: An Intersectional
Analysis of Whiteness in Feminisms
Geórgia Grube Marcinik1
Amana Rocha Mattos1
1
0000-0002-5249-1548
0000-0002-2890-5421
Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brasil.
20550-900 – pospsi@uerj.br
Resumo: No presente artigo, analisamos como a branquitude apresenta-se nos movimentos
feministas, buscando compreender os processos de subjetivação e racialização de mulheres brancas
por meio do diálogo com as epistemologias dos feminismos não hegemônicos e estudos críticos da
branquitude. Analisamos as falas de quatro feministas brancas que foram entrevistadas de maneira a
pensar os desdobramentos da branquitude nos contextos feministas hegemônicos, buscando entender
o que ocorre quando feministas brancas estão dispostas a dialogar e refletir sobre sua condição
racial. A discussão dos resultados mostra a importância de compreendermos as formas de ser mulher
e os feminismos afastando-se de uma via essencialista e universalizante, reconhecendo que se faz
necessária a horizontalização dos pensamentos e práticas feministas a partir da intersecção dos
marcadores sociais da diferença.
Palavras-chave: Psicologia Social; teoria feminista; branquitude; gênero; interseccionalidade.
‘Mais branca que eu?’: uma análise interseccional da branquitude nos feminismos
Abstract: This paper analyses how whiteness appears in feminist movements, in an effort to comprehend
the subjectivation and racialization of white women through a dialogue with epistemologies of nonhegemonic feminisms and critical studies of whiteness. Four white feminists were interviewed and their
statements were analyzed to consider the ramifications of whiteness in hegemonic feminist contexts,
and to understand what occurs when white feminists are willing to dialogue and reflect on their own
racial conditions. The discussion of the results reveals the importance of understanding ways of being a
woman and feminisms with a distance from an essentialist and universalizing path, recognizing the need
for horizontalizing feminist thinking and practices through the intersection of social markers of difference.
Keywords: Social Psychology; Feminist Theory; Whiteness; Gender; Intersectionality.
Introduction
the abused
and the
abuser
- I have been both
(Rupi Kaur, 2015)
There has been much discussion about the diversity and lack of similarity among feminist
movements and how different possibilities of subjectivation of women generate tensions in the
agendas of political practices and organizations. Thus, it is necessary to think of the whiteness that
permeates the dominant discussions of feminist productions and activisms. Whiteness produces
effects and divergences in the realm of a racialized gender structure in feminist movements,
which makes it essential to reflect on racial movements in this field. The objective of this study is to
understand how processes of subjectivation and racialization of white feminists take place and how
the concept of whiteness contributes to considering hegemonic logics in this context.
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Subjectivation processes can be understood to be constitutive of subjects who are
permeated by the various forms of social, political and cultural relations by which they are forged. A
logic that is not fixed or determinant thus follows, but that is constantly moving and transforming, and
it is essential that we recognize the singularities and identity constitution of subjects, considering the
production of markers of exclusion and invisibility in these processes (Amana Rocha MATTOS; Maria
Luiza Rovaris CIDADE, 2016). Lia Schucman (2014b, p. 92) defines racialization as a symbolic process
that consists in giving “social meaning to certain biological characteristics (normally phenotypical)
on the basis of which those who are carriers (of the markers) are designated as a distinct collectivity”.
It is a social characterization process based on certain phenotypical traits, which organizes groups by
racial markers of difference. Even if this categorization is a social construction, it racially determines
populations.
It is not enough, however, to understand the impact the various social discriminations and
exclusions that the racial-ethnic questions produce. By discussing the plurality of processes of
subjectivation of women, the various feminisms, including those that are mostly formed by white
women, must be “addressed as non-essentialist, historically contingent discursive practices” (Avtar
BRAH, 1996, p. 114), which allows working together through anti-racist political articulations and
feminist practices, in a conceptual analysis of issues of differences that are useful when conducting
struggles and proposing agendas.
In this study, we interact with theories and practices of non-hegemonic feminisms and of
racialized women1 (bell hooks, 1984; Yuderkis ESPINOSA-MIÑOSO, 2014; Cherrie MORAGA; Ana
CASTILLO, 1988) – produced mainly by black women; and with an intersectional approach. The
proposals of these non-hegemonic and peripheral feminisms are located in opposition to a
feminism that is raised as a normative reference – both historically and academically – a feminism
that is predominantly white, cisgender, heterosexual and institutional. These proposals interact with
the need to construct a political practice that considers the articulations of systems of domination
and oppression (Ochy CURIEL, 2009).
Studies that register subalternized, racialized and sexed practices in struggle and resistance
are fundamental to understanding oppressive relations, even within feminist movements. In this
sense, intersectionality brings us an “analytical sensibility”, as Carla Akotirene affirms (2019, p. 18),
which allows us to rethink the methodologies as a political form of recognition and valorization of
subjectivities, practices and daily living experiences that problematize the heteropatriarchal white
cisgenderness.
Another field of interlocution is that of the critical studies of whiteness, which problematize the
forms of (re)production and strengthening of racism, in which white people occupy a symbolic place
that is not established by genetic issues, but by social positions and places that are constructed to
maintain certain logics of privileges, advantages and rights as a function of racial phenotypes. In this
sense, whiteness is understood as a mechanism of racial hegemony that maintains and reinforces
the dimensions of privileges of a certain racial group – white people (Maria Aparecida BENTO, 2014).
What sorts of deconstruction or development are delineated when white women recognize
their position of privilege through a racial perspective (and one that considers other social markers)
in the realm of their feminist practices? Is there, in this process, recognition of their racial condition
in intersection with the inequalities of gender experienced? To respond to these questions, the field
of this research consists in semi-structured interviews conducted with four women who affirm they
are feminists and self-described as white, who were open to reflecting on race, gender and feminist
movements based on a perspective of privileges and their consequent advantages and rights.
The proposal of this text goes beyond one of diagnosis and seeks to understand how
subjectivation and racialization occur for white people – in this case, white women in feminist
contexts. The starting point is not an essentialist and universal idea of white person but understands
that this logic is constructed through a hegemonic system of race and power that permeates the
constitution of subjects2 in different ways, through social markers of difference.
Processes of subjectivation and racialization: dialogs with nonhegemonic feminisms
The apprehensions about the racialization of white women in feminisms usually do not come
from white feminists, because to recognize that one is privileged by her color and phenotypical
1
The choice of the term “racialized women” encompasses the bodies of women and their readings in feminist contexts,
having a premise of whiteness in these spaces. Racialization always takes place for women who do not fit into the
universal logic of the subject – the white/ In general, white women do not recognize themselves as racialized peoples,
and our proposal in this study is to think of the racialization of white people, given that the other forms of being woman,
silenced and marginalized in feminisms are already racialized.
2
“In the original English, the term subject does not have gender. However, its current translation in Portuguese is reduced
to the male gender – o sujeito – without allowing variations in female gender – a sujeita – or various LGBTTQIA+genders
– xs sujeitxs – which would be identified as spelling mistakes” (Grada KILOMBA, 2019, p. 15). Since this text refers only to
the women interviewed, we decided to maintain the term in the female gender a sujeita.
2
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condition is not an easy task for those who do not suffer racial discrimination and belong to a
normative ethnocentric logic (hooks, 1984; ESPINOSA-MIÑOSO, 2017; Sueli CARNEIRO, 2003b;
Donna HARAWAY, 1988). It is understood that there are intragender power relations in feminisms,
produced at racial intersections (also permeated by markers of class, sexuality, generation, religion,
and others) which are revised in concepts and practices developed through intellectual debate
and practical and social intervention of feminisms.
There is extensive production from non-hegemonic feminisms that investigates how social
markers permeate subjects in the production of knowledges and in practices of resistance, allowing
us to understand and resignify the role of feminist discourses in the subjectivation and racialization
of women (Kimberlé CRENSHAW, 1994; hooks, 1984; Maria LUGONES, 2011; Chandra MOHANTY,
2008).
In this sense it is necessary to turn to perceptions about new forms of being a woman, not
only considering analyses of patriarchal and sexist relations for example. It is important to recognize
nuances in disputes of knowledge and practices to be able to create spaces of horizontality
and plurality (HARAWAY, 1988; hooks, 1994; Djamila RIBEIRO, 2017). As hooks affirms (1984, p. 14),
“privileged feminists have largely been unable to speak to, with, and for diverse groups of women
because they either do not understand fully the inter-relatedness of sex, race, and class oppression
or refuse to take this inter-relatedness seriously.”.
Although feminists understand the need to develop analyses that encompass a greater
quantity of experiences of different ways of being a woman, which are fundamental to the creation
of alliances, the complexity and the logic of whiteness marginalizes movements. Processes of
understanding and subjectivation of bodies of white feminists – which are said to be universal and
essentialized – do not horizontalize or pluralize feminisms, reinforcing the hegemony of knowledge
and producing epistemological distancings. A critical perspective, in most cases, emerges from
people who have knowledge and experience both margin and center (AKOTIRENE, 2019; HARAWAY,
1988; hooks, 1984; 1994).
According to Brah (1996), problems that affect women cannot be analyzed in isolation, much
less can they be universalized, that is, discourses of feminities assume specific meanings through
different trajectories that cross not only issues of gender, but of race, class, sexuality, generation and
other markers. As Haraway affirms (1988, p. 586), “There is no way to “be” simultaneously in all, or
wholly in any, of the privileged (i.e., subjugated) positions structured by gender, race, nation, and
class.”. And this search for the “wholly” and total position appears in many feminisms.
There is a heterogeneity of understanding of what “white women” and “whiteness” mean, and
it will be through the concept of intersectionality that we recognize that privileges and oppressions
constitute a social position, that is, positions without privilege do not erase racial privileges, but will
modify the meanings and forms of subjectivation and racialization of people (Dieuwertje Dyi HUIJG,
2011).
In this sense, it is inevitable that we understand that people will be permeated by privileges in
different ways. The objective of this study was not to produce individual guilt, given that each person
recognizes privileges in different ways. The goal was to make visible and discuss the racial privileges
that permeate the living experiences of the interlocutors, who are marked by other oppressions, in
particular those of gender.
To discuss race and racism in the context of feminist movements allows us to think about
how the practices of subjects are (re)produced and how the non-racialization of the “(white)woman”
winds up legitimizing racist concepts of gender. To speak of and problematize racism demands
reflection and understanding about the places that we occupy and about our practices, given
that non recognition of the place of racial privilege enjoyed by white women becomes a form of
racism, considering that it does not allow challenging intragender racial hierarchies (Geórgia Grube
MARCINIK; MATTOS, 2017).
According to Carneiro (2003a), differences and inequalities found in the female universe
are not recognized by hegemonic feminisms, which consequently causes women who are victims
of other forms of oppression – not only sexism – to continue to be silenced and made invisible. In
resonance with hooks (1984, p. 162-163), we must “recognize, acknowledge, and appreciate the
significance of feminist rebellion and the women (and men) who made it happen, we must be
willing to criticize, re- examine, and begin feminist work anew, a challenging task because we lack
historical precedents”. Therefore, it would be more coherent to understand sexism and patriarchal
relations in articulation with other forms of social relations in a given context. It is not possible to treat
class, race, gender and sexuality separately, because one constitutes another (BRAH, 1996).
Intersectionality thus criticizes the essentialism of hegemonic feminism, in discussions
proposed by racialized women, not exactly with academic objectives. However, the objective
and purpose of the term must be considered (AKOTIRENE, 2019; CRENSHAW, 1994; 2002). “The
intersectional experience is greater than the sum of racism and sexism and any analysis that does
not consider intersectionality is not able to have a correct consideration of the particular forms of
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subordination of many women, particularly black women, who were the target of its concerns”
(Conceição NOGUEIRA, 2017, p. 146).
To intersectionalize feminisms and gender studies is necessarily a practical task3 (AKOTIRENE,
2019; CRENSHAW, 1994). At the same time, it is important to think of racialized women as subjects
who suffer oppression within feminisms, but who are also in a position of resistance in their practices
and productions of knowledge. It is essential to value this (LUGONES, 2011).
It is necessary to discuss the concept of whiteness, specifically when used in reference to
racial relations in Brazil, using as a background the historic construction of Brazilian social thinking,
understanding its colonial and hegemonic process. One of the most important consequences of
colonialism was the way that it constituted the former Latin American and Caribbean colonies:
“homogenization with a Eurocentric perspective was the national proposal through the ideology of
miscegenation, which aspired to Europe a form of ’improving the race’” (CURIEL, 2007, p. 98, our
translation).
Carneiro (2011) affirms that what should be past remains in Brazilian colonial history through
new practices, in a social organization that insists in affirming it is democratic, but that simultaneously
maintains gender relations that have been hierarchized by race since the slave period. This colonial
violation against subalternized subjects, mainly Black and Indigenous women, allied to the idea of
miscegenation,4 has repercussions on the constructions of our national identity.
Through a historic perspective, Luciana Alves (2010), Passos (2013) and Priscila Elisabete da
Silva (2015) indicate that, even in the academy, the term whiteness is relatively recent – critical
studies of US whiteness were brought to Brazil in 1990. It refers to a hegemonic system that has been
consolidated by means of colonization, slavery, and various forms of oppression that involve race
and gender. It also refers to social representations that emphasize the racial neutrality of whites,
affirming their universality, and reducing racialized collectivities to difference, by phenotypical traits
and skin coloring, articulating them to inferior moral and social values and stereotypes (BENTO,
2014; CARNEIRO, 2011; Iray CARONE, 2014). As Carone (2014, p. 23) affirms, the consequences
of whiteness are inevitable: “the neutrality of color/race protects the white individual from prejudice
and racial discrimination to the same degree to which the increased visibility of black[s] makes
them a preferential target of frustrated discharges imposed by social life”.
In this way, whiteness is directly related to social, political and economic prestige, which
“links the modes of functioning of racism in Brazil to ‘racial’ hierarchies of other societies founded on
European colonialism” (Vron WARE, 2004, p. 8). Whiteness understood as a system of domination,
which has at its roots racial hegemony, can be understood as a category of analysis of a set of
phenomena permeated by socio-cultural, economic and psychic relations (Liv SOVIK, 2009).
All people are affected by racism, whether they recognize their raciality or not. However,
there is a gap between the privileges and the discriminations that this (re)produces. There is an
urgent need to understand how power relations are constructed upon which racial inequalities are
anchored. Whiteness is a system of power intrinsically linked to the processes of racialization and
subjective constitution of white people as a hegemonic group of domination. As Sovik affirms (2009,
p. 40), it is necessary to “analyze the silent articulation of white hegemony”.
Bento (2014) maintains that racial discrimination has as its driving force the maintenance
and conquest of privileges of one group over another. By seeing themselves as the standard
and universal group of an entire society, white people symbolically appropriate this logic of racial
privilege, strengthening the self-esteem and self-conceit of the group in which they are inserted,
resulting in the legitimation of their economic, political and social supremacy. Sovik (2009, p. 36)
continues in this direction, by affirming that “whiteness is not genetic, but a question of image”,
that is, race is a social construct that functions so that there is a normative centrality based on
racial phenotypes and stereotypes, with its value demonstrated in a context of miscegenation, of
mixture.
For all these aspects, the concept of whiteness is intrinsically related to the notion of
privileges, rights and advantages. By proposing a debate about race and consequently about
racism, beginning from critical studies of whiteness within feminist movements, we understand that
these concepts have their genesis in social and ideological constructions (CARONE; BENTO, 2014;
SCHUCMAN, 2014a).
3
“White and black feminists use the intersectionality approach to reveal hierarchies imposed by males, ignoring the
fact that these subordinations operate in the old acquired system, not by the power relations propagated by gender”
(AKOTIRENE, 2019, p. 82).
4
“The discourse of miscegenation, affirmed by the social thinking of the time, supported policies of whitening and of
construction of a national unity. They were certainly two sides of the same coin. The process of miscegenation, as an
ideology, gave political support to the thinking of the Brazilian elite of the mid twentieth century and was the base of
support for racial policies in the country” (Ana Helena Ithamar PASSOS, 2013, p. 62).
4
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“We are discussing what it is to be white, and what this whiteness
does to provoke this racism”: notes from an intersectional activist
study
To discuss feminist movements and how subjective and racial processes of white women
permeate these movements is a complex task, given the invisibility of this reflection in our society
that is racist in its structures, institutions and state.
To undertake the proposal, we adopted the idea of activist research (MATTOS; Giovana XAVIER,
2016), using an intersectional methodology. According to Nogueira (2017, p. 139), an intersectional
analysis is opposed to essentializations of various categories, that is, instead of supposing that all
people inserted in a social group share the same living experiences, this perspective considers
that, even in our similarities, we have specificities. Thus, it is necessary “to be attentive and theorize
privileges and oppressions, not as fixed statuses, but as fluid and dynamic statuses, permeable to
change either in oppressions, or in privileges” (NOGUEIRA, 2017, p. 151).
Activist, feminist and intersectional studies allow developing strategies to deconstruct social
categories, analyzing their functioning and producing reflections that strengthen not only academic
productions, but also ways of life that consider unequal living experiences (Michele BERGER;
Kathleen GUIDROZ, 2009; NOGUEIRA, 2017). Berger and Guidroz (2009) affirm that the intersectional
approach is a concept that crosses frontiers, produced by feminist activists who theorize social
relations of power.
Considering the above aspects, when conducting the field research, we sought to
understand the various possibilities of “being a woman”, beginning with the non-essentialization
of white people and seeing the permeations presented by social markers of difference in an
intersected and non hierarchical manner. To do so, the interviews with four women with different
social markers were analyzed, highlighting the articulation between gender and race, without losing
sight that other crossings are fundamental to the understanding of the hegemonic logics that stem
from subjectivation and racialization of white people (CRENSHAW, 1994; 2002).
The four women interviewed belong to different generations, regionalities, social classes,
professions, activisms and agendas, as can be seen in Table 1. The only delimitations that for the
women chosen were that they declared themselves to be feminist, white, and willing to discuss
their racial condition. After the reading and signing of the Free and Informed Consent Form, the
interviews were recorded, with the authorization of those interviewed, and later transcribed. The
names that identify the women are fictitious.
Table 1 – Main data collected during the interviews
Name
Alice
Carolina
Amanda
Vanessa
Age
55
41
16
34
Gender
Female
Trans woman
Female
Cis woman
Sexual Orientation
Heterosexual
Bisexual
Bisexual
Bisexual
Race
White
White
White
White
Economic situation
Middle class
Poor
Lower middle class
Middle class
Region of Origen
Midwest
Southeast
Southeast
Northeast
Source: Prepared by the authors.
#ForAllToSee Table with seven lines and five columns. The first column includes the name, age, gender, sexual
orientation, race, economic situation and region of origin. The second column describes the data of the woman
interviewed Alice: 55, female, heterosexual, white, middle class, Midwest. The third column describes the data
for Carolina: 41, trans woman, bisexual, white, poor, from the Southeast. The fourth column describes Amanda:
16, female, bisexual, white, lower middle class, from the Southeast. The fourth column describes the data for
Vanessa: 34, cis woman, bisexual, white, middle class, from the Northeast.
Although all of the women identified themselves as white feminists, their processes of
subjectivation and racialization were permeated by different social markers. To express this is part
of intersectional research, proposing an analysis in which the logic of being a feminist, woman and
white does not follow essentializations. The statements analyzed in this work present, in addition to
central questions addressed in the interviews, other perspectives that involve discussions that are
important to feminisms, such as maternity and transexuality. Even if not all of these themes are
examined in depth here, they allow us to identify nuances and to complexify the processes of
subjectivation of the participants in the study.
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“To be a white feminist is perhaps less difficult”: intersections of race
and gender in feminisms
Below, we discuss the field material obtained in the interviews conducted with the four white
feminists. The analysis was divided into two lines of focus: (1) The processes of subjectivation and
racialization of white feminists and (2) Whiteness in feminist movements. The analysis of the material
was conducted in dialog with productions of non-hegemonic feminisms, intersectional feminisms,
and with the critical studies of whiteness presented here.
The processes of subjectivation and racialization of white feminists
One of the main questions analyzed in this study refers to how white feminists construct their
racialities, that is, how they see themselves as white people through their processes of subjectivation
and racialization. According to Brah (1996, p. 105), “racialisation of white subjectivity is often not
manifestly apparent to white groups because ‘white’ is a signifier of dominance but this renders the
racialisation process no less significant.”. Thus, the women interviewed were first asked when they
realized they were white, and then asked what it means to be a white woman for each one of them,
proposing a reflection about how these processes of racialization develop:
Well, I realized I was white since the time I had the ability to know what color was, right? Like…
what it is to be white, what it is to be black. [...] Because since the age of 8, I experienced with
my friends the prejudice that they experienced [in school]. Even from my classmates who were
black and had racist things done to them, so I knew very well how different it was that I was white,
because I did not suffer this (Amanda).
I realized I was white for the first time in school. I think in the eighth grade, I don’t remember. I
think that I must have been 14, 15. [...] there was a black boy in my class, only one in my entire
class. And I asked myself, “how come he is the only black person in this school?”. [...] that is when
I realized that I was different from him (Carolina).
Considering these statements, it is possible to identify some issues that approximate the
discourses of those interviewed. The first is the context in which they perceived a racial difference
from people in relation to them. It was in school, a space of conviviality with other people, in which
they noted the existence of a racial difference through skin color; the second is that to recognize
oneself as white was possible in the perception of how another person, who was racialized, was seen
in that context, with the difference transformed in discrimination, with an emphasis on a perception
of privilege implicit in the statements.
Sovik (2009, p. 50) alleges that whiteness as a system of racial hegemony, “maintains a
complex relation with skin color, the shape of the nose and type of hair. [...] Whiteness is an aesthetic
ideal inherited from the past and is part of the theater of fantasies of entertainment culture”. In this
sense, white people possibly understand they are racialized later, given that, for being the norm,
they are not racially challenged.
One of the women interviewed affirmed that she realized she was white when she moved
from Brazil to Europe. Racial perception is frequently narrated by white Brazilians in experiences
abroad, given that in the country of origin they do not need to reflect on their racial condition,
because to be white is to be the standard, and to have massive representation in places, a situation
structured by cultural and historic racism. When this white person goes to a colonizing context, of a
racial-ethnic construction that is different from Brazil’s, she occupies a place of alterity, developing
another racial perception.
I, in reality, realized I was more white when I went to Holland. [...] there they said “you’re Brazilian?
Do you feel Brazilian?” I said “what do you mean do I feel Brazilian?” I did not understand this
question. [...] so that was how, it was by the contrast there, it was by the perspective that they had
of Brazil, that here there are only blacks, and when there is someone like me, they think that I am
not Brazilian, I think that shows a bit about how Brazil is. That my friend who is black, no one asked
if she was Brazilian or not. Then this made me think a lot (Alice).
Alice also said that, since she was always interested in the question of race and through her
relationship with black people she already understood the existence of racial differences. But it was
only when she went to Holland that she realized how the interpretations of what it is to be Brazilian
are contextualized. According to Bento (2014, p. 26), what stands out from the perspective of white
people in discussions about race is “the silence, the omission or the distortion that there is around
the space that the white person occupies or occupied, in fact, in Brazilian racial relations”. An
absence of reflection predominates about their real role in social maintenances, inequalities, and
experiences of race - after all, what is the need to reflect on this, if this has no negative repercussion
on one’s life? When Alice was bewildered by the fact that Europeans did not know there were
people “like her” (white) in Brazil, her surprise was due to the erasure, by the other, of her identity as
a Brazilian, but does not appear to challenge the racial hierarchization established in this discourse,
6
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in which people “like her”, similar to the Europeans, are not seen as natives of Brazil (differently from
her black friend).
Some of the women interviewed did not explicitly address the issue of the intersection of
gender and race in their reflections on being a white woman and affirmed, as Carolina said, that
the position of the white woman is a subjugated position. As much as rights are equal today, they
are not. In practice they aren’t (...) to be a woman is not easy, to be a white woman, a black
woman, to be a woman is not easy.
Carolina refers to rights in a curious form, because, by comparing the rights of women with the
rights of men as a reference of those who have rights, she understands that there is the reproduction
of a discourse that, in practice, does not occur and mentions that “equal rights do not exist”. It is
noteworthy that Caroline repeats this discourse when she universalizes “being a woman” by saying,
that to be a white woman, a black woman, to be a woman is not easy. As hooks discusses (1984),
white feminisms operate an essentialization of the category of woman, even if they denounce that
the human sciences historically essentialize man as a universal subject.
Meanwhile, two of the women interviewed presented reflections that considered the
intercrossing of being a woman and being a white person:
Well, for me, to be a white woman is like a white person, it is to be privileged, but being a white
woman, in questions of race I am also privileged, but only for this. [...] I see myself as privileged,
as white (Amanda).
I always ask myself what is the value of me saying white woman, right? [...]
Because since the privileges are all for me, why do I need to reaffirm this? But I believe that to call
oneself a white woman is also to racialize, you know? It is to make an effort to not recognize myself
as the center, but I recognize myself as a type of person (Vanessa).
The fragments above demonstrate the racial reflection of women based on “being a white
woman”, demanded by the racialization processes. The statements go beyond an understanding
of the privileges associated to “being a white woman” and the rights and advantages that stem
from this: the construction of this process must take place precisely through racial construction – a
fact that is not frequently observed among white people. To affirm that one is a white woman is to
recognize oneself as racialized, to understand her privileges and, based on this, seek to understand
how her body occupies and is read in social spaces. Self-declaration as white is the first step to
a problematization of whiteness – even if it does not guarantee that other steps will be taken.
According to Kilomba (2010, p. 23), white people finally recognize the reality of racism from the
moment that they recognize their own whiteness and/or racism: “Recognition is, in this sense, the
passage from fantasy to reality”.
Another important point is that white people undergo different processes of racialization,
which are characterized by articulation with other social markers, like regionality and hierarchization
of phenotypes, for example. According to Schucman (2014a, p. 139), among white people “there
are characteristics of miscegenation that can be said to create hierarchies of this whiteness. In the
subgroup that has European origin, there is a distinction between a ‘white Brazilian and an ‘original
white’”. It is also interesting to highlight how the understanding of a “white Brazilian” and an “original
white” have changed during our colonial history, based on the issue of racial democracy and the
project to whiten the Brazilian population (BENTO, 2014).
This is a complex aspect, which must be discussed. What makes a person white? There are,
based on what is understood by the ideal model of whiteness, various forms of racializing as a
white person, in part because we live in a country that underwent miscegenation, and which has
historically been constituted under the myth of racial democracy (SCHUCMAN, 2014a; SOVIK, 2009).
In the statements below, we see how the phenotypes shift in racial readings, revealing a diversity of
possibilities of understanding oneself as racialized.
In the first example, Carolina was asked if she understood that there was a difference
between being a white woman and a black woman:
Yes. Black men will want white women or black women who approach the standard of beauty
that is a white standard of beauty. That blond woman, smooth hair, thin face, refined features,
right? If she has strong ethnic-racial features, dark skin, a large nose, thick lips, she will have fewer
privileges than a black woman who has fine features (Carolina).
The opposition that Carolina makes between “strong racial-ethnic features” and “fine
features” stands out, approximating the fine features to a beauty standard (that is, whiteness). If
everyone belongs to a race/ethnicity, why characterize “dark skin, large nose, thick lips” as “strong
features” that are opposed to a standard of beauty? In this response, the interviewee mentioned the
Brazilian actress Thais Araújo, who “has fine features”, “she is white”, and it was easy for her to move
between the racial poles. In the next statement, from another interviewee, we see another example
of how these phenotypical traits are triggered in discourse.
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So I don’t know what it means to be white. Today it has disturbed me more than any other thing.
Because I go someplace where no one knows me and they say “look, a white woman”. Here in Rio
I was mugged, I went to the police station and the guy [police officer] said “you have to dye your
hair, you are very blond, you look like a gringa”. And it’s complicated at times in some situations,
understand? People who know me, ok, they already know me [referring to her interest in racial
discussions], now where will someone who does not know me identify me? She’s white, blond,
middle class. As a white, middle class woman, perhaps, from the dominant elite. And you have to
say, “look, it’s not quite like that”, [...] my family are not land owners, or of anything, my father is in
the military, my mother is a housewife, a traditional family (Alice).
Alice raises the idea that to be close to a phenotypical standard of a “white European” person,
of whiteness – to be blond, with light-colored eyes, and light skin – indicates privileges both of race
and class. She says she is disturbed by the fact that people, without knowing her, characterize her as
a person with privileges, only by her phenotype. By mentioning the assault, she experienced and the
recommendation of the police officer that she dye her hair to not appear “so gringa”, it is necessary
to understand what it means to “dye one’s hair” in this situation. To be “less different” from the person
who assaulted her? To be closer to a “white Brazilian” person? The reading of her racial privileges
by the police officer appeared to cause discomfort in the interviewee by reminding her of the
deep racial inequalities, in which Alice occupies a privileged place. Also present in the statement
of the police officer is a revision of the gender hierarchy. By recommending that the interviewee
change her hair color, the police officer feels authorized, from the place he occupies as a man and
representative of the law, to give an opinion about the appearance of the interviewee, indicating
an individual responsibility for the mugging she suffered. Here we see intersections of gender and
race that are revised in the narrative of an isolated event and its consequences.
Another notion that is dear to the analysis of the racial construction of the white person is the
idea of privilege. To discuss privileges with white people who understand they are racialized makes
the discussion more complex. Examine the following two statements.
I recall that once, as we were getting to know each other, she [her companion] said that she was
a doctoral student [...], and I said that I was doing a master’s and then she congratulated me,
and said that it’s very important that I am in this space, because of my life history [...] and then
at one moment I said a sentence with “we”, how it is important that “we are” [in the academy],
something like that. And she immediately interrupted me. She said “look, I understand what you
want to say, but I need to say that is not the case”, and that upset me very much, you know, what
do you mean? Both of us are struggling to be in this space and how come this “we” does not
exist. And she was very categorical, she said, “look… it’s not like that, because we live in a society
in which for you, a white woman from the Northeast is a difficult path, and perhaps you won’t
complete it, but in my case, it’s not just a path, there is the fact that I support myself, so that I can
take this path, so in my case, it’s a question of life or not”, so this brought me this degree, you know,
of privilege, but above all of implication, you know? (Vanessa).
I know [...]a white woman and a black woman, who lived close to each other. This white woman
left her home and there was a police action around the houses, and she was not searched, but
her black friend was searched [...] when the police invade the hillside, for example …some white
women get away, but black women, together with their partners, die there (Amanda).
The two fragments show us a racial sensibility in the way that white women are permeated
by dimensions of privilege. In terms of the statement by Vanessa, it should be noted the importance
of the interlocution with someone to whom she is affectively close to help her critically perceive
something in daily life and her private experience. We see the problematization of the discourse of
meritocracy, which is something dear to white people because it confers them countless naturalized
privileges. In Amanda’s statement, we see that the perception of a social reality marked by state
racism allowed the interviewee to realize the different conditions that permeate the daily life of white
and black women who live in territories marked by violence, establishing significant intragender
inequalities.
All of the women interviewed mentioned personal situations or those of people close to
them in which they explicitly perceived their privileges. However, as Ribeiro indicates (2017), it is
important to go beyond the mere naming of privileges, and advance towards an understanding of
the power relations that sustain them, and their confrontation, because it is not enough to recognize
the privileges: the current political and social moment requires reflections that go beyond simple
attributions.
Now, what do you do with this privilege, do you understand? How do you distribute it? It is one thing
to recognize it, but then after you recognize, what do you do? I think that what you can do is to
engage in struggle, understand? I am a person who is completely indignant about racism in this
country (Alice).
The reflection that Alice presents us, “is it possible to distribute privileges?” refers to a recurring
discussion made in feminist spaces that consider white privilege. How can white people distribute
8
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privileges, and what would the effects of this be? We will return to this reflection later. Below, we see
more precisely how these processes of subjectivation and racialization of white feminists, and the
logic of whiteness, permeate intragender spaces in feminist movements.
Whiteness in feminist movements
We propose, in this second line of analysis, to cross the two large themes of this article: feminist
movements and the racial and subjective construction of white women. From this perspective, four
themes will be discussed: (1) what it is to be a white feminist, (2) the existence of white feminism
in Brazil, (3) the existence of racism in feminist movements and (4) the role of white people in the
anti-racist struggle. The choice of this route was designed to consider, by means of an overview of
feminist practices and spaces, the whiteness of feminist movements based on the statements of
white feminists.
We first ask, “what is it to be a white feminist?”. Note that previously, two similar questions were
raised, linked to the notion of raciality: “when did you realize you were a white person?” and “what
does it mean to be a white woman?” The questions were organized in this way in the interview to
understand how the women interviewed perceive the nuances involving this discussion:
To be a white feminist is, perhaps, less difficult. It continues to be difficult to be a woman, but once
again, I mention the privileges, that my privileges in daily life, even if I receive a horrible catcall, ...
much of the harassment is not aimed at my color, for example. So it is a bit lighter, perhaps, but
to be a woman still [involves] considerable resistance (Amanda).
I don’t know what it is to be a white feminist, I say that feminism is everything in my life, [...] feminism
makes the difference. And the fact of being a white feminist perhaps has led me to many good
things (Alice).
The women interviewed identified that the social marker of the white race relates to privileges
within feminism and that gender logics are permeated in different ways when we racialize bodies.
Thus, events such as harassment will be experienced differently – a fact that does not delegitimize
their trajectories as women who see feminism as a form of resisting patriarchal oppressions. On the
other hand, some statements indicate that the women interviewed do not identify positive aspects
(in the sense of perceivable characteristics) in “being a white feminist”. There is an understanding that
privileges exist, but there is also difficulty in considering how to horizontalize intragender hegemonic
relations. For example, Amanda, at a certain moment, said that I am a white feminist, (...) but,
(laughs), but at times I do not identify myself so much [with white feminists], (...) So, I belong more,
at times, in some divisions and things that happen in this feminism, I don’t fit in.
Another question raised addressed the term “white feminism”, which is highly used in the
productions of racialized women in European and US contexts. Upon asking if there is a white
feminism in Brazil, we had different responses.
I don’t like this term! I don’t see it like that [...] what would white feminism be? I think that in Brazil
this is very linked to feminism of the left, the suffragettes, perhaps the issue of the vote, they were
women who went to study in Europe, they came back and brought their ideas of emancipation.
Now, after the 1970s and 1980s I don’t see purism. Because to speak of white feminism is a form
of purism. I know many whites, you take the names from the time of this relationship, great white
feminists, there are few notable blacks, right? But today… I don’t know, what would white feminism
be today? Who is in the academy? White feminism perhaps would be this group of women who
are there to discuss benefits for them (Alice).
The generational theme brings an important perspective to the analysis. Alice ponders
that perhaps until the 1980s there was a white feminism because there were few black feminist
references. Could this fact, on its own, indicate a majoritarian white feminism? Until the 1980s many
black women in Brazil had raised ideas of emancipation, even with an intersectional perspective,
such as Lélia Gonzalez and Beatriz Nascimento. This erasure of racialized women in Brazil already
indicated the whiteness in the movements, perpetuated since the 1970s, when the feminist
discussions gained strength in the country. At the same time, to declare that “to speak of a white
feminism is a purism” appears to mark a counterpoint in relation to black feminism (or that of
racialized women), for whom race is a principal characteristic. In this sense, Carolina reflects on
white feminism through another perspective:
What exists is the predominantly white feminist movement, except for the exclusively black feminist
movements, right. There is an exclusive black feminist movement and there is a feminist movement
that does not necessarily have color, but is predominantly dominated by white people, where they
are still learning to grant spaces to black people (Carolina).
Carolina immediately recognizes the predominance of white women in feminist movements.
One expression used in the interview stands out, when she said that white people would be learning
to “grant space” to black people. If, on one hand, her statement raises a process of change that
has taken place largely due to the action of black women’s movements, in which white feminists
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see themselves challenged to think of their activisms, on the other hand, the idea that there is a
learning to “grant space” helps us realize how the bodies and subjectivities of white women occupy
feminist movements. This recognition constitutes an important step for the advance of discussions
that are not resolved by discussing only gender, but that must also consider the racialization of white
women.
We then asked if there is racism in feminisms, and if the women interviewed can mention an
example. Everyone affirmed that racism exists in feminisms, articulating the fact that, since we live
in a racist society, it is very likely that we have racist feminists. However, they do not recall explicit
situations of a discourse of hate or discrimination.
This country is very racist, and feminists are too, right? The relations are very authoritarian, I have
worked with known feminists who are very authoritarian, it comes from a root that is difficult to
break. So I think that there must be racist feminists, it is very difficult to not be racist (Alice).
What I have seen is something subjective? With us, trans people, it was quite incisive, very
objective. It was a case of transphobia. Now, within the party, within the movement in which I
have participated, there is truly an internalized racism (Carolina).
Finally, we asked each woman interviewed to speak about the role of white people in
the anti-racist struggle. As mentioned previously, the purpose of the study was not only to discuss
whiteness in feminist spaces but, beyond this, to understand how white feminists, who are at the front
of political and identity struggles about issues of gender, perceive their responsibility when the racial
issue is raised in intragender contexts. In this sense, when we asked “do you think that white people
have a role in the anti-racist struggle? If yes, what is it?”, Amanda responded:
They do, because [...] the people who are most racist are whites, you see this since the colonial
process, the Portuguese came here, took the place of the Indians and enslaved them, it all began
from this process. So I think that, historically, socially, yes, white people have a process, there is
an importance in this anti-racist process for these people to deconstruct themselves (Amanda).
The discourses of those interviewed about this theme were varied, but intersected to the
degree that they agree that white people do have a role in the anti-racist struggle, mainly because
white people are in power. White people are elected, because of this institutionalized racism
(Carolina) and, therefore, they are the ones who maintain a racist logic. Carolina affirmed that, first,
it would be necessary to perceive that racism exists: Recognizing that it exists, that it is devastating,
that people suffer, that people are prevented from developing their potential, to express themselves,
is to recognize this. Then it is to participate in the struggles.
Vanessa, in turn, commented on the commitment that white people should have to racial issues
and to the anti-racial struggle: And it seems to me that this involves study, it implies becoming
sensitized, and taking some time in your life to try to understand these things, to assimilate [them],
or to expose yourself to them. To leave your comfort zone, what you have believed all your life.
Here, the interviewee proposed a dialogue with other white people so that, collectively, there would
be an understanding about how whiteness triggers privileges in a system structured by racism,
because white people usually make no investment or effort to position themselves in relation to the
racial question (CARNEIRO, 2011; CARONE; BENTO, 2014; SCHUCMAN, 2014b).
Those interviewed also mentioned more practical solutions in which it would be possible to
be anti-racist:
And I think it is using the spaces that we have [...] To not fail to comment, to not accept
reproductions [of stereotypes], that frivolous reproduction that people commonly have, criticisms,
to go deeper (Vanessa).
It is to give more access, education also helps a lot, because when they are able to have access
to education, education is often precarious. [...] So, it is to improve education, to offer more
opportunities, more access, to teach from early on to learn the differences, to respect everyone.
It is these things (Amanda).
I am calling on my black sisters to occupy the same spaces that I occupy. Because I, as a white
woman, I know that I move in public spaces with greater facility than black women [...] How many
black women do you see in concerts that are not free, in theater? [...] So I take them by the hand
and drag them (Carolina).
In these statements we perceive that there are distinct perspectives of anti-racist practices
raised by those interviewed. Amanda and Carolina placed themselves in a position of “facilitating
access” by black people to education, culture, and other areas. There is a recognition of their
privileges as whites, but there is a positioning aimed towards action from black women, and not to
challenge white people in situations of racism, as Vanessa raised.
In her interview, Carolina spoke about how to try to support the struggle of black women:
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I can’t be leading, I can’t be at the front, I can be there behind helping. [...] Call someone, meet
with someone, but the formation of the roundtable, who will be called, what will be the issue, it
can’t be me! Damn, I’m white! Whiter than me? Impossible, hard to find (Carolina).
The reflection on what it means to be anti-racist is an important issue for us to understand
the dimensions of privilege and the consequences in the maintenance of the essentially racist
structure in which we are inserted. In the statements of Amanda and Carolina, the strategies are
aimed at black people – and this can erase the responsibility and protagonism of white people in
the reproduction of racism in society. In a more restricted manner, Amanda said one route would
be the education of small children, so that they understand the oppressive logics: it ranges from
raising children to understand (…) that their friend has a different color than they do, if he is white,
right? That she is equal to him, that there is no difference, and also explain (…) what it is to be black
and what it is to be white from early on, also, for them to know the difference and not think that she
is an ET, an extraterrestrial.
In all four interviews there were more frequent examples of antiracist practices that allowed
giving “opportunities” to racialized people than examples of actions to be taken by white people. As
Bento (2014, p. 44) points out: “as if the white person was not the essential element of this analysis, as
if racial identity did not have strong ideological, political, economic and symbolic tones that explain
and, simultaneously, make bare the silence and the fear”.
There are various ways for white people to support the struggle against racism. According to
Nogueira (2017, p. 139), the “politics of alliances, considering negotiable and provisory categories,
can be a political response, and the theory of intersectionality a theoretical response”. It is important
that white people know how to listen when the issue is racism and simultaneously talk with other white
people about an issue that, for many, is uncomfortable and complex.
Most of the women interviewed reported that it is necessary to horizontalize relations, to
divide space and to understand their “place of speech” in the anti-racist struggle. Ribeiro (2017, p.
84) affirms that “to speak from places is also to break with this logic that only the subaltern speak
from their locations, causing those who are inserted in the hegemonic norm to not even think”. To
know one’s “place of speech” and to understand how white bodies, in their materiality, organize
the spaces that will determine who will be validated and who can speak is essential for “thinking of
hierarchies, questions of inequality, poverty, racism and sexism” (RIBEIRO, 2017, p. 84).
Moreover, it is not enough only to understand the “place of speech” of white people from
an ethical position: we must have a notion that the participation of white people in the anti-racist
struggle calls on them to reconsider their bodies and how they can horizontalize their privileges,
both material and symbolic, so that markers of difference, such as race and gender, can have less
impact in the production of social inequalities. The confrontation of racism takes place only when
the practitioners or beneficiaries of this system are also committed to this cause.
From this perspective, Bento (2014, p. 44) suggests that “reading biographies and
autobiographies of white people who have undergone similar processes of development of identity
offers whites models for change. To study anti-racist whites can also offer blacks the hope that it is
possible to be allied to whites”. Finally, it is important to reinforce that it is essential that those who
are in a privileged social group be able, from this place, to sensitize themselves and deconstruct
hierarchized relations of power – whatever they are, with large or little impact – that subalternize
racialized people (RIBEIRO, 2017).
Some considerations
The whiteness of feminist movements presents multiple faces. The objective of this study
was to understand the processes of subjectivation and racialization of white feminists, through
intersections of race and gender. We analyze the statements of the women interviewed to help
consider the consequences of whiteness in hegemonic feminist contexts, seeking to understand
what takes place when white feminists are willing to enter in dialogue and reflect on their racial
condition. The discussion of the results indicates the importance of understanding the forms of
being a woman and the feminisms, avoiding an essentialist and universalizing bias, recognizing
that it is necessary to horizontalize feminist thinking and practices based on the intersection and
decolonization of social markers of difference.
A movement of white people who have recognized their own privileges has been observed,
nurturing the concept that this is sufficient to debate racial relations. Based on the results of this study,
in dialogue with productions of non-hegemonic feminisms, we understand that it is necessary to go
farther and to construct, by means of everyday and institutional practices, a commitment to the
anti-racist struggle.
It is essential to understand the heterogeneities that permeate the bodies of women, without
seeing them as fixed and stable, so that feminist movements can create strategies to confront
racism, given that this also promotes an hierarchization of gender. Without this, through the logic of
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whiteness, hegemonic feminist movements will continue to be tools for the maintenance of racial
power, in this case, intragender.
Acknowledgements
This study was conducted with support from the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de
Pessoal de Nível Superior – Brasil (CAPES) – Financial Code 001 and the Fundação de Amparo à
Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro – FAPERJ under the modality “Bolsa NOTA 10”.
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Geórgia Grube Marcinik (georgia.marcinik@uerj.br) has a bachelor’s degree in
psychology (2013); took a specialization course in gender and sexuality at IMS/UERJ (2016) and has
a master’s degree in social psychology from PPGPS/UERJ (2018). She is currently a doctoral student
in the Graduate Program in Social Psychology at the Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro with
a grant from FAPEJ and is a researcher at DEGENERA – the Nucleus for Research and Deconstruction
of Genders/UERJ.
Amana Rocha Mattos (amanamattos@gmail.com) is an associate professor at the
Institute of Psychology at the Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), and a permanent
professor in the Graduate Program in Social Psychology (PPGPS/UERJ). She is the coordinator of
DEGENERA – Núcleo Interdisciplinar de Pesquisa e Desconstrução de Gêneros/UERJ.
HOW TO CITE THIS ARTICLE ACCORDING TO THE JOURNAL’S NORMS
MARCINIK, Geórgia Grube; MATTOS, Amana Rocha. “‘Mais branca que eu?’: uma análise interseccional da
branquitude nos feminismos”. Revista Estudos Feministas, Florianópolis, v. 29, n. 1, e61749, 2021.
AUTHORSHIP CONTRIBUTION
Geórgia Grube Marcinik – Realization of the field research, drafting of the final text.
Amana Rocha Mattos – Supervision of the research and editing of the text.
This article was translated from the original Portuguese by Jeffrey Hoff (jeffhoff@floripa.com.br).
FINANCIAL SUPPORT
The study was conducted with support from the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior
– Brasil (CAPES) – Código de Financiamento 001, and from the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do
Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ) under the modality Bolsa NOTA 10.
CONSENT TO USE IMAGE
Not applicable.
APPROVAL OF RESEARCH ETHICS COMMITTEE
Not applicable.
CONFLICT OF INTERESTS
Not applicable.
USE LICENSE
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons License CC-BY 4.0 International. With this license you can
share, adapt, create for any purpose, as long as you assign the authorship of the work.
BACKGROUND
Received on 26/02/2019
Resubmitted on 14/02/2020
Resubmitted on 06/03/2020
Approved 14/05/2020
14
Revista Estudos Feministas, Florianópolis, 29(1): e61749
DOI: 10.1590/1806-9584-2021v29n161749