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Just a few “-isms” that need to be in our heads whenever we’re thinking about feminism:

RACISM

Women of color shouldn’t be expected to separate out their oppressions: Well, let’s see, was he judging me because I am a woman, or because I am a black woman? There’s no way to do that, to separate out your gender and race in your lived experience. But the idea of universal sisterhood in oppression almost necessitates that—from a white perspective. That, my friends, is what we call some ill white privilege.

Peggy McIntosh has a widely used (in women’s studies) piece on white privilege that you should read in its entirety if you ever have a chance. She talks about how, through feminism, she’s seen men’s unwillingness to admit that they are overprivileged, and then relates it to race:

❂ Thinking through unacknowledged male privilege as a phenomenon, I realized that, since hierarchies in our society are interlocking, there was most likely a phenomenon of white privilege that was similarly denied and protected. As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something that puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege, which puts me at an advantage.3

McIntosh goes through a list of privileges that being white affords her. Just a few: I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented; I do not have to educate my children to be aware of systemic racism for their own daily physical protection; when I am told about our national heritage, or about “civilization,” I am shown that people of my color made it what it is; I am not made acutely aware that my shape, bearing, or body odor will be taken as a reflection on my race; I can choose blemish cover-up or bandages in “flesh” color and have them more or less match my skin; I can easily buy posters, postcards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys, and children’s magazines featuring people of my race.

You get the point. It’s insanely important that white feminists are acutely aware of their white privilege—in life and in feminism. It’s not the responsibility of women of color to “teach” white feminists about their experiences. As Audre Lorde said (I told you I love her), “Whenever the need for some pretense of communication arises, those who profit from our oppression call upon us to share our knowledge with them. In other words, it is the responsibility of the oppressed to teach the oppressor their mistakes. . . . The oppressors maintain their position and evade responsibility. . . .”4

CLASSISM

I’ll tell you a little story about something that made me acutely aware of classism—it was the craziest wake-up call ever. I went to a public high school in New York that tested students for entry (it was kind of a dorky math and science school). The majority of my friends in high school were Jewish gals from the Upper West Side of Manhattan. They had awesome apartments and college-educated parents who were professors, artists, judges, and so on. I grew up in Long Island City, Queens, which at the time was not considered the best neighborhood in the world. My parents grew up in Queens and Brooklyn, got married when they were still teenagers, and never went to college.

But hey, it was all good to me. My friends were my friends, and we were all the same. Then one day, after a couple of my girlfriends spent some time at my house after school, one of them remarked, “Your mom is so cute! Her accent sounds so . . . uneducated!” They all laughed. I don’t think she meant it to be cruel, or even realized what she was saying. But after that moment, it was difficult to be around my high school friends. I had this overwhelming feeling of not belonging. I didn’t know if they were laughing at my potty-mouthed jokes because I was funny, or because I was playing up to the Italian Queens girl stereotype. I wondered, when they told me they didn’t like something I was wearing, whether it was because of a difference in taste, or because