In case you missed it earlier Wednesday, we highlighted an Election Day piece by Tiana Lowe, who predicted that if the big blue wave didn’t happen, white women would be made the scapegoats by the Left by Wednesday. And she was right.
We’ve already done a couple of posts on the “vagina shaming” of conservative women who voted Republican, but the hits just keep coming. Here’s the Atlantic’s Jemele Hill making the exact same argument: that white women are voting against their own interests to preserve the patriarchy.
It’s not just Texas when 53 percent of white women voted for Donald Trump. The data shows very clearly that there are white women voting against their own best interests to preserve a patriarchy that they believe will ultimately help them. Not all, but clearly the majority
— Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) November 7, 2018
This really is the theme of the day; thank goodness CNN’s Jim Acosta gave us a distraction by trying to muscle the microphone away from a female White House staffer.
Anyway, here’s a thread by author Jill Filipovic wondering what to do about the “white woman problem.”
I'll be honest that the DeSantis numbers don't surprise me. White women have long voted Republican, but have been (slowly) moving Dem, and educated white women are strong Dems. Trump had less support from white women than Romney, etc. But 76% for Kemp… racism is a helluva drug. https://t.co/8Qe0lxuB8D
— Jill Filipovic (@JillFilipovic) November 7, 2018
Catch that from Elie Mystal? “White women gonna white.” But what can we do?
One question is what to do about this. i'm seeing a lot of calls for white women to come get other white women, and I agree. But I think what that analysis misses is just how divided white women are, especially by education & location (rural vs. urban especially).
— Jill Filipovic (@JillFilipovic) November 7, 2018
I look around my friends, family, and even acquaintances and I don't really know women who voted for Trump or who support the GOP. That's because my community is urban and educated (and diverse, but we're talking about white women here). Maybe there's a high school rando on FB?
— Jill Filipovic (@JillFilipovic) November 7, 2018
So yes, doing that close-touch work within your family and community is key. But so are the bigger shifts that seem to give women more freedom, at which point they trend much more liberal – higher education is a big one. That's the long game, but it's crucial (for men too).
— Jill Filipovic (@JillFilipovic) November 7, 2018
There's a reason the GOP undercuts education and the reproductive freedoms that allow women to pursue education. There's a reason it pushes a model of vulnerable white femininity protected by white male authority. That keeps them in power and it keeps a racist base more pliable.
— Jill Filipovic (@JillFilipovic) November 7, 2018
And make no mistake: White women, like white men, are hurt by GOP policies. But they benefit socially from our racial hierarchy in very real ways. That's their primary form of identity – not being white, if you asked them, but being "normal," the default, a "real American."
— Jill Filipovic (@JillFilipovic) November 7, 2018
One key – and this goes for white men too – is to open up other forms of identity and purpose that aren't tied to nostalgia and tradition. When your sense of self is tied entirely to a fiction of what used to be, you'e going to stay stuck. One reason education is a powerful tool.
— Jill Filipovic (@JillFilipovic) November 7, 2018
So yes, 100% push your white friends and family members on their racism and on their voting preferences. Definitely don't date or marry men who vote against your rights (I would also say don't socialize at all with racists). But that can't be the whole plan.
— Jill Filipovic (@JillFilipovic) November 7, 2018
Also, keep in mind that white men vote as much more of a bloc than white women, and are truly the GOP base. So if you see men out there going on and on about white women with little or nothing to say about white men… pause and ask what's going on there.
— Jill Filipovic (@JillFilipovic) November 7, 2018
To be clear, none of this is to say that educated, urban whites aren't racist. It manifests differently – around public education, for example, which @nhannahjones has written about extensively. That is some of the close-touch work those of us in liberal enclaves must do.
— Jill Filipovic (@JillFilipovic) November 7, 2018
Got that, educated urban white ladies? You’ve got a lot of close-touch work to do outside your liberal enclaves.
Yes. This idea that white women are a unified bloc, and one white woman will listen to another in a "Oh, hello fellow white woman!" is like something an 18-year-old Tumblerite came up with. That isn't how people work or understand themselves. It's totally facile. https://t.co/xWYWuRyqgE
— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) November 7, 2018
2/ The only way anyone could believe this is the only way anyone could believe that OTHER big, broadly-defined groups all have the same basic values and view themselves as a unified bloc: total lack of awareness of the actual dividing lines w/in that group.
— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) November 7, 2018
I love how this is posed as a revelation. "Hey, guys, I just spent an hour in the analysis booth, and I think all people that share the same skin color are, get this, NOT THE SAME!"
— Guy David (@DBCWriter) November 7, 2018
I would argue she is being more forgiving of a silly idea than she needs to be, but not my call!
— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) November 7, 2018
The idea that people are more likely to listen to someone that they see themselves reflected in is facile?
— Adam Khatib (@acmkhatib) November 7, 2018
Jill Filipovic, NYC liberal journalist, is going to go convince a white evangelical Houstonian to be less socially conservative because… they're both white?
— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) November 7, 2018
Certainly far more likely than, Jill Filipovic, NYC liberal journalist, who is a black man convincing a white evangelical Houstonian . . . Representation choices in advertising for example are based on the idea that a group responds better to those who look like them.
— Adam Khatib (@acmkhatib) November 7, 2018
I think a white evangelical Houstonian would be a lot more likely to listen to a black evangelical Houstonian than a white NYC liberal, though now we're getting super hypothetical.
— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) November 7, 2018
Psh. White women don't listen to other white women. Everyone knows we're too catty for that. Clearly we only listen to our husbands/guardians in absentia. We greet them with "Oh, hello respected patriarch!" /s
— Christine Price (@PstafarianPrice) November 7, 2018
“Everyone but me should be a hive mind” is not an arrogant douchebag strategy at all.
— Sea Salt Enthusiast (@EnthusiastSea) November 7, 2018
I'm sorry, but women aren't slaves here. Women have brains, are independent (majority anyhow), and all the women I know don't vote with their vagina, but with their brain. They vote for the best candidate, not whom their spouse tells them to, regardless of gender.
— Ona Else (@OnaElse) November 7, 2018
Way to oversimplify and distort the argument. You've been perfecting the bad tweet ever since you invented it.
— Art Crow (@Bad_Lizard) November 7, 2018
this would work well on 8-year-olds .
— Razib Khan (@razibkhan) November 7, 2018
Related:
WOW! Samantha Bee writer secured his place in the DBAG Hall of Fame with tweet trashing THIS group over Beto’s loss https://t.co/GPNRJrUNRn
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) November 7, 2018
