White feminism is usually defined as a movement that focuses on the issues faced by white women and fails to consider those faced by minority women.
However, the term “white feminism” may also be used to describe any form of feminism that ignores the experiences or needs of women who aren’t white — including non-white people themselves. This could include women with disabilities who are overlooked in mainstream reproductive rights movements, or trans women who are denied access to female spaces like bathrooms, locker rooms, sports teams and so on because they don’t fit neatly into society’s ideas of what it means to be female.
White feminism fails to acknowledge intersectionality — the idea that different aspects of a person’s identity influence their experience with oppression or privilege. For example, race, gender identity and sexual orientation all intersect to create unique experiences for people who identify as women.
White feminists often center their own experiences in their activism and overlook issues that affect other groups of women, such as transphobia or racism. In doing so, they fail to see how their privilege affects others’ lives and perpetuates systems of oppression like white supremacy and patriarchy.
The term “white feminism” can be traced back to at least 2006, when it was used by bloggers on sites like Feministing and Racialicious to criticize mainstream feminist movements for their failure to include voices from outside the white experience.
