Spellman

Adrienne Rich –white solipsism

• “think imagine speak as if whiteness described the world:
• no conscious belief in white superiority
• Tunnel vision that does not see nonwhite experience as significant, except for guilt.

Spellman points out white solipsism in feminist thought.

• Often arguments are made that sexism is more fundmental than racism
• See list on p 537

Spellman describes wasserrstrom as an example of white solipsism or in other words the erasure of black women.

1) W talk about being female as opposed to being black.

a. This implies that there are two separate groups women and black people.

b. Spellman points out a huge problem: Where are the Black women? They excluded from this analysis.

c. Possible solution: Black women are implicitly present, they experience sexism and racism.

2) W thinks that sexism is more complicated than racism

a. Sexism develops contradictory assessments of women

i. Women are ‘put on a pedestal.

ii. Women are treated as not fully human

3) Spellman thinks that (2) shows that the possible solution to the problem in (1) will not work. Women are not all put on pedestals. The white ‘belle’ in the south was, but the slave woman most certainly wasn’t. The point of this is to say that black. women and white women experience sexism differently. You can’t just add together sexism and racism to capture the experience of black women because sexism is different for black women than it is for white women.

Additive analysis of oppression. ß Spellman thinks this is bad

• Treat various axes of oppression like beads on a string that we can just add together to make one necklace.
• Sexism + racism= the experience of black women ß this is false
• Sexism and racism do not have separate objects in the case of black women.
• It is not just a matter of adding up the oppression of black men to the oppression of white women because while black women also face sexism, sexism can be very different in their lives.
• Gentle/passive example: The oppressive virtues of the white women ‘gentle passive delicate’ were vices in black slave women.
• Housewife example: the oppressiveness of this role depends on what it is being contrasted with – when compared to outside work of high social value (dr/lawyer) it is very different when compared to forced/un paid/denigrating labor
• “How one form of oppression (e.g. sexism) is experienced is influenced by and influences how another form (i.e. racism) is experienced.” I.e. you cannot separate a black woman’s oppression as a woman from her oppression as a black. 538
• “An additive analysis treats the oppression of a black woman in a sexist and racist society as if it were a further burden than her oppression in a sexist but non-racist society, when, in fact, it is a different burden.” 538
• If you ignore the difference you deny the reality of the black woman’s experience.

Somatophobia – fear and loathing of bodies.

There are many trends of ignoring/disregarding/disrespecting the body in Western Philosophy

Ex I think therefore I am only applies to the mind and not to the body

Body and mind are seen as separate and map onto a gendered set of dichotomies in our culture:

Mind/body

Reason/emotion

Human/animal

Production/reproduction

Masculine/feminine

The identification of women with her body has been a source of oppression

Many feminists see the solution to women’s oppression in drawing a distinction between women and the bodies that they live in/with.

Somatophobia contributes to white solipsism in three ways

1) if we ignore bodies we also ignore an important element in racist thinking: some people are seen as more closely linked to their bodies than others

a. blacks and women

b. focus on the body as opposed to reason

2) disrespect of work for by and for bodies

a. If feminists say that women ought not to do work for and by the body, who do they think is going to do it? Racism can enter here

b. “the idea that work of the body and for the body has no part in real human dignity has been part of racist as well as sexist ideology” 541

3) Abstraction

a. If liberation means abstracting oneself from bodies – in terms of women. It may be tempting to think the same thing about blacks. Ie women are just like men ‘on the inside’ and blacks are just like whites ‘on the inside.’

i. Implicit in these kinds of claims are the assumptions that it is better to be a man than a woman and better to be while than black. Very racist and sexist, even though it may be well meaning.

ii. “Silence the body is thought to be the culprit, the solution may seem to be” keep the person and leave the occasion for oppression behind. Keep the woman, somehow, but leave behind her woman’s body; keep the black person but leave blackness behind”

b. The point of feminist theory is to improve the condition of actual women and to attend to and respect the experiences of actual women. Abstracting women from bodies blocks this and leads to white solipcism

i. Women abstracted from bodies don’t actually exist, they are imaginary.

ii. Different actual women , especially white and black women, experience sexism differently. – there is no average abstract woman.

iii. White feminist have a tendency to assume that women have experiences similar to theirs and hence they tend to ignore the experiences of black women.

“Once the concept of woman is divorced from the concept of woman’s body, conceptual room is made for the idea of a woman who is no particular historical woman – she has no color, no accent, no particular characteristics that require having a body.” 541

Embodiment

• This makes us pay attention to particular women and their experiences.
• It also allows us to see how the meanings that we make of bodies is dependent on social, cultural, hiostioruical and other features of our lives.
• There is a difference between the meansings that our social institutions put on bodies and the meanings that we gain from the experience of embodiment.
• Often the institutions of embodiment are determined by those in positions of privilege and power and work to oppress women and Blacks.
• For example seeing menstruation, pregnancy and menopause as abnomal and diseased; a fashion industry that makes a size 0 woman seem normal,…
• But, we can learn to make our own meanings of our embodiment, both socially and personally that resist the sanctions out on bodies by people in power and oppressive social institutions. For starters, it is hard to hate your body while you are having an orgasm…
• Embodiment gives us a means to understand and respect the differences that exist among women.
• “Rich focused on the failure of white women to see black women’s experience as different from their own.
• We cannot hope to understand a person’s own meaning and experiences without (1) thinking of her as embodied and (2) thinking about the meanings assigned to embodiment
• What this allows us to do is to have a healthy regard for the differences among us