Against White Feminism: Notes on Disruption

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About Against White Feminism: Notes On Disruption

Product Description A radically inclusive, intersectional, and transnational approach to the fight for women’s rights. Upper-middle-class white women have long been heralded as “experts” on feminism. They have presided over multinational feminist organizations and written much of what we consider the feminist canon, espousing sexual liberation and satisfaction, LGBTQ inclusion, and racial solidarity, all while branding the language of the movement itself in whiteness and speaking over Black and Brown women in an effort to uphold privilege and perceived cultural superiority. An American Muslim woman, attorney, and political philosopher, Rafia Zakaria champions a reconstruction of feminism in Against White Feminism, centering women of color in this transformative overview and counter-manifesto to white feminism’s global, long-standing affinity with colonial, patriarchal, and white supremacist ideals. Covering such ground as the legacy of the British feminist imperialist savior complex and “the colonial thesis that all reform comes from the West” to the condescension of the white feminist–led “aid industrial complex” and the conflation of sexual liberation as the “sum total of empowerment,” Zakaria follows in the tradition of intersectional feminist forebears Kimberlé Crenshaw, Adrienne Rich, and Audre Lorde. Zakaria ultimately refutes and reimagines the apolitical aspirations of white feminist empowerment in this staggering, radical critique, with Black and Brown feminist thought at the forefront. Review "Rafia Zakaria’s Against White Feminism is the book I have been waiting for. This landmark work will forever change how we view the feminist movement and our place in it." ― Sonia Faleiro, author of Beautiful Thing "Zakaria’s Against White Feminism is a brilliant, bracing, and deeply necessary text. Showing how feminism had systematically centered white women’s voices, and excluded others’, this is a polemic that couldn’t be more urgent in improving feminism as a movement." ― Kate Manne, author of Down Girl "This necessary book is a critique of how whiteness (not white women) has infiltrated feminism and how it should be razor-bladed out of the current form.… Zakaria is a warmhearted and sharp-eyed writer who brings compassion, intelligence, and a steady drumbeat of change to redefining term―feminism―a word that is old and soggy and full of white ladies yelling about things. This book is going to light fires everywhere, so if you are prone to combust, get right the hell out of the way." ― Kerri Arsenault, Literary Hub "Intellectually resourceful and passionately argued, Rafia Zakaria's sharp and salutary essay expands and refines our ideas of freedom, justice and equity." ― Pankaj Mishra, author of Bland Fanatics: Liberals, Race, and Empire "Full of painful truths about how one kind of feminism can dominate and silence women. A fantastic book." ― Nadifa Mohamed, author of The Fortune Men "This ambitious, elegant and brilliantly argued polemic shows us how white supremacy harms Black and brown women, and offers a different politics in its place. I am grateful for this book." ― Myriam Chingona Gurba De Serrano, author of Mean "Zakaria's frank, spirited critique of feminism's historical complicity with empire and capital, its appalling insularity, and its deep-seated provincialism opens onto a shimmering vision of true solidarity. This is, quite simply, a transformative book." ― Merve Emre, author of The Annotated Mrs. Dalloway "Uncomfortable, often coruscating, always challenging in the best ways and never less than riveting, this book is essential reading, and especially for anyone white who identifies as a feminist. Rafia Zakaria neatly dismantles the stand-on-the-shoulders-of-giants school of white feminism that in failing to understand the intertwined history of the women’s movement and white supremacy continues to perpetuate the inequalities it purports to address. She doesn’t just deliver punc