Response to Hashtag Feminism #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen

In the article, Hashtag Feminism #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen and the Other #FemFuture, Susana Loza writes about how these hashtags brought to light, the arguments over feminism and how it has largely been a terrain for white women. This article was published after Mikki Kendall’s #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen hashtag broke out during Hugo Schwyzer’s scandal  in which he confessed putting down women of color and defending white feminism. The audience of this article can range from any proponents of feminism to those interested in twitter activism and race issues. I would say it is mainly directed toward feminists because Loza is trying to bring the issue that women of color are largely ignored when it comes to feminism and social media has allowed them to speak out and to each other. There are serious problems, and if we continue to stay divided, they will never truly be solved.

The main idea of the text is that women of color feel left out of feminism and now they have a platform to express their views and concerns, but that places a division between white and colored feminists. It amplifies how colored feminists have challenged white feminists and that has caused a lot of controversy and backlash. For example, white women can be portrayed as racist, which causes more arguments. The hashtags do allow us to see what is largely ignored and that feminism needs to become unified in order to work.

Susana Loza’s goal was to inform us of the problems of this Twitter activism and how it affects us. She wants us to see how colored women and also women of other races feel in terms of feminism. White people may not have noticed the issue, but colored women feel underrepresented and want a voice. But is their activism on twitter, where they state that white feminists ignore them, right? Loza shows us that it places more of a divide in feminism because colored feminists have their own community via Twitter. She wants to inform us that feminism has many sides to it and it needs to be addressed. Feminism cannot truly be successful if feminists are divided based on race, that just allows patriarchy to win. She hopes to achieve a sense of understanding in the world of feminism.

I thought that this article was articulated very well in its detailed accounts of these hashtags. I enjoyed that she mentioned other hashtags as well, such as #NotYourAsianSidekick to show that the issue is not merely about colored feminists. I think it was important to note that many races feel divided when it comes to feminism, and that is what needs to change. This connects to my own experience because a lot of the celebrities I follow are feminists, but the ones I hear about on the news, such as Taylor Swift and Emma Watson, are white. Feminism is a movement to end patriarchy and I learned that many voices are left out in this fight. A question I would ask is how would we go about unifying everyone into one feminist movement when race is such a touchy subject? Mikki Kendall has gotten a lot of backlash, as well as Suey Park. After colored women use twitter and this hashtag to show that they matter in feminism, will they ever truly be unified with white feminists? Because of the way the world works, people will alway see the differences they have between one another, whether that be race or not. If we continue to allow issues of race to interfere with the real goal of feminism, how will it ever be successful?