Modern feminism touts claims of being by women, for women. However that simple phrase can be a sort of dog whistle. The ideals of women equity and equality to the opposite sex socially and institutionally seems straightforward however problems arise when the “leaders” ignore the people who are silenced.

White cis feminism often leaves out important aspects of intersectionality, either ignoring them or invalidating these experiences completely. The experience of the disabled, LGBT+, minorities and those with mixed citizenship status are often on edge at the ways upper class white women attempt to spread awareness. Their experiences are largely out of touch with most women due to their lack of intersectional identity or knowledge. The discourse surrounding these differences are often spoken about on social media, networks such as twitter commonly hold contentious and heated debates in threads about how to be a feminist as well as what feminists are not doing “correctly”. The ideals of sisterhood within feminism are becoming thinner and thinner as in fighting becomes more common. Exclusionary feminist phrases, chants, banners and posters can push away certain women from the movement. For example, in 2017 the uproar after Donald Trump’s “grab them by the pussy” comment spurred understandable outrage. After marches, blogs and posts were made many trans women came out about their confliction over the pink pussy hats many people wore to protests as well as posters that indicated womanhood was directly indicative of reproductive organs. Behavior like this causes feminists spaces to exclude and push away certain women.

Twitter and other social media platforms is a great place to further these kinds of conversations from individuals with first hand experience. Threads allow the OP to expand on their opinions while inviting others to comment, have hard conversations openly and further the movement. However there is always room for trolls and other hateful messaging to put a stop to these kinds of conversations. For example, terf’s. A terf is a feminist that aims to exclude trans women and are focused on maintaining a cis version of feminism.

Historically, feminism has also excluded any woman who isn’t white. Native and black women are the last groups of people to be granted the right to vote, have their own bank accounts and work. Women in the United States with mixed immigration status’ can be ignored in conversations about rights due to the fact they aren’t citizens. Citizenship shouldn’t be the ultimate decision maker if they deserve rights in regards to the opposite sex. However social media often allows women with these identities to openly talk about their experiences with accounts and “sides” of twitter exclusively catering to these womens experiences.

Twitter may have its pitfalls and reasons to avoid conversations like these but at the end of the day, talking among the community only strengthens and furthers the movement.

Being able to decide how your time is spent every day seems like a given, but when you really consider what those “decisions” are you realize you’re not free to make those decisions. Your day is dictated by others, chores, responsibilities, work, etc,. No matter how small the decisions you truly make are in respect to your larger responsibilities, you are still using free will. The unfortunate truth about time is that not everyone has the same time in their day. 24 hours in a day looks very different. Individuals with a higher socioeconomic status have more time available for leisure or even work due to the ability to outsource certain responsibilities such as child rearing, house keeping, etc. Intersectionality also affects time. Time restrictions therefore cause temporality. To start, what even is temporality? Temporality is the idea that everyone functions in relation to time. Past, present, future. Constantly passing, slipping away or being taken from us. The idea of time not being equal seems straightforward, but thinking about it in an intersectional framework makes the concept of temporality much more grim.

Black men and boys face higher rates of incarceration, taking their time from their own hands and regulating it and leaving free will out of the equation. According to The Sentencing Project, black boys are four times more likely to face impunity and 41% of incarcerated youth are black (The Sentencing Project, 2022). Adolescence for these individuals have been robbed. The time to make mistakes, learn and be guided through life are replaced by sentencings and accosting by police for existing in a low SES neighborhood.

Language surrounding time also affects temporality. Phrases commonly used such as “behind the times”, “only time will tell”, etc., only exacerbate the ways our society places high importance on the concept of time. Having time taken from you only puts you behind the metaphorical curve, making your 24 hours look much different based on the 24 hours you had the day before.

Sources:

The Sentencing Project. 2021. Black Disparities in Youth Incarceration.  https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/black-disparities-youth-incarceration/

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