Amrita Myers went to her meeting Wednesday while wearing a red shirt and red shoes.
The IU history gender studies professor said she wore the color as a feminist celebrating and raising awareness for International Women’s Day, but she said her red clothes were also meant to stand in solidarity with women of color.
“It’s a symbol of unity among women from all backgrounds,” she said. “It crosses those lines we put up.
Myers’s idea of equality aligns with intersectional feminism. She said all women face obstacles due to gender, but women who are also part of other minority groups face different sets of struggles that straight white women cannot fully understand.
“Women of color or who are from the LGBTQ community or are from a lower socioeconomic status, they all face oppression as women but also face oppression due to their minority status in other areas,” she said.
She said taking off work for the Day Without a Woman protest also conveys a lack of intersectionality in modern feminism. While taking a day off work is a great symbolic gesture, she said people must understand there are women who can’t afford to take a day off.
“There are women who’ll get fired or not be able to feed their children if they take a day off,” she said. “Being in the economic position to take off work is a privilege in itself, and we need to recognize that.”
She said the Pussyhats worn by some feminists also exclude minority women, including transgender women and women whose vaginas are not pink.
While her research centers around women of color in the 17th and 18th centuries, it still applies to the idea of intersectionality today.
“On one end, black women were seen as liars, whores, temptresses and lazy adulteresses,” she said. “But on the other hand, they were seen as happy, jovial laborers so excited to serve their white masters.”
She said some of those same stereotypes continue in media today, especially in brands like Aunt Jemima.
“There’s a reason Aunt Jemima was called ‘slave in a box,’” she said.
Myers said modern media also continues to show white women in power while women of color are subservient. This idea of these women as subservient laborers means they are oppressed by men and by white women, she said.
Myers said white women are often uncomfortable with facing the face that there is an intersection between racism and sexism.
This discomfort on the part of white women is one reason why LGBT women or women of color have left mainstream feminism because they cannot trust white women to be true allies and check their racial privilege, Myers said.
“A lot of white feminists are uncomfortable facing their racism or homophobia or issues with the transgender community,” she said. “They can’t accept that their idea of feminism is just for women who look like them.”
Despite this lack of intersectional understanding, Myers said it is important to unite across these borders in order to achieve gender equality.
Myers said people can no longer care only about their own group. If minority women are silenced group by group, there will be no one to serve as allies and fight alongside white women.
“White women are never going to be free until we are all free,” she said.
As a result, Myers said she encourages women from all groups to recognize their privilege. Despite her experience as a woman of color, she said she too has educational and class privilege.
She said there is no need to be ashamed of privilege, but people must recognize their privilege and use it to help those who are less privileged. Sometimes this help for other women can come in the form of money supporting woman-owned businesses.
“Money talks in America,” she said.
Another step is to celebrate and empower women every day not just on International Women’s Day. Myers said while International Women’s Day is a great way to push for equality it needs to be more than that.
“Really, every day should be about standing by women and supporting women from all different backgrounds and walks of life,” Myers said.
