White, Female Privilege...and the lack thereof

Two weeks ago, I had a long conversation with a couple of friends about one of my favorite topics, interlocking oppressions. I am amazed at how easily one can talk about racism without talking about feminism, or talk about feminism without talking about LGBTQ rights, or talk about LGBTQ rights without talking about disability rights. And forget not even talking about, but going as far as actually denying that the rights of another group are equally important. There is a sense among many activists that their struggle is the most important, and others are secondary, or not worth fighting for at all.

In this particular conversation, we were talking about feminism in the context of the anti-Occupation struggle. I was relaying to my friends the frustration I often feel when talking to Palestinian men about the Occupation, and hearing the casual mentions of what their wives are and are not allowed to do, as determined by them, the husbands. My friends dismissed this, arguing that it is not the place of a white, Jewish, American woman to bring up the issue of feminism to a Palestinian man. That in fact, it is offensive, imposes Western ideals on a society that does not subscribe to the same ideals I subscribe to.

I find this argument hard to buy. I did go to the University of Michigan and thus have read Peggy McIntosh's White Privilege enough times that I have it memorized and am aware of the many ways in which my whiteness plays out. And I agree that one must always be aware of where we are placed as individuals on a hierarchy of privilege. But I find more often than not that the struggle of women is the most easily denied by men working on all other issues, from anti-racist to anti-Occupation to gay rights movements, it seems easiest to dismiss the feminist struggle.

This conversation came to me again as I walked through the Old City. I had gone on a walk from my apartment to the Old City, and had planned to take the Arab bus back to my apartment, as the Jewish buses were not running because it was shabbat (insert a long discussion of why there are different buses here). I entered the Old City through the Armenian Quarter, walked towards the Jewish Quarter. Because the Old City is full of winding alleys and I do not know my way around it, I ended up walking through the market in the Christian Quarter. The market was full of tourists and the usual calls from the men who run the shops saying, "Hello, so beautiful, I have a beautiful necklace for a beautiful girl." I wear my sunglasses when I walk through the market, because I hate making eye contact with the shop owners, always wary that one glance and next thing I know I'll have bought five pairs of earrings.

After dodging my way out of the market, I eventually ended up in the Muslim Quarter, hoping to make my way to the Damascus gate. As I walked, through the narrow, stone streets I became more and more conscious of how much of an outsider I looked like. While my roots are growing in, I'm still fairly blond, obviously white, and was wearing jeans. On each street I turned down, I walked through a group of Palestinian men, and each time they stopped their conversation, stared at me as I walked by and called out in English, "nice", "pretty", "how are you?". I took longer, faster steps. I pulled my scarf tighter around my neck, ensuring that all of my skin was covered, having long ago internalized the false message that how I was dressed determined how men harassed me. In this scenario, I was still white, still Jewish, still American, yet I felt that my femaleness gave me a lack of privilege. Here I was, mostly alone on a street, being called at by men.

My first response was to let my white guilt take over. Surely I'm being racist, I thought. Would I feel this nervous if these were white men? Men with yarmulkes? The answer, I realized, is yes. I get honked at a lot in West Jerusalem when I am walking alone, particularly at night. I don't know if it is the blondeness or the tallness or the fact that I wear pants in a neighborhood where most women where skirts. Or, more likely, that it is simply because I am a woman walking alone. There have been a couple of incidents where a car has honked at me, slowed down, followed me, and I have called a friend who I know is close by, changed my route and taken main roads, because I have felt physically unsafe as a woman walking alone. I like to think I'm an equal-opportunist when it comes to assuming the man walking behind me is a rapist. Susan Brownmiller would be proud...or maybe depressed that a book she wrote 35 years ago still holds true today.

In the end, I was far too lost and ended up back by the Christian market. The only route I know for sure in the Old City is from the Christian market to the Jaffa Gate, and so I headed towards the Jaffa Gate, and made my way to the new Mamila Mall, which sits in the heart of downtown, tourist Jerusalem. I was again surrounded by crowds of tourists. I decided to meet a friend and we drank hot chocolate and then I walked back to Bak'a.

On the long walk back, I was reminded of a quote I first heard last summer by an incredible black feminist, Dr. Beverly Guy-Sheftall. The quote was in the context of a male student of hers telling her that women shouldn't take his sexist jokes so seriously. Her response was, "Isn't it an amazing privilege to tell someone else what they don't have to take seriously?"