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Anti-Oppressive Politics from Dominant Positions: Connecting White Anti-Racism & Male-Identified Feminism in the United States

Social Justice
USA
Feminism
Identity
Race
Men
Solidarity
Activism
Bretton McEvoy
University of Bayreuth
Bretton McEvoy
University of Bayreuth

Abstract

With up to 26 million people across the United States protesting police brutality and racism in the weeks following the murder of George Floyd, and more than 19 million tweets asserting sexual assault and #metoo in the year since Alyssa Milano’s initial posting, many have proclaimed a national (and global) “reckoning” on the topics of race and gender. Yet while narrowly electing Joe Biden President soon thereafter, the people of the United States also cast 74 million votes for Donald Trump despite his flagrant practices in racism and misogyny. What does it mean to truly “reckon” with histories of racism and misogyny in the United States, and particularly, what do such reckonings demand of white and male-identified people? Drawing upon my dissertation research with white anti-racist activists in the United States, and my prior and ongoing work in feminist and particularly male-identified feminist spaces, this paper explores what it takes to effectively advance the cause of social justice by comparing an anti-oppressive politics from these two dominant social positions. Relying upon in-depth interviews and rich ethnographic research within activist communities of the Greater Boston area – including critical reflections from activists of color, women and gender non-conforming individuals – and theory and practice from the pro-feminist men’s and racial justice movements in the United States, the paper examines the parallels, contrasts and intersectionalities within white anti-racist and male-identified feminist activisms, as their members individually and collectively navigate the tensions between their goals of dismantling white supremacy/patriarchy and the concrete impacts of their whiteness/maleness in the real world.