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As a white woman, I exhibit quite a lot of privilege compared to woman of color throughout our nation. I have seen racism constantly since my first year at NDSU. My bestfriend is an African American woman, her parents are refugees from Ethiopia and are members of the Anyuak tribe. She has a beautiful and unique culture and speaks her native language, she is one of the best people I've ever met and is getting her minor in Woman and Gender Studies so she can do something about the injustices that exist in this country. I have seen people treat her differently because of her skin color at restaurants, the grocery store, and just walking down the street. People have used the n-word or made comments like: "Wow, you're soo dark" or made comments about her skin color. It truly disgusts me, Barameer deserves to live in a world that doesn't judge or treat her differently just because of the melanin in her skin.
This is reinforced by the articles "Dear straight white girls". White woman really do have privilege, personally I am a white lesbian woman so I understand the struggle of LGBTQ individuals in our society, but personally no one knows that I lack the privilege of being heterosexual until I tell them, I don't have to walk around with it everyday.
Now transitioning to less personally and national issues, the Massacre in Las Vegas that happened on Sunday night, which is truly one of the most heart breaking thing I've ever heard and I'm sending all my love and positive vibrations to the injured, families, and loved ones. But, I am outraged how the media is portraying Stephen Paddock, a monster. I have been seeing so many headlines about his pastimes and what a good man he was, if he was any other color than white he would be torn apart. There has also been claims he was affiliated with ISIS, now it seems not to be true but if he was any other color there is no way those claims would be brushed off so easily.
The difference in how Trump reacted to Charlottesville protests, which was not peaceful and ended in a death and at least a dozen people injured, while white supremacists,KKK members and Neo-Nazis joined while wielding Tiki torches and spreading hatred. Compared to his comments about NFL played PEACEFULLY protesting systematic racism, that is deeply ingrained in to our government, is outrageous. Trump took quite some time to react to the unbelievable hatred that was exhibited in Charlottesville, and while he did was it was wrong, claimed there was fault on "both sides", and that their were good people on "both sides". While he is outraged by these NFL players, who are using their platform to try and make a difference for African Americans in this country by claiming they are Sons of Bitches and should be fired. President Trump is a racist and allows for the rest of our white citizens to keep utilizing their privilege and keeping other minorities from prospering in this country.

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Privilege: a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people.
Oppression: prolonged cruel or unjust treatment or control.

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I have constantly been treated better than Barameer throughout our time here in Fargo, solely because of the color of our skin.

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Las Vegas Massacre, A Senseless Tragedy. 

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Las Vegas Massacre, A Senseless Tragedy. 

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The president and media refuse to call the largest massacre in modern American history a terrorist attack, because it was committed by a white male. The media have also been humanizing him talking about his interests and boring life.

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Fifty-eight people were killed and an estimated 500 others were injured last night during Jason Aldean's performance at the Route 91 Harvest Musical Festival in Las Vegas, after a lone gunman, Stephen Paddock, opened fire on the crowd through the window of his 32nd-floor room at the Mandalay Bay hotel. "Las Vegas" now replaces last year's horror at Orlando's Pulse nightclub as the deadliest mass shooting in American history. But like the recent white supremacist violence in Charlottesville that claimed the life of counter-protester Heather Heyer, there has been a certain hesitation to define the incident as "terrorism."

In a live address from the White House, President Trump called the Vegas massacre an "act of pure evil," but stopped short of describing it as an act of domestic terror. So did almost every news report I've seen or heard, repeating that Paddock possesses no connection to any foreign terrorist group (ISIS has reportedly claimed responsibility, though Nevada authorities say there is no evidence-yet-that Paddock had ties to the organization, nor does he fit the profile). Local police, too, say they aren't treating the incident as terrorism. But perhaps we, the people, should be.

Many people point to the semantics: terrorism is defined as some variation of "the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims." This last piece is key: according to the dictionary, violence must be politically-motivated to truly constitute terrorism. Paddock's motives are not yet known, which is how some would explain not calling him a terrorist. But whether or not Paddock ever meets the technical definition of terrorist, we know without question that he "created and maintained a state of extreme fear and distress" among the innocent crowd in Vegas. By definition he terrorized them. But nobody is saying that word, either. When words fail, it seems platitudes prevail.

It's a convenient coping tactic: it's so much easier to believe that terrorists are foreign invaders than walking beside us on the Vegas strip. That way, we don't have to look inward and admit the dark, shameful truth to ourselves: that despite Trump's fear-mongering, it isn't ISIS footmen or undocumented Mexican gang members who are behind the most murderous mass shootings in our country's history. The ones who are senselessly killing Americans and striking fear into their hearts at concerts and movie theaters and in kindergarten classes are most often white American men like Paddock, Dylann Roof, and Adam Lanza. Indeed, Vox notes today that "since Trump took office, more Americans have been killed by white American men with no connection to Islam than by Muslim terrorists or foreigners."

We don't mince words when it comes to foreign terrorists, whether their threat is real or perceived. And, to be crystal clear, those who have launched acts of terror on the U.S. deserve the full force of our ire and every word (and action) we possess to excoriate evil. But so do the white American men terrorizing us at home. Instead, they're shown uncommon restraint-or the most morbid display of white privilege possible. Called "lone wolves," or simply "gunmen," we label them with words that don't match the weight of their actions. This is especially true for President Trump, who calls black NFL players peacefully protesting police brutality "sons of bitches," but declined to ever brand Alex Williams Jr.-the white American man accused of killing Heyer when he plowed his car into the crowd in Charlottesville with the alleged political motivation of targeting counter-protesters-what he was: a domestic terrorist.

https://twitter.com/ava/status/914812958286290944

Words matter in these tragedies, because they often signal the action-or inaction-to follow. When "radical Islamic terrorists" attack Americans, we wage war against them. In Trump's world, even in the absence of new foreign terror attacks, we go so far as to unilaterally ban all immigration from Muslim-majority countries in the purported interest of national security. The president has similarly sensationalized and inflated crimes by undocumented immigrants, and called Mexican immigrants rapists, in line with his emphatic calls for a Mexican border wall. But when Paddock, a white American man, attacks his fellow citizens, burning through a reported arsenal of 10 assault rifles and raining bullets on a crowd of tens of thousands of innocent people, the usually fiery, loose-lipped president solemnly quotes scripture, and calls for unity. If history is any indication, thoughts and prayers are code for complicity, and Congress will follow suit by failing to pass so much as common sense gun control legislation. Declining to call Paddock and other white American shooters what they are-domestic terrorists-allows Republicans to continue to minimize and avoid the gun violence epidemic and remain cozily ensconced in the NRA's pocket. It lets them, in the immortal words of my grandfather, pee on our proverbial leg and tell us it's raining.

The president and others can skirt the word, but Nevada may very well know that what happened last night was terrorism. Even before the shooting, its state law defined terrorism as "any act that involves the use or attempted use of sabotage, coercion or violence which is intended to cause great bodily harm or death to the general population." Survivors have already begun to share their stories of shielding each other's bodies and carrying each other to ambulances on makeshift stretchers, in some cases only to see the stranger they tried to save die before their eyes. It sounded like all of them had lived through terror- but we haven't heard anyone say they wondered, as they ran for their lives, whether or not the shooter was politically motivated.

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Why Won't Anyone Call the Las Vegas Shooter a Terrorist?

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Despite Trump's fear-mongering, it isn't ISIS footmen or undocumented Mexican gang members who are behind the most murderous mass shootings in our country's history. The ones who are senselessly killing Americans and striking fear into their hearts at concerts and movie theaters and in kindergarten classes are most often white American men.

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President Trump refers to NFL players who participate in peaceful protest "SOB's" and call for their dismissal.

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Donald Trump blasts NFL anthem protesters: ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field’

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The president ripped into NFL players who have kneeled for the national anthem during a speech in Alabama on Friday night

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White Supremacists, Neo-Nazis, and Hatred.

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White Supremacists, Neo-Nazis, and Hatred.

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President Trump shifted blame to BOTH sides of these riots, never fully reprimanding WHITE SUPREMACISTS and NAZIS for rioting in the streets like its the 19th and 20th centuries

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trump's day-by-day response to charlottesville - cnn video

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Trump's day-by-day response to Charlottesville - CNN Video

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On Saturday, President Trump failed to mention white nationalists after the attack in Charlottesville. Two days later, he directly condemned the groups.

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Nazi praising Trump for his comments on the matter.

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AP Photo/Alex Brandon

White nationalists and neo-Nazis celebrated President Donald Trump's remarks about the protests in Charlottesville, Virginia on Friday, in which he denounced violence "on all sides" rather than explicitly condemning white supremacism.

"We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides," Trump said at a press conference. "On many sides."

Trump said that he had spoken to Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, and that they "agreed that the hate and the division must stop and must stop right now."

The president went on to talk about how the US is "doing very well in so many ways," and touted the recent jobs and unemployment numbers.

Many were quick to criticize the president for failing to denounce the "Unite the Right" rally held by white nationalists on Friday in response to a plan to remove a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee from a park in Charlottesville.

The protests continued into Saturday and turned deadly when a car, allegedly driven by 20-year-old Ohio resident James Alex Fields, plowed through a crowd of counter-protesters. Fields was arrested and charged Saturday night with one count of second-degree murder, three counts of malicious wounding, and hit and run.

A Facebook page that appeared to belong to Fields featured alt-right memes like Pepe the frog, an image of Hitler as a baby, and a cover photo of soldiers with an American flag and swastikas.

"We should call evil by its name," said Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch. "My brother didn't give his life fighting Hitler for Nazi ideas to go unchallenged here at home."

"Very important for the nation to hear @POTUS describe events in #Charlottesville for what they are, a terror attack by #whitesupremacists," tweeted Republican Sen. Marco Rubio.

"Praying for those hurt & killed today in Charlottesville," tweeted Republican Sen. Cory Gardner. "This is nothing short of domestic terrorism & should be named as such."

Several prominent white nationalists and neo-Nazis, however, praised Trump's comments.

Joshua Roberts/Reuters

The founder of the Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi and white supremacist website that considers itself a part of the alt-right, celebrated the fact that Trump "outright refused to disavow" the white nationalist rally and movement.

"People saying he cucked are shills and kikes," wrote the founder, Andrew Anglin. "He did the opposite of cuck. He refused to even mention anything to do with us. When reporters were screaming at him about White Nationalism he just walked out of the room."

"Cuck" is short for "cuckservative" - a portmanteau of "cuckold" and "conservative" used by the alt-right to describe white Republicans "who are participating in the displacement of European Americans," according to white nationalist Richard Spencer.

When Trump tweeted earlier on Saturday that "we ALL must be united & condemn all that hate stands for," Spencer, who attended both days of protests, replied: "Did Trump just denounce antifa?"

Antifa is short for antifascist organizations.

Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

"Clearly President Trump is condemning the real haters: the SJW/Marxists who've attacked our guys," said one commenters on the far-right, pro-Trump subreddit called r/The_Donald.

"Marxist" and "SJW," or social justice warrior, are terms frequently used by the far-right to describe liberals.

"So glad GEOTUS called this bulls--t out for what it really is," said another commenter, using an acronym to refer to Trump that stands for "God Emperor of the United States.'"

"Trump comments were good," said another Daily Stormer commenter. "He didn't attack us. He just said the nation should come together. Nothing specific against us. He said that we need to study why people are so angry, and implied that there was hate... on both sides! So he implied the antifa are haters."

The commenter continued: "There was virtually no counter-signaling of us at all. He said he loves us all. Also refused to answer a question about white nationalists supporting him. No condemnation at all. When asked to condemn, he just walked out of the room. Really, really good. God bless him."

The White House did not respond to request for comment about whether Trump condemns white supremacy. But a ProPublica reporter asking the same question on Saturday was told only that the president "condemns all acts of violence."

A commenter on the white nationalist website Stormfront, which describes itself as "the voice of the new, embattled White minority,"wrote that "some republicans want Trump to single out White Nationalists and put the blame on them for the violence of Antifa/blm."

"Trump rejected that notion and talked about violence 'from many sides,'" another Stormfront commenter replied.

Not all white supremacists celebrated Trump's remarks, however. One Stormfront user said that "Trump has reached full-on cuck status," and David Duke, the former "grand wizard" of the Klu Klux Klan, implied that Trump had betrayed his supporters.

"I would recommend you take a good look in the mirror," Duke tweeted, "& remember it was White Americans who put you in the presidency, not radical leftists."

SEE ALSO: 3 dead following white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia

NOW WATCH: Tom Price resigns after controversy over private flights - here are the casualties of the Trump administration so far

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Neo-nazis and white supremacists are celebrating Trump's remarks about the Charlottesville riots

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White nationalists and neo-Nazis celebrated President Donald Trump's remarks about the protests in Charlottesville, Virginia on Friday, in which he denounced violence "on all sides" rather than explicitly condemning white supremacism. "We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides," Trump said at a press conference.

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What equality for all women, not just the white straight and cisgendered type, should look like

"It is the nature of privilege to find ever deeper places to hide."
- Elizabeth Spelman
Dear straight, cisgender, white girls;
I saw you marching in your thousands on January 21st 2017, in cities all over the world, and it really was quite something. I was amongst you, in Paris, shouting and yelling and marching for the rights of women. I sang about solidarité, I angrily sprawled Fuck You Trump in red lipstick across my face, I took a photo and put it onto Instagram to show the world that I publicly reject Trump and his sexism, his continued hatred and disrespect of women, his proud and loud misogyny. And I know you did too. I know the good intentions were there, we care about women and that's true, but honestly but I have to say, it really is not good enough.

I write this not to belittle your efforts in fighting against the patriarchal oppression, nor am I suggesting that every single white straight cisgender woman who considers herself a feminist has not thought about the way in which sexual inequality, beyond her own understanding, affects women of colour and LGBT women; nor am I saying that she did not march and cry for her gay, trans, black, asian or hispanic sisters. But crying and thinking and considering is not the same as acting, listening and acknowledging. There is a catastrophic difference between feminism and white, heterosexual feminism: mainstream feminism simply does not consider nor account for and listen to the voices of so many. Sexual equality for all women of all skin colours, bodies, races and religions and sexual preferences cannot be achieved if we, the women encompassing the biggest advantages, do not take responsibility, if we do not listen, if we do not see the fact that the reality of oppression we face is nothing compared to that of others. We must acknowledge the privileges that we have and understand that feminism is, and always has been, historically overwhelmingly heterosexual, cisgendered and white-oritentated. If feminism continues to cater uniquely for only one specific group of women; if the women who want to consider themselves as representatives of equality live solipsistically with their eyes shut to the oppression that billions of women suffer and don't even acknowledge it, this selective feminism that we are taught will define us, and we will continue to exist as part of the problem, not the solution.

Intersectionality, introduced by law scholar and critical race theorist Kimberlé Crenshaw, is at the bedrock of this thinking and should be embraced by all women who celebrate female equality and emancipation.

The Problem With White girls: Ignoring Women of Colour and Cultural Appropriation

White girls can be scarily remarkable at abandoning the acknowledgement of their own privileges and replacing them with the appropriation of other cultures, and this is nothing new. Braiding your straight caucasian hair without understanding the cultural and historical context as to why historically black women braid and white women do not and should not, owing as a staple of black hair care and cultural esteem, is white ignorance and cruel dismissal of black struggle. Blackness is not an outfit served to white women to consume and discard as they please. The same natural beauty found on the bodies and faces of black women is greedily snatched by the ignorant and disrespectful, never generating the same kind of celebration or social acceptation that is widely offered to white women.

It is true that not every single white woman who lives on planet earth is racially ignorant enough to appropriate culture.
But.
Let's think about the fact that Kylie Jenner has made almost $9 million from profiting from her cosmetically enlarged lips whilst living in a world where the natural features of black women are mocked. No I don't have the exact statistics as to whom exactly buys her products, however when she describes her nude lipstick as 'beige', diversity isn't the first thing that comes to mind.

Or the fact that a staggering 53% of white women voted for Trump, a man who identifies vocally as pro-racist, anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-trans, anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, anti-women, as opposed to just 4% of black women.

Or the fact that Blake Lively, a white princess praised in white magazines as the The Prettiest Most Biggest Girl Crush Ever OMG actually got married on a former slave plantation, and the media dismissed it as one of her life's 'controversial moments.' She quite literally made her marital vows standing on the bones of black women who were raped, oppressed and killed, and no-one uttered a single word.

What does this tell us? It tells us that white women are ignorant. And it's about time we open our eyes and ears to the women who have been crushed by the racist and sexist pillars of our gloriously white society if we ourselves are going to start crying about oppression.

Oppression That White Women Will Never Understand

White women benefit from a society that has been constructed to celebrate bleached European whiteness.

One of the parts of this discussion is not just the fact that white women are found guilty of exacerbating the oppression of non-white women (see chapter above), but also the fact that they objectively fail to even acknowledge that they're doing anything wrong. What's dangerous about this is that we don't open our eyes wide enough to acknowledge this privilege, yet we will storm blindly into the streets, our fists clenched, shouting about the rights of women and the equality of the sexes, yet the vaginas that are painted so beautifully on the banners we hold high in the sky are all white.

In case you're still of the perspective that 'all women are in the same boat', think about this:

These statistics serve as a miniscule glimpse into the hundreds of thousands of ways in which non-white women are oppressed and then some more. And some more. And some more.

"While White women are members of an oppressed group based on gender, they still experience privilege based on race. This dual oppressor / oppressed identity often becomes a root of tension when White women are challenged to consider their White privilege by Women of Colour." - Mamta Motwani Accapadi

So, we have an issue with coming to terms with this tension between our own sexual oppression and gender in equality and our social (read social, not sexual) liberation and acceptation. What is it that white women just don't see? In short, everything. We are blinded by our own advantages.

We are born into a society that nods at our straight hair, our white skin, our thin facial features, and celebrates it respectively. We live in a society that compliments our pale complexions, and if and when we want to buy make-up, the colours span shamefully from paper white to honey beige, with a few shades at the end to satisfy the billions of women who do not qualify as white. We live in a society where nude exists as somewhere between cream and pink, which is funny because I thought nude meant naked, and naked means skin, and skin does not mean just white. The clothing we choose to wear does not serve as proof to others as a symbol of oppression, as it does for women wearing the hijab who are forcibly dictated to by a society that demands the nakedness of their bodies but not the acceptance of their religious autonomous decisions. We live in a society where we didn't grow up chemically straightening or weaving our natural hair because all of the magazines feature women with long, glossy, European locks, told us that our natural hair is not beautiful, because for us, it hangs limply over our shoulders. Because that is our eurocentric standard of beauty: it is for the thin, the straight and the white. And because of this narrow standard of European beauty, the boundaries between sexuality, gender inequality and race blend respectively.

But it's not just beauty standards. It's every standard. Every single piece of journalism we read and digest has fundamentally been produced and verified by a white person. When white women protest against inequality, they are praised and clapped for being 'open-minded'. Yet often if a black woman does the same, she is 'radical'. White women live in a society that allows them to express themselves, to speak and to communicate, a privilege which is not enjoyed by women of colour. We earn more, are published more, abused less, attacked less, silenced less, our voices echo louder. Yet, we cry in confrontation to our own advantages and attack non-white women for simply informing us of the privileged reality of our own existences.

It's no surprise then, given that our standards and expectations are so white, that our education on feminism follows trend. In schools, we teach children about Emmeline Pankhurst, but not about Amy Jacques Garvey. We read Angela Carter, but not Audre Lorde. History remembers and praises the efforts of white, middle-class women, but ignores to the way in which they forced black women to march at the back of the protest. We don't learn about the fact that due to the absence of the suffragette movement in the southern states of America in the 19th and early 20th century, women in the north used racial slurs to further their 'cause' by encouraging the women of the south to protest in order "to balance the vote against black men."

Race and gender is fundamentally intertwined. In order for white women to embody the role of the feminist, they must look beyond their own whiteness and fight for women of colour.

Femininity seen through the eyes of the straight and the cisgendered

For centuries, sex and gender norms, stereotypes and expectations have been used to oppress women, and still do to this day. Both 'genders' have been historically assigned sexual preferences and roles that are socially appropriate, notably for men the heterosexual, successful bread-winner, embodying the active actor, alongside his passive, female counterpart, she must be heterosexual, occupying the home and the children.

How we accept and consider female sexuality is one of the biggest indicators of gender inequality, an issue which affects women of LGBT communities in uniquely oppressive ways that heterosexual women do not appreciate or understand.

Breaking news: lots and lots of women don't have sex with penises and do not want to

Given that our society that is built by men, for men, and the women under which live as objects constructed for them, the fact that a woman might not be aroused by men whatsover and may find their genitals a bit horrible is just so painfully insulting to the male ego, for these men (read: society) who expect to profit from women and their sexual beings, LGB women are stripped of their right to their sexual needs and sexual expressions, simply because it doesn't include men. What's more is that this oppression then continues. LGB women are fetishised as objects beyond that of the objectification of non-LGB women: "If she doesn't want me, I'll abuse her right to freedom even more by fetishising her and gazing at her sexuality as something I can benefit from, because the fact that this woman does not exist sexually to please me is unacceptable."

Violence committed against LGB women is an issue that is overlooked. The UN finds that 23% of non-heterosexual women in the EU have experienced physical and/or sexual violence by a non-partner, compared to 5% of heterosexual women. The difference is staggering yet pushed to the bottom of the pile.

"But the true feminist deals out of a lesbian consciousness whether or not she ever sleeps with women." - Audre Lorde

We exist within the bounds of a society that allow more rights, freedoms and power to heterosexual people. LGB women are instantly assigned labels, identities and constructions that heterosexual women simply are not. As a heterosexual woman, your sexuality is not going to affect your job, your safety, your social and close relationships, or the way in which you conduct yourself with someone you love in public. Straight women exist in a world that caters for the heterosexual, and despite some progress being made in representing and accepting gay communities in popular culture, media and society, LGB women simply do not enjoy the same privileges that come with heterosexual liberation.

Protecting Trans Women and Trans Women of Colour

Within the LGBT community, trans women are forced to overcome intense hurdles, their identites as women removed and ignored by both society as an oppressive force but equally by women who do not acknowledge them and their rights to their gender.

Violence against trans women is accelerated, concentrated, intensified, amplified, and worst of all committed in a world that pardons such acts, in comparison to the violence committed against cisgender women. For trans women of colour, they are vulnerable in a society that does not accept their sexual and racial identities, denying their rights to womanhood and exposing them to the most violent forms of misogyny and hatred, forcing them to live through and accept " violence disproportionately to the rest of the community."

Lexi Adsit, a trans Latina woman, writes:
"Violence is specifically targeted against black and brown women, gender non-conforming folks, and especially trans women of color. Living at the intersection of blackness and browness and transcendence of gender normativity leaves us particularly visible and vulnerable to a lot of violence."

80% of trans students feel unsafe at school because of their gender expression.

50% of trans people have been raped or assaulted.

41% of trans people have attempted suicide.

Trans women have a 1 in 12 chance of being murdered, or a 1 in 8 chance for a trans woman of colour.

Transgender people are 27% more likely to experience hate violence than cisgender people.

Although some progress has been made through the more visual acceptance and acknowledgement of trans communities through popular culture, for example through the roles and activism embodied by individuals such as Chaz Bono on Dancing With The Stars, Laverne Cox's stunning performance on hit TV show Orange Is The New Black and more recently, the emergence and activism of Caitlyn Jenner. After unveiling her identity to the world on the cover of Vanity Fair, Jenner was hailed as an inspiration to the trans world and was credited for using her personal story as an example as an educator on transsexuality. Whilst she has certainly brought the issue to the attention of mainstream media, her transition is a perfect example of the way in which she herself is ignorant to the privilege of her identity as a wealthy white woman, and is therefore out of touch with the oppression of trans female communities that do not have the same access to services, acceptances, money and privileges that she herself enjoys.

For trans women, access to the most basic of rights is a daily struggle, owing to the gaping absence of social facilities. From healthcare, to jobs, to homes, to simple basic social acceptance, Janet Mock describes trans struggle as a "fight for basic resources".

Sexuality and gender are fluid terms, and it is not for society to dictate how a woman enjoys, expresses or feels her own womanhood. As oppressed as women are, trans women are tirelessly let down, marginalised and rejected by cisgendered feminists, as seen by Germaine Greer, the 'feminist' writer, who referred to trans women as "ghastly parodies" in the grip of a "delusion".

This violence and abuse from the lungs of women who operate in protective spaces, speaking on behalf of the emancipation of women, is unacceptable. There are no words to describe it. Intolerance and hatred of this level goes against every inch of what feminism really means: inclusion, acceptance, freedom.

Acknowledging privilege, moving away from mainstream feminism and towards intersectionality and supporting all women

I don't need to repeat the obvious: white straight cisgendered women embody privilege that billions of other non-white, LGBT women do not.

What can we do about it? Step away from white-only, heterosexual-only, cisgender-only feminism and embody intersectionality.

Intersectionality is the notion created by renownded law scholar and critical race theorist Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989 in her paper " Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antiracist Politics."

As written on everydayfeminism, "Intersectionality is not only about confronting more obvious problems like violence and economic inequality. It's also about allowing people to live more fully in their being and to have a voice in our movements!"

But that's not all.

In confronting one's own privilege, we as woman can stand for those whose voices are oppressed, restricted, challenged, silenced. In order to do that, we must acknowledge the access we have that others do not, we must move away from white, straight sensitivity to reality, and use our passion for women to encompass all women.

"Guilt is not a response to anger; it is a response to one's own actions or lack of action. If it leads to change then it can be useful, since it is then no longer guilt but the beginning of knowledge. Yet all too often, guilt is just another name for impotence, for defensiveness destructive of communication; it becomes a device to protect ignorance and the continuation of things the way they are, the ultimate protection for changelessness." -  Audre Lorde

Move away from White Feminism. Read books written by the pioneers of feminism: women of colour. Listen to those whose voices are silenced. Talk to people. If you protest, protest for the rights of all women. Go to Black Lives Matter. Go to Gay Pride. Shout about the rights of others. Because if you don't, who are you really serving?

This kind of activism is not representative of what feminism truly stands for: feminism is the fundamental equality of all women, not just the white ones.

You cannot fight for equality if you stay neutral in structures that exist to oppress other people.

Your love for women should extend to protect all women and not just the ones who look or act like you.

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Dear straight white girls: acknowledge your privileges before you hashtag #feminist on your...

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"It is the nature of privilege to find ever deeper places to hide." - Elizabeth Spelman Dear straight, cisgender, white girls; I saw you marching in your thousands on January 21st 2017, in cities all over the world, and it really was quite something.