Newsweek Takes On Feminism On Behalf of Young White Girls Everywhere

by Latoya Peterson and Thea Lim

I (Latoya) originally wanted to title this post: All The Women Are Still White, All The Blacks Are Still Men, But Some Of Us Are Tired of Being Brave and Want to Kick Someone’s Ass. But that was too long, and bad for SEO purposes. So here is the situation.

Last week, Newsweek published an in-depth piece of journalism, chronicling the uncomfortable relationship between women employees at the magazine in 1970, when a gender discrimination suit was filed (with Eleanor Holmes Norton representing the 46 women who filed) and three women employees 40 years later who discovered that they still weren’t quite equal. (The piece is titled “Are We There Yet?”) While the piece was lauded by journalists (for being self-critical) and by feminists (for taking a look at the uncomfortable picture), drama popped off when the Jezebel team pointed out the image of feminism in the Newsweek headline and photo felt a little too familiar.

The text below the image reads:

Things stay the same: This just-posted Newsweek story on “Why Young Women Need Feminism” is accompanied by photo of six women…all of them white. [Newsweek]

Predictably, drama ensued.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am still a contributor to Jezebel. However, I was off on other projects when this started breaking, and when the back and forth between the Newsweek reporters and the Jezebel editors began. And I would have been content to stay the hell out of it (I have enough stuff to write – that’s why this article is so late) but the writers decided to take it to the blogosphere. In their first post, they flamed Jezebel and said:

What bothers us most about their post, though, is that it’s important for feminists to stick together—especially when there’s not much discussion of the F word in the mainstream media at all. Tearing each other down for writing about feminism in a way that could attract young women—black, white, whatever—seems counterproductive. Especially in a personal essay written by, yes, a white woman, about her own, yes, personal experience.

By the way, Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai has got your “black, white, whatever:”

Then came more Jeze-bashing.

But what piqued the antennae of Thea and I were the two posts that followed. On the Subject of Race and Feminism reveals this interesting tidbit:

We should also note—and this was one of many things that didn’t make it into the final piece—that the women of color at Newsweek didn’t sign onto the suit in 1970, for various reasons. That’s a whole other story that would be interesting to explore. It’s particularly interesting because after months of searching, with nobody willing to represent them, the white women who sued found themselves a fiery, pregnant black ACLU lawyer—now DC Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton—who told them to “take off their white gloves,” and went on to become the head of the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission. To clear up any of the confusion, she’s the one pictured above, along with the all-white Newsweek organizers.

At the end of the post, the writers say:

Our colleague Raina Kelley, who frequently writes about race and feminism [add: and who has been an incredible supporter and ally of this piece from the very beginning], puts it like this: “I wish there was a fascinating history of black women at Newsweek, but there isn’t. And that’s because in 1970, black women were seen as mammies, not dollies, consigned to the kind of work where collars are washed, not given cute hued names … Our time would come just a bit later.”

Whatever your take—and we want to hear it here—the most important thing is that we’re talking about all these issues. Regarding Jezebel, we’re going to hand this particular fight off to Raina. Take it, lady!

The sign off immediately got under my skin, and after reading Raina Kelly’s statement…

You know what, it is useless to argue about history. This a struggle for equality, not a sorority. There are no prizes for “Most Feminist.”

How hard would it have been to deduce that the authors of this story were telling their own story and through that lens, the story of Newsweek and women? They are white women with similar backgrounds so to add race to the story would have been gratuitous and patronizing.

…I was about ready to fight.

I emailed Raina Kelley to get the direct scoop, and she was gracious enough to respond with a quick phone interview. She explained quite a few things from her perspective behind the scenes, noting: “Being friends with them…I think they genuinely did not believe they did anything wrong. And I don’t see [what they did wrong.]” I asked Raina about the race issue (and how the fact that the few black women working at Newsweek choose not the sign on to the suit looks to me as necessary for inclusion,) she responded: “I’m not 100% sure it would have been necessary – what they were trying to do was compare apples and apples. In this particular instance, I’m an orange.”

What Kelley means is that she felt the particular struggles of black women at Newsweek and white women at Newsweek were fundamentally different. She continues: “As a black woman, I don’t fit into the narrative that they shaped. It’s a different arc. I think people jumped before they really read the story.”

We went back and forth on this for a little while, with me bringing up the framing of the piece and photo (as a definitive statement on feminism) and Kelley bringing up the personal nature of the piece. When I asked about her being deployed as the friend of color, she was adamant about people understanding that in this particular situation, she’s backing the writers.

“I wouldn’t have allowed myself to be used [as a prop],” Kelley said. “I really believe in their story and the way that they told it.”

Kelley nails the crux of the story by explaining:

“We’re talking about a generation of middle class white girls that were promised the moon – and they didn’t get it. We did not full prepare them to deal with a world where they were second class citizens…no one older, or of a different color could have told this story.”

And that is true. But was that the only way the story could have been told? After chatting a bit with Thea, we still disagree, alternately cracking jokes and feeling those old feminist wounds open all over again.

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