Koa Beck - White Feminism: From the Suffragettes to Influencers and Who They Leave Behind

For my father and grandparents, who always said I should write.

And for Astrid, who said, You should write this .

W HEN I WAS TWENTY-SIX , I published a personal essay on passing as both white and straight, of which I am neither. Im light-skinned and very conventionally feminine, attributes that Ive found throughout my life make strangers, colleagues, bosses, and subjects Ive interviewed think they are talking to a white straight woman. This has come with an array of advantages on both a day-to-day level (a police officer has never asked me why Im loitering) and a professional level (would you have hired me to run this national womens outlet if I read more queer?).

When I went looking for more documented experiences of passing, everything I encountered seemed to message that this was something that used to happen, therefore implying that it somehow doesnt anymore. The most recent and robust archives documented Black Americans in the twentieth century who were light enough to re-create their lives as white Americans. Basically decide that they were white and start their lives over as white people who could use the whites only drinking fountains, secure more lucrative and stable job opportunities, and marry white partners. There was a tremendous incentive to cross the color line, as historians of passing have sometimes described it, as you were guaranteed more freedoms, opportunity, resources, and libertyall things white society has traditionally guarded.

But I wanted it documented that passing happens nowwell beyond Jim Crow laws, the federal recognition of same-sex marriage, and the uptick in mixed-race children being born in the United States. If people think that you are white, that you are straight, that youre cisgender, that youre a citizen, that youre middle- to upper-class, they speak to you and assess you in a different and decidedly advantageous way.

The essay I wrote went viral and I still receive a lot of messages from people all over the world who tell me that I put words to an experience they had never been quite able to distill. I also received a lot of criticism and hate mailstandard fare when you have an opinion on the internet as a woman, as a queer person, as a person of color.

But more disturbing to me than even the most violent or condescending responses was the assertion that I should just be white. That if I was light enough to pass and other white people were buying it, why couldnt I just ascend to whiteness? Wasnt this an upgrade? Wasnt this progress?

Key in this assumption that I would even want to is the unquestioned belief that white is better. That if I am being given the opportunity to be a part of this special club where Im not racially harassed and managers deem me competent before I even say anything, I should just take it. But even more importantly, I shouldnt question it.

I knew acutely how powerful bodies viewed me. What I didnt necessarily know directly at this point in my life was how they viewed the barrier for entry. Thats what womens media taught me.

At one editorship, we would often receive the print covers (back when people just barely cared about cover reveals) about a day or so before they would go online. It was a somewhat oddly ceremonious but nevertheless exciting tactile experience for editors and writers who largely existed in pinging Slack channels, perpetually cluttered email inboxes, and rapid-fire social media updates; there was very little we could hold in our hands and feel satisfied about. All pride happened largely in the internet ethos. Tweets from virtually anywhere sharing certain pieces, engagement reports that you could pull, a huge bump in traffic that would register across the entire company. Except for one morning a month when an unmarked box would arrive on our floor and the staff would usually gather around while it was opened to reveal all the fresh magazine copies.

In November 2016, the cover star was Nicki Minaj, the face unmistakably hers in all those shiny, pristine stacks. I remember taking one copy in my hands and studying the flattering styling and clean lines of her makeupthick black eyeliner and a high-neck blouse with heavy pleating. She looked so beautiful and commanding, so instantly recognizable above a caption that read Anything Jay-Z can do, I can do. Another editor came up behind me as I was beholding a representation of the most influential woman in hip-hop and also remarked on how pretty the cover was. She liked it too, she said just over my shoulder. And then she added, I love when they make trashy people look good.

This observation, a throwaway comment she made before putting down her purse and fetching some coffee from the office kitchen, seared into a piece of my brain that I never got back. I remember hearing the sound of her flats as she sprinted away but I became anchored in exactly that gray carpeted spot. I eventually did move. I have a brief memory of going to the bathroom. I went back to my desk. I did my work. I was productive. But those syllables reverberated along my keyboard for months afterward, catching me slightly in the moments where I weighed an edit or checked my email.

What settled deep into my body over time is that people like Nicki Minaj, people like me, people very unlike both of us, would never really fit into this self-styled version of feminism. No matter what words we used in meetings or how we were presented, there was still always going to be some feminist-identified branded content editor who would use words like trashy to describe our class, our sexuality, our race, our culture, our politics, our history, and, most importantly, our strategic goals as marginalized genders.

Reactions to my passing piece rushed back too. The parallels between both responses, that you should just be white, that you should just be more respectable-looking, fundamentally fail to question power. Or to reenvision it. Whats more, that wed always have to achieve or pursue certain conventions to even be seen or addressed.

I saw distinct overlaps with a lot of the messages many other competitor outlets published around that time that arent consistent with womens lives: that you should just get over imposter syndrome and crack the capitalist whip, even when the women reporting to you can barely afford to pay rent. All these scenarios have the trappings and allure of individual gain, and thats how they are justified: a job youve always wanted, an expensive dress you deserve, an accolade that youve always dreamed ofwhich, in the short term, are often framed as collective wins for all women or people.

The politics of assimilation are vast and thorny. And for many disenfranchised groups in the United States, taking on the rules and parameters of the oppressor have sometimes been a means to basic survival. You will live another day if you speak this language, if you dress like this, if you marry in this capacity, if you pray to this god, if you conduct yourself in this way.

When I started my career in womens media, gender was just emerging as an acceptable beat outside the traditional realms of fashion and beauty. This meant that I could openly sit at job interviews with fairly mainstream outlets and discuss the wage gap and pregnancy discrimination without being immediately dismissed as angry. I learned somewhere in the middle of my career, though, that in many of the glass conference rooms where I plotted out coverage, the reality of womens lives stopped somewhere around attaining a white-collar leadership position and achieving a heterosexual marriage with a cis man who also changed diapers. All other feminist realities had to orbit around that one, or feign subscription to that ultimate ideal.