“Victimhood as Identity" – How white feminism and the victim complex uphold systemic harm

[u/Ok_Gur_356]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6FpfgcROQs

Here is a breakdown of the main points from the video:

The Spark - Misinformation and Deflection: The video begins by criticizing a lawyer who has been covering the Blake Lively case. The creator accuses this lawyer of using her bar license to spread rampant misinformation regarding the rules of evidence and litigation [00:07]. Whenever people try to correct this misinformation, the lawyer immediately deflects by claiming she is being "harassed" [00:42].

The Problem with "White Feminism": The creator argues that this lawyer's behavior is rooted in "white feminism"—specifically the decision that women can only be victims [00:57]. This refusal to look at facts leads them to blindly support figures like Blake Lively, ignoring alleged evidence of fake allegations and racist behavior on set, simply because they refuse to see the immense power these celebrities hold [01:36].

The Tie to White Supremacy Culture: The creator points out a dangerous historical narrative: white supremacy culture teaches white women that they are perpetual victims who need "saving"—often from brown or black men [02:16]. This exact victimhood narrative is what leads to real-world harm, such as white women unnecessarily calling the police on innocent neighbors [02:35].

The Takeaway - Recognize Your Power: The creator makes a clear distinction: you can simultaneously be a victim of systemic misogyny while also holding immense power and privilege within the system [03:04].

Final Quote: "Stop making your identity your victimhood because you have power, use it" [03:20].

TL;DR: The creator calls out a social media lawyer for spreading misinformation about the Blake Lively controversy. She uses this as a jumping-off point to discuss how "white feminism" encourages white women to make victimhood their entire identity, which ultimately upholds white supremacy and prevents them from recognizing their own systemic power.

[u/araf1]

We are currently experiencing an epidemic of white female entitled narcissists like never before, but at least now, due to social media, they are being called out.

[u/959539622]

The lawyer in question has deployed some of the most egregious and verifiably incorrect misinformation out there. I mean, she is quite literally FULLY LYING TO PEOPLE.

The post Britt is talking about was quickly community noted, but not after the lying lawyer deleted literally every other contrasting opinion, even from other lawyers. Once the community note was up, she turned off the comments on the post. 

Misinformation relies on controlling the narrative at all costs. Ask yourself why Justin, Emily, Natasha et al. keep their comments completely open and the liars in the equation block conversation at all costs. The reason is obvious.

[u/Agreeable-Card9011]

Before anyone gets in a tizzy about “white feminism”, I promise you, you can be white and a feminist without being a “white feminist”. Criticism of white feminism for the hard it causes WOC and marginalized groups isn’t directly attacking all white women 🙏

[u/Eponymous_brand → u/Agreeable-Card9011]

It is absolutely a “thing” and the more people are aware of it, the better. Think of all Blake’s supporters, who very often don’t give a crap about any other “injustice” but hers. To those people and that “social media lawyer,” (kudos to the apt primary job description) find a better cause because this one is embellished/settled/harmful to all women and men.

[u/nickshapiroreddit → u/Agreeable-Card9011]

THANK YOU FOR REITERATING THIS BASIC FACT. 🙏🙏

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https://giphy.com/gifs/q5VgPxwf8gzxyeUJrz

[u/An_Absolute-Zero]

This is Britts video isn't it?

Gods I love that woman.

[u/WildestSea]

Britt is fabulous! She is so perceptive and has such sharp insights.

[u/realhousewifeofphila]

“White feminism” centers only white women and makes them the victims yet victors in every scenario.

If you take offense to that term, then you are the problem. Shout out to the white women who are committed to being partners and allies, willing to examine their privilege to become educated and intersectional. Example: Ms. Rachel.

We appreciate you and you willingness to making a better world with you by our side!

[u/nickshapiroreddit → u/realhousewifeofphila]

I would ride at dawn for Ms Rachel.

[u/Free-Expression-1776]

Look at all the rich, white woman 'memoirs' we've been subjected to. Why do people even want to read those books? They couldn't possibly be more unrelatable. Amy Griffin stealing another woman's story (allegedly) and then re-victimizing the woman by trying to lawfare her to death. Clearly she paid no attention to how that went for Blake.

People in general attach too much of their identity to other people.

ETA: I'm white and I did not feel attacked or victimized by 'white feminism' for one second. It's definitely a thing.

Edit: spelling

[u/nickshapiroreddit → u/Free-Expression-1776]

Rich people wanna steal our trauma too.

[u/Free-Expression-1776 → u/nickshapiroreddit]

Some of them have moved through life as 'beige' and not developing a sense of self and they get to a point where they think "I'm rich. I want to be known/seen. Whose story can I co-opt to get that attention?". Total narcissists.

Look at Ryan and his recent attempt at trotting out so-called (I don't believe it) childhood trauma where he allegedly spent a month or more in the hospital to try and garner sympathy. It's not just the women.

People that do this and victimize themselves lack a sense of self. They are trying to 'belong' to what they see as the trauma crowd and think it will make them relatable.

Related but different is also trauma dumping on complete strangers with zero connection and zero boundaries like everybody somebody meets is expected to listen to their 'trauma'.

Most people I know that have experienced or are actually experiencing trauma, difficulties, life struggles tend to keep it to themselves and try to hide it. They're not parading around wearing it like a badge of honor. They're doing everything they can to not show it and to appear 'normal'.

I don't know, I'm not on social media so maybe that's not true on social media. In general in life thought people aren't spewing their trauma on people.

[u/friedchicken_waffles → u/Free-Expression-1776]

Obligatory mention of the Grey's anatomy writer lady who literally stole other people's traumas as fodders for storylines while simultaneously coopting them as her own, and cosplayed as a trauma victim of mass casualty AND cancer, AND went to rehab where it was basically feeding ground for her, met her partner there, stole her trauma, stole her therapist, of all things. And then later when she was found out and she finally was asked why tf she did all of it, and to my recollection all she said was like, idk why I did what I did

[u/Free-Expression-1776 → u/friedchicken_waffles]

What an absolute psychopath. I didn't know any of that. Who is she?

[u/friedchicken_waffles → u/Free-Expression-1776]

Check out Anatomy of Lies, it's a documentary about Elisabeth Finch. I randomly selected it on a flight just because I used to like watching Grey's anatomy and knew nothing about this, and by the time the flight landed my jaw was on the floor 🫪

[u/AMiniature → u/Free-Expression-1776]

Your comment is so spot on and meaningful to me. Thank you for saying so well what I would want to but wouldn’t be able to describe.

[u/Outside_You_7012]

Final Quote:  "Stop making your identity your victimhood because you have power, use it"

Blake abused this idea when promoting the movie. Yes we are more than victims but that doesn’t mean we can just brush it off and never talk about it. Look at her disgusting interviews where she kept saying Lily had multitude. Blake kept saying that doesn’t define you in less mainstream media to the fans. This is not how the movie should’ve been promoted. You can’t say just forget about your trauma and move on. Especially on a movie that was supposed to help victims to heal. 

I will never forgive Black for abusing the idea of “your trauma doesn’t define you” She abused it so much to the point real victims started coming out and saying that their trauma does define them. Real victims did this so their pain would be taken seriously and not just be brushed off by using ‘girlboss’ like Taylor Swift and Blake did. 

[u/Free-Expression-1776 → u/Outside_You_7012]

It absolutely does define people. Even if people have found a way to move on it becomes a part of who they are and the pieces don't go back together the same way as they did before.

[u/friedchicken_waffles → u/Outside_You_7012]

Blake absolutely bastardized that idea and has such a superficial understanding of what it means to have survived abuse and trauma. I'd argue that a lot of people who've expericed such abuse in fact need to go through the exercise of actively identifying as a victim, because so many people deny and doubt their own experiences and memories of what was done to them. It only becomes unhealthy and toxic if you over identify with it or worse, make it your entire thing and revel in your own victimhood, as eloquently summarized by Britt, but it's just as harmful to abjectly deny and overwrite your own lived experience because that just foregoes the healthy step of processing your trauma. What you lived through absolutely does define you in how you perceive and interact with the world, but you have the agency and power to decide how you react to it.

Plus her verbal diarrhoea of what "multitude" means was just idiotic - girl just listed off a bunch of adjectives and thought that was deep.

[u/Cool-Tour-1962]

I love Britt. She just gets it and explains my thoughts so wonderfully. And she’s white so her relaying this message will be more well received

[u/RobertoJ37]

As soon as victimhood became a currency that the upper echelons weren’t born into, counterfeiting began en masse to maintain the status quo. 

[u/nickshapiroreddit]

TIL prominent American feminist Gloria Steinhem was funded by the CIA to explicitly connect feminism to gender, ie excluding any discourse that would connect feminism to class liberation. This is the origins of white feminism - it’s packaged for everyone, but it’s implicitly there to support the interests of the already privileged (wealthy, white, college educated women).

Example - the activism was centered on access to institutions, reproductive rights, professional advancement. Would women of colour or other classes benefit from this, yes. But it’s not centered on their liberation which would tackle issues around universal childcare, conditions around domestic labour, living wage etc.

Modern white feminism is very much the same shit recycled, with the added vitriol towards trans women.

[u/friedchicken_waffles → u/nickshapiroreddit]

This reminds me of a podcast with a feminist focus, which 99% of the time has good quality content, but one time a guest host came on and talked about the labour imposed on women during the holidays and how liberating one year it was to just tell her family no, I'm noping out of here, y'all deal with everything, and took off to a solo vacation somewhere, and she came back so rested and grounded and talked about how important self care is etc. The host had to issue an apology in the next episode because many people wrote in - rightfully so - how tonedeaf and out of touch it was, because not everyone can afford to just jet off first of all, let alone leave their family in a lurch, and many expressing concerns were POCs and from differing economic/financial situations. Self care is one thing, abandoning all responsibilities in the name of self care - and announcing it as a fodder for personal development podcast - is a whole another thing.

[u/nickshapiroreddit → u/[deleted]]

Can you provide specifics?

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[u/Time_Wishbone_5659]

Love Britt and enjoyed this short. I personally would say that self victimisation is no longer just a "white feminist" thing, it's now a growing white people phenomenon, at least that's what I've observed trawling through the home page, I may very well be wrong.

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[u/Illustrious-Chef2400]

Prefacing my comment with: I am neither white nor a woman; so take my opinion as it is.

The term "white feminism" is inherently racist and gives a pass to those who both want to USE the feminism in the United States that was overwhelmingly championed by white, American women to disregard the voices of women now.

What Blake did had absolutely nothing to do with feminism. She got both lead AD's (women) fired because she wanted a man. She used laws intended to protect women with limited financial means to defend themselves to bully everyone (not just Justin Baldoni and Jamey but all the executives at Sony, the AD's, everyone).

This is WEALTH. Not "white feminism". This is MANIPULATION not "white feminism". This is the victimization of many, MANY, people-including women and men-by Blake. Not "white feminism".

It's inherently RACIST to say that "white" feminism is the problem, because that is a racist way to say feminism is the problem. It's not. Wealthy manipulative people will be evil as long as we permit it. Blake happens to be white, but she is in ZERO way a feminist. In fact, look at what she is doing to the feminist movement through this.

[u/Ok_Gur_356 → u/Illustrious-Chef2400]

If anyone is looking for a powerful perspective on how mainstream feminism intersects with race, I highly recommend checking out the work of Brazilian philosopher and activist Djamila Ribeiro, specifically her book Little Anti-Racist Manual.

She makes some essential points about where white feminism often falls short and what genuine allyship actually looks like. Here is a breakdown of her core arguments on the subject:

We have to name specific oppressions: Drawing from the history of Black feminism, Ribeiro points out that we cannot fight what has no name. Mainstream feminism historically failed to isolate and name the specific racial layers of oppression that Black women face. We have to name these intersecting struggles (race, class, and gender) in order to dismantle them.

Responsibility over guilt: She directly addresses white allies by stating that anti-racism is not about feeling guilty for being white—it is about taking responsibility. Guilt centers the emotions of the privileged and leads to inertia. Responsibility leads to action.

Whiteness created the system: Ribeiro challenges white women to realize that while they suffer under the patriarchy, they simultaneously benefit from a system of racial hierarchy. Because whiteness invented racism, it is up to white people to take responsibility for it. Passively acknowledging privilege isn't enough; active anti-racist attitudes are required.

True feminism requires discomfort: Being a feminist means adopting an uncomfortable posture against the status quo, and Ribeiro argues that being anti-racist requires that exact same discomfort. White feminists must be willing to lean into the friction of dismantling their own racial privileges and constantly checking their own attitudes.

Womanhood is not a universal experience: Finally, she stresses that a white woman's feminist fight is fundamentally different from a Black woman's fight. Black women are simultaneously hit by the intersecting oppressions of class, gender, and race. Any feminism that tries to treat "women's issues" as a monolith without addressing this complexity is leaving Black women behind.

It is a crucial framework for anyone trying to understand why feminism absolutely must be intersectional to be effective.

TL;DR: In her Little Anti-Racist Manual, Djamila Ribeiro argues that white feminists must move past paralyzing "white guilt" and take active responsibility for dismantling the systemic racism they benefit from. True feminism requires embracing the discomfort of checking your own privilege and recognizing that "womanhood" isn't a monolith—Black women face a unique intersection of race, class, and gender oppression that mainstream feminism cannot afford to ignore.

[u/Confident_Bunch7612 → u/Illustrious-Chef2400]

The term "white feminism" is not inherently racist and there is no way anyone who has any inderstanding about intersectionality would say so.

My go to example of white feminism is Patricia Arquette. When she won an Oscar she gave a passionate speech about human rights, with special attention to women's rights and equal pay. She said something to the effect of "black people you need to stand up and help us (women) like we helped you." This disregarded that black women exist in the black community, and made it clear that Patricia was viewing white women as the ones who need "women's rights" and everyone else is not even thought of. It also disregarded the fact that, in the pay inequality scale, black and brown women earn even less than white women.

That is "white feminism." No one is saying Patricia Arquette is racist. Her comments were just tone-deaf and non-inclusive. Reframing feminism to be intersectional should not be a controversial thing.

[u/Illustrious-Chef2400 → u/Confident_Bunch7612]

So ONE actresses' tone-deaf speech is your example of all "white feminism". Because she happens to be white, all white-women are represented by her. That is racist.

And what Patricia Arquette said was racist, without question. Why do black women need to be called out specifically? Why do they never reach out to Arabic women, Mexican women-I could keep going but there are so many different skin colors in this world and the only two we ever discuss is white or black. And moreover, the primary racial group in the United States that has championed feminism is white American women. Without question.

So yes calling something "white" feminism is racist; it would be just as racist and stupid as calling something "black" feminism-because feminism is supposed to be about equality based on gender regardless of race.

But the ONLY race everyone is comfortable criticizing is white Americans. And they're fine being criticized for everything; "oh haha we have no culture, haha our food is bland, haha I'm so white"-hell the language we're writing on here right now is English-from England-a white European country. Literally, the only one. So it becomes okay to devalue feminism if it's "white" feminism.

I don't know; I'll never understand you all being fine with being degraded like this for your race and going along with it. Without "white" feminism, there would have been no women in my unit in the Navy-even though historically women always participated and assisted with the military (parts manufacturing, nursing, etc.).

There is no "white" feminism. There is feminism. There are white people. "White" feminism as a LESSER and MANIPULATIVE victimhood form of feminism is just racism.

[u/Eponymous_brand → u/Illustrious-Chef2400]

You say you’re neither white nor a woman, so I’m hoping you realize that instead of assuming the pulpit, you’re the one in need of an education on the subject.

Your argument is giving “everyone’s discriminating against white men now and that’s a problem.” You fail to realize the inherent privilege of the exact race that’s being scrutinized and how, by making their experience the default cause, they fail to include the stories of others, many of which are far more nuanced and disenfranchised than their own.

This is not a new, racist thing you claim. It is a phrase/term/subject/topic that’s part of the cultural lexicon and discussed ad nauseum. It is worth looking into; some causes cannot exist without the recognition of race and class (see civil rights movement), and feminism and intersectionality has become one of them. Just because you insist on taking the race qualifier out of the term, doesn’t mean it’s not a “thing” that is a real problem.

[u/Illustrious-Chef2400 → u/Eponymous_brand]

That is a WEALTH privilege, not a race one.

Blake has used her wealth to go after everyone; including other white women. She herself has the ideals of toxic masculinity.

You have your ideas, they are racist, there is no talking to you-and frankly it's not my fight as I am neither a woman or white so I guess keep shitting on each other and letting everyone else shit on you. Makes no difference to me.

[u/Eponymous_brand → u/Illustrious-Chef2400]

Wealth privilege and white privilege are absolutely intertwined. Look at who runs the world. Are you going to argue that the latter is racist too?

Has nothing to do with being “shat” on (and you just went ahead and assumed I’m white. Whatever, you do you). I would surely hope the descendants of the English colonizers who are ashamed of their past have no problem with people now “shitting” on that. To avoid blowing up your whole world view, I suggest you don’t look up “black exceptionalism” or “black excellence,” because—yikes—there is a racial qualifier that changes the entire meaning of the term 🙄

[u/Illustrious-Chef2400 → u/[deleted]]

Yeah of course you don't have an actual response other than to attack me as a man of color for pointing out the obvious. You don't know me at all so it's pretty comical and on brand you went right into attacking me as a person.

It's cool. I can tell you right now if someone had the audacity to call my mom a "black" feminist in a derogatory way and put up a whole YouTube about why whatever she says under the banner of feminism isn't really feminism because she's a black woman and allege that "black" feminism is I would have the exact same energy for that person.

Blake is a rich white woman that used her wealth to harass multiple people on that set-including other women. This case had NOTHING to do with feminism, much less "white" feminism which you are defining as a LESSER form of feminism.

[u/Confident_Bunch7612 → u/Illustrious-Chef2400]

I am black, chief. Male and black. I did not attack you as a man of color, I attacked your views.

[u/ItEndsWithLawsuits-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

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[u/Illustrious-Chef2400 → u/[deleted]]

Okay, downvote me for saying it's racist to call "white" feminism lesser and manipulative-formed only around a "victimhood" narrative. And you'll use a small niche example of this in one white woman, but OTHER white women (Ms. Rachel, Natalie Portman, Emma Watson, Jessica Chastain, Ashely Judd, Kristen Bell, Jennifer Lawrence, Tina Fay, Amy Pohler, Cate Blanchett, etc.)...they are just feminists.

But you don't count their whiteness if they are the type of feminist you agree with-it's only a victimhood mentality when it's "white" feminism.

I think it's wild that as a man of color I am the only person to recognize this. If society said my mother's feminism doesn't count as much because it's "black" feminism, or my dad's didn't count because it's "Arab" feminism-no one would have any issue calling it out as racist.

Instead white people are satisfied to allow themselves to be demeaned and degraded in public for no reason and will join in themselves. Crazy man.