“To every woman who gave birth to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation, we have fought for everybody else’s equal rights. It’s our time to have wage equality once and for all and equal rights for women in the United States of America.”Her speech itself was well-received, as captured by Meryl Streep's and Jennifer Lopez's reactions, shared widely on Vine and in memes. However, her follow-up remarks backstage led to a lot of backlash, especially from the Twitter world and from famous feminists. Arquette continued:
It’s time for women. Equal means equal. The truth is the older women get, the less money they make. The highest percentage of children living in poverty are in female-headed households. It’s inexcusable that we go around the world and we talk about equal rights for women in other countries and we don’t...it’s time for all the women in America, and all the men that love women and all the gay people and all the people of color that we’ve all fought for to fight for us now.Many found these comments exclusive and offensive, as they seem to imply that feminism is a white woman's issue, which writer Amanda Marcotte condemns:
Where to begin? Perhaps with pointing out that “gay people” and “people of color” are both categories that include women. Indeed, when it comes to wage inequality, race is as much a factor as gender...similarly, being gay or transgender often means taking a hit in income.Feminism has often come under fire for being a movement for white women’s rights when obviously the intent is for the rights of all women. Though I am sure this was by no means Arquette's intention, especially after she sent several clarifying tweets, her diction could easily be offensive to queer women and women of color. Who would want to support a movement that undervalues their support or neglects their roles entirely? Furthermore, it is obviously problematic that she implies these fights for equality are mutually exclusive.
There are also those who have denounced Arquette's speech because they deny the existence of a wage gap. In this sense, it was obviously impactful for generating hopefully productive dialogues. To all the naysayers, the White House has confirmed that the gender gap she speaks of exists:
Despite passage of the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which requires that men and women in the same work place be given equal pay for equal work, the "gender gap" in pay persists. Full-time women workers’ earnings are only about 77 percent of their male counterparts’ earnings. The pay gap is even greater for African-American and Latina women, with African-American women earning 64 cents and Latina women earning 56 cents for every dollar earned by a Caucasian man.
Decades of research shows that no matter how you evaluate the data, there remains a pay gap — even after factoring in the kind of work people do, or qualifications such as education and experience — and there is good evidence that discrimination contributes to the persistent pay disparity between men and women.These statistics demonstrate even more-so just how important it is to recognize that feminism is a movement for all women, especially women of color, who are in fact at the greatest disadvantage according to gender gap statistics.
But tearing apart and criticizing a brave feminist voice for not clearly articulating her points is not inclusive feminism, either. Celebrities are often the best mediums for spreading feminist viewpoints to a wider audience.
Eliana Dockterman is correct in cautioning harsh critics when she writes in an article defending Patricia Arquette for her well-intentioned speech:
But when women begin to tear down their best, most popular advocates, we hurt our own cause. As Sally Kohn wrote at The New Republic after the Dunham incident: “The minute feminism becomes hypercritical and humorless, it becomes too easy for the mainstream to dismiss our more valid complaints.”
Arquette's speech was not perfect; but once again it got people talking. In summary, feminism needs to be more inclusive and the gender gap needs to be closed.
Her speech and backstage comments were/are problematic on many different levels. And I do think IT IS important to be critical of them and when white feminists want to save Patricia Arquette from any criticism is because she is white. It is as if they are saying, we know her comments are offensive and may be fucked up to you but in the name of feminism let's spare her from criticism, NO! That is not okay. Especially given her white privilege and the fact that she is a celebrity and is highly lauded.
ReplyDeleteI'm laughing that Patricia Arquette said "we have fought for everybody else’s equal rights." What have white feminists done for women of color? Because, let's be clear. When she said women, she was referring to white women. I am also laughing because she said "to every woman who gave birth to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation" as if being a taxpayer and a citizen means having some humanity, or being worthy of it. So let's just dump that.
Also, no to this comment:"it’s time for all the women in America, and all the men that love women and all the gay people and all the people of color that we’ve all fought for to fight for us now." I can't remember when white women have helped "all the gay people and all the people of color"?
Let's not forget that even if white women are paid less than white men they are still paid more than Latinas who earn 61 cents to every dollar a white man earns.
Yeah, not a fan in the least.
I think the biggest problem with the movement towards equality for women is the fact that not all women are united in the same front. We are our own worst enemies; we tear each other down more than we uplift, we critique more than we aim to inspire, and lastly we nitpick things that we should be celebrating. Patricia Arquette is a brave outspoken woman about the rights that women must have. As suprising as it may be, although no woman will deny the fact that we need to be treated as equals few will actually voice it, let alone lead a fight towards it. Although there might have been certain factors of Arquette’s speech that could be misinterpreted, the fact of the matter is that she opened up room for a conversation that needs to be had. For Amanda Marcotte to condemn what Arquette is saying is to take away from the value of Arquette’s intentions. I think it’s almost impossible to always be politically correct, I mean someone somewhere is always going to have a problem with what you’re saying. Equality for women would essentially mean equality for all, but to Marcotte’s point, the colored woman does have it the hardest simply because things are working against her on so many different levels. Ultimately Arquette might have misused certain words but shouldn’t we be celebrating that she said something at all?
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