A lot of discussion, the past couple of weeks, has focused on the internal rifts of the Women’s March movement, or movements, in the run-up to the third annual Women’s March last Saturday. Charges of exclusion and anti-Semitism went back and forth between two of the big organizing groups (The New York-based Women’s March Alliance and the national Women’s March), adding fuel to the argument that women simply don’t support each other, or other’s success, the way men do.
“My theory,” a woman with many years of corporate consulting under her belt told me in the course of my latest book research, “is that the reason men end up succeeding, aside from longevity, is that they don’t take each other out. And I think women generally do.”
“I think women are really supportive of each other when it comes to hard life events, like visiting in the hospital or being supportive of someone going through a hard time,” another woman observed. “But they’re not as supportive when it comes to men or power.”
Are women constitutionally incapable of solidarity and sisterhood? I don’t think so, but we certainly struggle with it. The reasons are complex, and no one factor explains every woman’s position. But I have a theory, based on my book research, and it has to do with women’s struggle with getting their authentic selves and voices respected, seen and heard in the world.
In a previous post, I talked about the phenomenon of those at the top of the power structure having more freedom and privilege to be themselves than those further down.
(In essence, if you’re in the dominant power group, which in this country consists of white men, and particularly educated, white, Christian men from middle or upper-class backgrounds, the idea of struggling to be who you want or have your voice respected and heard is akin to the idea of struggling to breathe. You just do it, so it’s hard to understand that others struggle for that same basic ability and freedom.) Those outside the dominant group, on the other hand, have to constantly negotiate and balance being themselves with being acceptable to those who set the rules and norms, finding less straightforward ways to access power, and avoiding the negative consequences of bucking the limits or expectations set for them by those in the center of the established power circle.
In addition to the burden those negotiation requirements put on women and minorities, the reality of that outsider status also means you live with imperfect choices. Life isn’t fair for anyone. But the freedom to be and do what you want is far more limited if you’re facing inherent racial, gender, religious or other biases and pressures against whatever “authentic” self, voice, and choices you’d like to have. And the injustice of that imbalance is something those not in the power circle feel on a visceral, intuitive level. Every single day.
There are several problems that arise from that very real sense of injustice—problems that hinder the building of a broader sisterhood or the solidarity necessary to change unjust or restrictive organizational or civic culture and norms. The first, as one woman I interviewed put it, is that “maybe because women haven’t always had the choices they wanted, that sometimes they lose perspective, and feel like their life is just so much harder than anyone else’s, instead of understanding that every woman is struggling.” She gave an example. “It is hard to be a working mom,” she said. “But it’s also hard to take care of kids, full time. And it’s hard to be a single woman, getting up and going to work everyday, with all the responsibility and stress on your shoulders alone.”
That feeling of particular injustice is often amplified in women who are struggling with additional burdens of marginalization due to race, religion, or gender/sexuality. And to be clear: those burdens are real. Many years ago, when I was training to become a rape crisis advocate, I asked the one African-American woman in the training group why more women of color weren’t in the organization, and I’ve never forgotten her answer. “If you’re a black woman,” she said, “you have to work on fighting what’s happening to you because you’re black before you put energy into what’s happening to you because you’re a woman.” Today, those layered issues are called “intersectionality” (the intersection of numerous layers of identity—gender, race, religion, ethnic background, sexual orientation, etc.). And again, the more of those fights you’re fighting, the easier it is to focus on your own troubles instead of focusing on the different but still valid troubles of others.
Adding to that is the fear, among people fighting for access to power or rights from the outside, that one group’s advance will come at the expense of their own. If working women get more rights, some women fear the status of stay-at-home women will decline. Or, more famously and historically, if women’s rights are pressed too hard, the rights of minorities might not get the support they need to pass. Picking and prioritizing the fights that get fought first is tricky.
And as if the challenges that stem from a feeling of personal injustice aren’t enough, there’s also the issue of what could be called movement purity, for lack of a better phrase. As one young woman I interviewed put it, “Sometimes, to get change to happen, you have to be fierce. But sometimes in that process, I think people use language that’s so strident that it makes people feel criticized if they’re at all different. And I think sometimes, when people are fighting for something, they forget the need tolisten to others who could be supportive, but aren’t just like them. I think the language we use, even when we’re fighting for change, matters. And listening matters. Trying to understand why someone feels differently. Then you can start to have a conversation.”
It’s a tricky process, advocating for change strongly enough to get an immovable system to budge while still incorporating enough space for nuance and inclusion. But it’s even harder if women splinter into factions, each side defending their particular focus or choices, instead of actively seeking the common experience and ground that surely exists and could form a much stronger bond. And that includes holding leaders and colleagues accountable for not just how supportive they are of our own issues, but whether or not they hurt or denigrate women from different backgrounds.
How do we get beyond those obstacles? It’s not easy. Different personalities, emotional needs, perspectives and agendas make collaborating on any cultural or organizational change a challenge. But there are steps we can take that greatly improve our chances of success.
We can start by recognizing that the reason we feel so fierce about our own injustices—some of which are struggles that women from different backgrounds may not share—and the reason we sometimes lose perspective in defending the importance of those singular burdens and battles, is that we’re all on the outside of power, fighting for the freedom to be our best and fullest selves. We’re all struggling, even if some of us have more and greater burdens than others. If we have that perspective, it’s easier to feel compassion for the struggles of other women, even if their lives, backgrounds, or choices are different from our own.
From that point, we can make more of an effort, as the young woman I interviewed said, to listen to those other women’s stories and perspectives, so we might hear the common pain and hope that might unite us, despite our differences.
“It’s about being a witness to your own story, and a witness to other people’s stories,” one of the original Freedom Writers told me. “To appreciate everybody’s journey and what they’re going through. And to know that pain is pain, regardless of who you are, or whether you’re in a rich neighborhood or a poor one. Across all socioeconomic levels, there is pain.”
Beyond that, we can work to own, and be at peace with, whatever choices and trade-offs we’ve made for ourselves, even if our circumstances or options weren’t ideal. And this is where a strong sense of authentic self and voice come into play. It’s not just about speaking up to change laws, attitudes, or an organizational culture. It’s about where that effort comes from. The more self-aware we are, and the more aligned our choices are with what matters most to us, the greater and more grounded our strength becomes. We can be less defensive and more resilient. And that makes it easier to listen, hear, and empathize with the perspectives and struggles of other women.
Every woman has a unique, irreplaceable identity. And because her status as a woman puts her outside the dominant power group in most situations, every woman is also struggling with limitations on being her fullest self, and getting that self and voice heard and respected in the world. Some women battle more limitations than others. But working to change the organizational or civic culture and norms that create all of those injustices and limitations takes group effort. So maybe, although anger is the emotion most commonly associated with solidarity, the more important quality required for cohesion is compassion: for other women’s choices, other women’s struggles, and other women’s dreams. Even if they’re not the same as our own.
