Haifa

“White and western women are seen as participants in complex modern societies. Their problems cannot be solved with a single, neat gift. Women of color are imagined as existing in a much simpler world, held back from success by very basic issues that have very basic solutions.”
― Rafia Zakaria, Against White Feminism

“If white women’s sexual liberation is something to be celebrated, Black women’s sexual liberation is a danger to the system, something to be tamed and brought within the bounds of white-defined decency.”
― Rafia Zakaria, Against White Feminism: Notes on Disruption

“Both sex-positive feminism and choice feminism minimize and sideline the concerns of women of color and poor women who need the status quo to change. In this crucial sense, then, choice feminism prioritizes the needs and beliefs of white feminists based on individual choice because constructing a collective and engaging in the very political processes of consensus-building and contestation of various claims is not suitable for their purposes. Ironically, “choice” feminism actually ensures that those who are not benefiting from the status quo—from the untrammeled exercise of power and individuality that comes with white privilege—will never have choices beyond those they have at the present moment. In this crucial sense, then, choice feminism is white feminism”
― Rafia Zakaria, Against White Feminism: Notes on Disruption

“When we consider the world from an asexual lens rather than from the position of any particular sexual identity, we can better apprehend how heterosexuality and, to a far lesser extent, LGBTQI identities have been co-opted as the basis of markets of goods that must be consumed. Consumption of particular products becomes the basis of being considered sexual or sexy.”
― Rafia Zakaria, Against White Feminism: Notes on Disruption