When race trumps gender
we are the mainstream’s Inaugural event, International Women’s Day: we are the mainstream (#IWDWATM2020) questioned #EachforEqual’s message this International Women’s Day
In March, most corporate offices and corporations were preparing their International Women’s Day posts for LinkedIn. Scrolling through, I saw photo after photo of blonde women posing side-by-side, with one arm horizontally held over the other in front of them, forming an ‘equal’ symbol.
I reflected on my own position working in a communications agency in Sydney. I was the only Brown person among 40 people, mostly women.
I wasn’t like these women. Their North-Shore-chai-latte-Sunday-brunch lifestyles weren’t like my weekends in Parramatta, drinking mango lassis and stuffing away halal snack packs. Truth be told, these corporate women’s lives had no place for a Brown immigrant like me, and their understanding of equality was completely different to mine.
Authentic chai brewed and served up by Auburn Youth Centre.
When International Women’s Day announced it’s 2020 theme would be #EachForEqual, I wondered which women were included in this concept, and just what ‘equal’ meant. It didn’t seem to include me. For First Nations women and Women of Colour (WOC), the fight for equality hasn’t centred around equal pay or corporate recognition, it’s been for survival and safety. And our oppressors haven’t just been White men, they’ve been White women, also. First Nations women and Women of Colour need more than access to promotions, job security, and individualistic gain; we need to heal from the ongoing process of colonial violence; we need mainstream media and society to stop fearing and fetishising Black and Brown skin; we need government services to respect the breadth and depth of our existence.
This is where we are the mainstream stepped in.
Held at Bankstown Arts Centre, the event was exclusively run and held for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Colour) women, and worked to challenge the Eurocentric, capitalist notions of feminism so evident in the international #EachforEqual campaign.
During the day-long event, I particularly enjoyed watching the discussion between WOC powerhouses Sasha Sarago (Ascension Magazine), Sahra Tohow (August Inc.), Marlee and Keely Silva (Tiddas 4 Tiddas), and Moreblessing Maturure (FOLK Magazine). Marlee and Keely discussed the 2018 NAIDOC theme: ‘Because of her we can’; a highly nuanced recognition of the history and intersections between race and gender for Aboriginal women. This is something the #EachForEqual campaign failed to encompass for Indigenous women and WOC across the globe, with little acknowledgement of the complex roles race, sexuality, queerness, socio-economics and more play in peoples’ experiences of womanhood.
Another key takeaway was the ‘Health and Wellbeing’ breakout session, where psychologist Sahra Behardien O'Doherty and Wiradjuri doctor in training Sarah O’Brien talked through the extra layer of mental health challenges First Nations and Women of Colour faced throughout their lives. We discussed Whiteness in mainstream health and psychology, and I particularly loved hearing Sarah talk to the valuable healing in going back to Country, talking to ancestors and spirits, and combatting deeply racist pitfalls in the medical field.
And when it comes to fighting for true equality in Western society, no one said it better than one of the event’s own organisers, Priyanka Bromhead, who addressed the crowd with, “My race trumps my gender”. This is true for so many of us, who need to rise in the face of White supremacy just as much as they do patriarchal power structures. I realised that in the office and on the street, I’m seen as a Brown immigrant before I’m seen as a woman.
“My race trumps my gender.”
The day connected me with essential Black and Brown resources, role models, and women who now, months later, I call close friends. It inspired me and reinforced that amid phoney corporate diversity initiatives and transparent #BlackLivesMatter posts that First Nations women and Women of Colour are strongest when they work and fight together.
