America as an Icon: The Golden Facade by Shreya Kollipara
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he United States is undoubtedly an icon on the world stage, a sturdy, sparkly symbol of freedom, forever in the headlines. Over the decades, its superpower status has made the country positively popular and so important. As an international student, this golden image can be verified; despite the nation’s contested history and problematic sociopolitical landscape, America is nothing but dreams and burgers abroad. American feminism isn’t a stranger to glorification either — second wave and post-war feminism are considered textbook knowledge and fundamental in the fight against patriarchal systems of power. From large-scale institutional and policy motions in the 20th century (i.e. everything the suffragettes fought for) to today’s “lifestyle feminism,” from Betty Friedan to AOC, so much about American feminism is undeniably iconic. But icons are only images, built in the air and put on a pedestal, glorified so harshly that we are blinded to the incompetencies and secret limitations of a movement otherwise so powerful. Where is
it lacking, and for how much longer? This isn’t the first time the intersectionality of American feminism is being called into question; as early as 1866, Black orator, activist, and abolitionist Frances Ellen Watkins Harper challenged white feminism in her speech at the National Women’s Rights Convention: “I tell you that if there is any class of people who need to be lifted out of their airy nothings and selfishness, it is the white women of America.” The work of the Combahee River Collective draws attention to the intersectional consequences of oppression and highlights how inclusive feminism would work to dismantle existing heteropatriarchal, economically exploitative, and racist systems of power. Black feminism shapes an ideology that goes beyond the individual success of a woman and encourages collective structural change. Kimberlé Crenshaw, leading scholar of critical race theory and civil rights advocate, notes that discrimination persists even decades later because of the “stubborn endurance of the structures of white dominance.” She’s not
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wrong. Nor is it the first time the sincerity of American feminism’s inclusion of LGBTQ+ individuals has been called into question. With a host and variety of homophobic and transphobic legislation (e.g. bathroom bills, the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, the SAFE act, the “Save Women’s Sport” Act, and more) being introduced and passed into law, the queer community is consistently under attack. How effectively has American feminism really incorporated queer theory into its teachings and message? Women’s colleges, for instance, are fundamentally mainstream feminist institutions, symbols of resistance to men’s rules for higher education. But in many ways, these institutions replicate and propagate much of the same elitism and racism in their quest to empower the white women they serve. And until recently, many of these schools had no official policy regarding transgender applicants or students, potentially discouraging trans students from applying or forcing existing students to hide their gender/sexual identities. Reputed colleges like Barnard