What do you think?
Rate this book
The Trouble with White Women: A Counterhistory of Feminism
An incisive history of self-serving white feminists and the inspiring women who’ve continually defied them
Women including Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Margaret Sanger, and Sheryl Sandberg are commonly celebrated as leaders of feminism. Yet they have fought for the few, not the many. As award-winning scholar Kyla Schuller argues, their white feminist politics dispossess the most marginalized to liberate themselves.
In The Trouble with White Women , Schuller brings to life the two-hundred-year counter history of Black, Indigenous, Latina, poor, queer, and trans women pushing back against white feminists and uniting to dismantle systemic injustice. These feminist heroes such as Frances Harper, Harriet Jacobs, and Pauli Murray have created an anti-racist feminism for all. But we don’t speak their names and we don’t know their legacies. Unaware of these intersectional leaders, feminists have been led down the same dead-end alleys generation after generation, often working within the structures of racism, capitalism, homophobia, and transphobia rather than against them.
Building a more just feminist politics for today requires a reawakening, a return to the movement’s genuine vanguards and visionaries. Their compelling stories, campaigns, and conflicts reveal the true potential of feminist liberation. An Entropy Magazine Best Nonfiction Book of 2020-2021, The Trouble with White Women gives feminists today the tools to fight for the flourishing of all.
Women including Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Margaret Sanger, and Sheryl Sandberg are commonly celebrated as leaders of feminism. Yet they have fought for the few, not the many. As award-winning scholar Kyla Schuller argues, their white feminist politics dispossess the most marginalized to liberate themselves.
In The Trouble with White Women , Schuller brings to life the two-hundred-year counter history of Black, Indigenous, Latina, poor, queer, and trans women pushing back against white feminists and uniting to dismantle systemic injustice. These feminist heroes such as Frances Harper, Harriet Jacobs, and Pauli Murray have created an anti-racist feminism for all. But we don’t speak their names and we don’t know their legacies. Unaware of these intersectional leaders, feminists have been led down the same dead-end alleys generation after generation, often working within the structures of racism, capitalism, homophobia, and transphobia rather than against them.
Building a more just feminist politics for today requires a reawakening, a return to the movement’s genuine vanguards and visionaries. Their compelling stories, campaigns, and conflicts reveal the true potential of feminist liberation. An Entropy Magazine Best Nonfiction Book of 2020-2021, The Trouble with White Women gives feminists today the tools to fight for the flourishing of all.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published October 5, 2021
240 people are currently reading
9635 people want to read
About the author
Kyla Schuller
2 books47 followersKyla Schuller is Assistant Professor of Women's and Gender Studies at Rutgers University, New Brunswick.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 158 reviews
October 9, 2021
“White feminism” is a term to describe a political position, not an identity. White feminists maintain that equality for women comes from accessing racist-patriarchal institutions, not dismantling them. It’s not simply that white feminism has failed to include BIPOC women, it’s that “white feminism wins more opportunities for white women through further dispossessing the most marginalized” (9). In this way “the trouble with white feminist politics is not what it fails to address and whom it leaves out. The trouble with white feminism is what it does and whom it suppresses” (4).
Accrording to historian Dr. Kyla Schuller, US white feminism began in the mid-1800s with famed suffragist Cady Stanton. Stanton’s family held three enslaved Black people captive until 1827 (who she called ‘servants’ in her autobiography) (28). She formally launched US white feminism in Seneca Falls (1848) defining women’s rights as access to the privileges of elite white men. Central to her argument was that white civilization could only prosper through making room for white women’s leadership (19). Indeed, this idea that white women could join white men in the pursuit of white supremacy proved to be the rallying point for many white suffragists. Susan B. Anthony once remarked: “With the education and elevation of the woman we have a power to galvanize the Saxon race into higher and nobler life.”
Despite the fact that Black leaders like Frederick Douglass continually “staked Black voting rights and women’s voting rights as necessary partners,” early white suffragists like Cady Stanton objected to enfranchising Black men because they felt like that universal male suffrage was as menace to “white women’s dignity and purity” (19). Instead of pursuing solidarity, Candy Stanton advanced a false choice between voting rights for Black men or for (white) women. In 1869 she declared, “I do not believe in allowing ignorant Negroes and ignorant and debased Chinamen to make laws for me to obey” (20).
Cady Stanton and Susan B. Ahtony routinely teamed up with outright white supremacists like George Francis Train in the efforts. Train paid all of the travel costs as they traveled with him on Kansas on a joint lecture tour. He supported women’s suffrage because he believed that “elevating the social position of white women would strengthen white supremacy” (38). His motto was: “Woman first and negro last” (39). Black women were continually disappeared by this rhetoric that imagined all women as white and all Black people as male.
From the beginning Black feminists articulated a counterfeminism to white feminism that was far more liberatory. For example: Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, one of the most read Black poets of the 19th century and a celebrated antislavery lecturer. Harper critiqued the Stanton and Anthony for ignoring race: “the white women all go for sex, letting race occupy a minor position” “Will ‘working women’ be broad enough to take colored women?” (20). In 1866 at the National Woman’s Rights Convention she delivered her famous speech “We Are All Bound Up Together” urging for the recognition of Black women’s issues in the women’s movement.
The next day the Convention had a meeting to work for suffrage for both Black people and white women. However, the organization split over the decision to support the 15th Amendment granting Black men the right to vote. Susan B Anthony was against it, arguing: “I’d sooner cut off my right hand than ask for the ballot for the Black man” (19). Harper supported it and helped form the American Woman Suffrage Association. Harper also rejected the white feminist idea that “women, by virtuous nature, would exert a moral force on society,” and instead remarked, “I am not sure that women are naturally so much better than men that they will clear the stream by the virtue of their womanhood; it is not through sex but through character that the best influence of women upon the life on the nation must be exerted” (42).
The reason that most don’t know about Black feminists like Harper is because they have been written out of history. When Stanton and Anthony published their six-volume History of Women’s Suffrage (1881-1922), they deliberately left out Harper’s speeches. What we can learn from this history is that there have always been several feminisms, not one. White feminism seeks to disappear the traces of counterfeminisms like Harper, but we won’t forget.
Accrording to historian Dr. Kyla Schuller, US white feminism began in the mid-1800s with famed suffragist Cady Stanton. Stanton’s family held three enslaved Black people captive until 1827 (who she called ‘servants’ in her autobiography) (28). She formally launched US white feminism in Seneca Falls (1848) defining women’s rights as access to the privileges of elite white men. Central to her argument was that white civilization could only prosper through making room for white women’s leadership (19). Indeed, this idea that white women could join white men in the pursuit of white supremacy proved to be the rallying point for many white suffragists. Susan B. Anthony once remarked: “With the education and elevation of the woman we have a power to galvanize the Saxon race into higher and nobler life.”
Despite the fact that Black leaders like Frederick Douglass continually “staked Black voting rights and women’s voting rights as necessary partners,” early white suffragists like Cady Stanton objected to enfranchising Black men because they felt like that universal male suffrage was as menace to “white women’s dignity and purity” (19). Instead of pursuing solidarity, Candy Stanton advanced a false choice between voting rights for Black men or for (white) women. In 1869 she declared, “I do not believe in allowing ignorant Negroes and ignorant and debased Chinamen to make laws for me to obey” (20).
Cady Stanton and Susan B. Ahtony routinely teamed up with outright white supremacists like George Francis Train in the efforts. Train paid all of the travel costs as they traveled with him on Kansas on a joint lecture tour. He supported women’s suffrage because he believed that “elevating the social position of white women would strengthen white supremacy” (38). His motto was: “Woman first and negro last” (39). Black women were continually disappeared by this rhetoric that imagined all women as white and all Black people as male.
From the beginning Black feminists articulated a counterfeminism to white feminism that was far more liberatory. For example: Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, one of the most read Black poets of the 19th century and a celebrated antislavery lecturer. Harper critiqued the Stanton and Anthony for ignoring race: “the white women all go for sex, letting race occupy a minor position” “Will ‘working women’ be broad enough to take colored women?” (20). In 1866 at the National Woman’s Rights Convention she delivered her famous speech “We Are All Bound Up Together” urging for the recognition of Black women’s issues in the women’s movement.
The next day the Convention had a meeting to work for suffrage for both Black people and white women. However, the organization split over the decision to support the 15th Amendment granting Black men the right to vote. Susan B Anthony was against it, arguing: “I’d sooner cut off my right hand than ask for the ballot for the Black man” (19). Harper supported it and helped form the American Woman Suffrage Association. Harper also rejected the white feminist idea that “women, by virtuous nature, would exert a moral force on society,” and instead remarked, “I am not sure that women are naturally so much better than men that they will clear the stream by the virtue of their womanhood; it is not through sex but through character that the best influence of women upon the life on the nation must be exerted” (42).
The reason that most don’t know about Black feminists like Harper is because they have been written out of history. When Stanton and Anthony published their six-volume History of Women’s Suffrage (1881-1922), they deliberately left out Harper’s speeches. What we can learn from this history is that there have always been several feminisms, not one. White feminism seeks to disappear the traces of counterfeminisms like Harper, but we won’t forget.
October 5, 2021
An important read for anyone interested in the history of feminism.
Kyla Schuller traces the beginnings of white feminism along with its counterhistory of intersectional feminism, something which has been around for as long as white feminism. Each chapter examines a white feminist, as well as an intersectional feminist. Schuller begins with the original white feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton and goes all the way to Sheryl Sandberg. Some intersectional feminists discussed are Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, a leading abolitionist-feminist, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, politician and activist.
Schuller explains how white feminism tends to prioritize white women’s needs and concerns, while neglecting the struggles that women of colour face. While white feminism is self-serving, intersectional feminism supports racial, economic, disability, and sexual justice, in addition to gender justice.
White feminism is not something that needs to be made more inclusive, but rather it needs to be trashed and begun anew.
I am a huge fan of AOC, but before reading this, I did not consider how much pressure she is under to represent her constituents around the clock, to fight for equality, and to look good while doing it all. It’s a lot for just one person.
Thank you to Bold Type Books/ Perseus Books for providing me with an ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Review on: https://booksandwheels.com
Kyla Schuller traces the beginnings of white feminism along with its counterhistory of intersectional feminism, something which has been around for as long as white feminism. Each chapter examines a white feminist, as well as an intersectional feminist. Schuller begins with the original white feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton and goes all the way to Sheryl Sandberg. Some intersectional feminists discussed are Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, a leading abolitionist-feminist, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, politician and activist.
Schuller explains how white feminism tends to prioritize white women’s needs and concerns, while neglecting the struggles that women of colour face. While white feminism is self-serving, intersectional feminism supports racial, economic, disability, and sexual justice, in addition to gender justice.
White feminism is not something that needs to be made more inclusive, but rather it needs to be trashed and begun anew.
I am a huge fan of AOC, but before reading this, I did not consider how much pressure she is under to represent her constituents around the clock, to fight for equality, and to look good while doing it all. It’s a lot for just one person.
Thank you to Bold Type Books/ Perseus Books for providing me with an ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Review on: https://booksandwheels.com
August 4, 2022
I quite liked this.
I'd give this 4 stars
I rounded it up to 5 to counteract the white supremacist reviews this seems to be causing.
This gives a nice history of the problems with white feminism historically and today.
Also gives you historical white feminist figures in all their problematic glory and introduces their less well known POC Feminist.
I liked the format and it works.
“Across the decades, white feminists’ overwhelming insistence that sex oppression is the most prominent and widespread form of oppression ironically enshrines the identity of Woman as the sine qua non of feminism while minimizing the force of sexism itself. White feminist politics produces the fantasy of a common, even uniform, identity of Woman, a morally upright creature whose full participation in the capitalist, white supremacist status quo will allegedly absolve it of its sins. The individual obscures the structure.
Under white feminism, the goal of gender justice shrinks to defending women’s qualities and identities. The agenda today becomes empowering individual women to own their voice, refuse to be mansplained to, and embrace their right to equality with men. These are fine practices on their own, but they do not convey the devastating nature of sexism, nor do they offer realistic methods of demolishing it. In fact, fetishizing the identity of Woman as the basis of feminist politics actually makes it more difficult to recognize sexism as a structure of exploitation and extraction. For sexism is not merely the silencing, interrupting, and overlooking of women. Sexism is the use of the male/female binary as an instrument to monopolize social, political, and economic power—and those assigned female at birth are not its only victims.
Consistently, white feminism wins more rights and opportunities for white women through further dispossessing the most marginalized. It seeks to install women at the helm of the systems that have brought the planet to the brink of ecological collapse and to declare the battle won, cleansed by their tears. White feminism has supported the denial of suffrage to men of color, the eradication of Native ties to land and community, eugenics, homophobia, transphobia, and neoliberal capitalism. Today, it comprises the delusions that Girl Power will solve inequality, that if the investment bank Lehman Brothers were instead Lehman Sisters we would have a better kind of capitalism, and that putting a woman in the White House will necessarily create a more moral empire. While seemingly ignoring non-middle-class white women, white feminism actually raids more marginalized groups in order to shore up its own political power. White feminism is theft disguised as liberation.
Yet while white feminists attempt to win their rights and opportunities through fighting for inclusion within fundamentally unequal systems, those benefits are largely mythical, even for women as wealthy as Sheryl Sandberg. Sexism is so fully interwoven within structures of domination that the single-axis fight to support women is itself a delusion: patriarchy threads through all forms of inequality. Eradicating sexism requires unravelling the entire system.”~ Kyla Schuller, The Trouble With White Women: A Counterhistory of Feminism
I'd give this 4 stars
I rounded it up to 5 to counteract the white supremacist reviews this seems to be causing.
This gives a nice history of the problems with white feminism historically and today.
Also gives you historical white feminist figures in all their problematic glory and introduces their less well known POC Feminist.
I liked the format and it works.
“Across the decades, white feminists’ overwhelming insistence that sex oppression is the most prominent and widespread form of oppression ironically enshrines the identity of Woman as the sine qua non of feminism while minimizing the force of sexism itself. White feminist politics produces the fantasy of a common, even uniform, identity of Woman, a morally upright creature whose full participation in the capitalist, white supremacist status quo will allegedly absolve it of its sins. The individual obscures the structure.
Under white feminism, the goal of gender justice shrinks to defending women’s qualities and identities. The agenda today becomes empowering individual women to own their voice, refuse to be mansplained to, and embrace their right to equality with men. These are fine practices on their own, but they do not convey the devastating nature of sexism, nor do they offer realistic methods of demolishing it. In fact, fetishizing the identity of Woman as the basis of feminist politics actually makes it more difficult to recognize sexism as a structure of exploitation and extraction. For sexism is not merely the silencing, interrupting, and overlooking of women. Sexism is the use of the male/female binary as an instrument to monopolize social, political, and economic power—and those assigned female at birth are not its only victims.
Consistently, white feminism wins more rights and opportunities for white women through further dispossessing the most marginalized. It seeks to install women at the helm of the systems that have brought the planet to the brink of ecological collapse and to declare the battle won, cleansed by their tears. White feminism has supported the denial of suffrage to men of color, the eradication of Native ties to land and community, eugenics, homophobia, transphobia, and neoliberal capitalism. Today, it comprises the delusions that Girl Power will solve inequality, that if the investment bank Lehman Brothers were instead Lehman Sisters we would have a better kind of capitalism, and that putting a woman in the White House will necessarily create a more moral empire. While seemingly ignoring non-middle-class white women, white feminism actually raids more marginalized groups in order to shore up its own political power. White feminism is theft disguised as liberation.
Yet while white feminists attempt to win their rights and opportunities through fighting for inclusion within fundamentally unequal systems, those benefits are largely mythical, even for women as wealthy as Sheryl Sandberg. Sexism is so fully interwoven within structures of domination that the single-axis fight to support women is itself a delusion: patriarchy threads through all forms of inequality. Eradicating sexism requires unravelling the entire system.”~ Kyla Schuller, The Trouble With White Women: A Counterhistory of Feminism
March 11, 2022
I feel a bit embarrassed to admit that it took until the last few years for me to really understand that feminism has not always encompassed all women. The Trouble With White Women continued to open my eyes to so many perspectives I had not always thought about as a white woman myself. If you want to better understand intersectional feminism, this is a great place to dive in!
Thank you to Perseus Books for my review copy.
Thank you to Perseus Books for my review copy.
June 17, 2021
The Trouble with White Women is an amazingly important book that reveals the toxicity of white feminism. In each chapter, Schuller takes one white feminist and compares her to an intersectional feminist of the same generation. Even though each chapter is packed with rich information about these women, I never felt overwhelmed with the density of it. Honestly, I would have liked to have even more information about each woman. I realized how lacking my public school education really was as I knew every white feminist Schuller mentioned and only recognized the names of one or two intersectional feminists.
My favorite aspect of Schuller's book is the emphasis on preventing the "optimization" of non-white, specifically Black, women. While reading a book such as Schuller's, it is easy to place the women on a pedestal, while saying things like "Black women will save America." Schuller explains how, even though this might be said with the best of intentions, it places a significant burden on women of color. It provides an out for everyone else to stay on the sidelines of change. Dismantling the patriarchy requires the effort of many, and Black women should not shoulder the majority of the weight.
The Trouble with White Women is not an easy read by any stretch of the imagination. Schuller pushes her readers to truly grapple with the existence of whiteness and the consequences of white feminism. Readers are not, however, left feeling hopeless. In her conclusion, Schuller presents different ways to embrace intersectional feminism and empowers women to shed themselves of the confines of toxic white feminist ideals.
My favorite aspect of Schuller's book is the emphasis on preventing the "optimization" of non-white, specifically Black, women. While reading a book such as Schuller's, it is easy to place the women on a pedestal, while saying things like "Black women will save America." Schuller explains how, even though this might be said with the best of intentions, it places a significant burden on women of color. It provides an out for everyone else to stay on the sidelines of change. Dismantling the patriarchy requires the effort of many, and Black women should not shoulder the majority of the weight.
The Trouble with White Women is not an easy read by any stretch of the imagination. Schuller pushes her readers to truly grapple with the existence of whiteness and the consequences of white feminism. Readers are not, however, left feeling hopeless. In her conclusion, Schuller presents different ways to embrace intersectional feminism and empowers women to shed themselves of the confines of toxic white feminist ideals.
November 14, 2021
Incredibly frustrating that GR lets racists bombard books with one star because they don't like the title of a book.
If you actually read the words in the book, you will see that this is purely a balanced look at white feminists who put race over intersectionality when they were pushed.
If you didn't know already that Margaret Sanger was a eugenicist who focused on the BIPOC community, or that Elizabeth Cady Stanton started working with Fredrik Douglass but then brushed him aside when she realized it would be more beneficial and easier to get just white women the vote then all people, the book gives not only a more rounded history of the people who we idealize, but also discusses their peers who were working for more inclusion.
Schuller does a fantastic job in giving credit where it is due, while pointing out the flaws that history loves to brush aside. She does not paint these white women as evil, or wholly malicious, but instead looks a the totality of their work and actions and it's effects while at times introducing us to lesser known BIPOC historical figures (who she does not paint as infallible either)
I am grateful for this book and it's introduction to historical figures who are incredibly remarkable, but who I had never heard of before because they were overshadowed by their white compatriots.
If you actually read the words in the book, you will see that this is purely a balanced look at white feminists who put race over intersectionality when they were pushed.
If you didn't know already that Margaret Sanger was a eugenicist who focused on the BIPOC community, or that Elizabeth Cady Stanton started working with Fredrik Douglass but then brushed him aside when she realized it would be more beneficial and easier to get just white women the vote then all people, the book gives not only a more rounded history of the people who we idealize, but also discusses their peers who were working for more inclusion.
Schuller does a fantastic job in giving credit where it is due, while pointing out the flaws that history loves to brush aside. She does not paint these white women as evil, or wholly malicious, but instead looks a the totality of their work and actions and it's effects while at times introducing us to lesser known BIPOC historical figures (who she does not paint as infallible either)
I am grateful for this book and it's introduction to historical figures who are incredibly remarkable, but who I had never heard of before because they were overshadowed by their white compatriots.
October 14, 2021
The irony of this harsh rhetoric is that it just radicalizes people in the opposite direction. If you insult people for no reason, they're not going to give your agenda the time of day. Which is fine if your goal is to just hurt people. But if you're actually trying to persuade them, this is not a good tactic. If a stranger approaches you in public, and just starts randomly insulting you, degrading your values, and slandering people who you admire for accomplishing great things in service to human rights, are you going to buy what they're selling?
August 22, 2021
One of a number of books that have been written lately which address the issues of "white feminism". Contrary to those other titles, however, "The Trouble with White Women" has a creative touch that sets it apart from the others in that the author takes the time to accomplish two tasks through their writing: First, the author discusses the history of "white feminism" illustrates how white feminism has influenced the world we live in today. Second, she compares historical white feminists to their intersectional counterparts, many of whom have not had a strong voice in feminist literature. Overall this is a fresh take on a quickly saturating topic.
January 16, 2022
3.5/5
'The Trouble with White Women: A Counterhistory of Feminism' by Kyla Schuller deconstructs a history of feminism that has been centered on white women by comparing the fights of famous 'feminists' with their contemporaries that were working on intersectional liberation. By deconstructing the work of famous white feminists, Schuller demonstrates how their work props up white women at the expense of everyone else and in the process supports dominant structures of power.
I am conflicted about this book because I think there are some real strengths but it also doesn't do all that I wanted from it. I appreciate how Schuller highlights underappreciated intersectional feminists to demonstrate how far back this work has been going. I do think the book falls flat in some of the comparisons that she includes to famous white feminists like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Margaret Sanger. In deconstructing these women's work and their approaches to feminism, it felt like Schuller spent more time on them than on the intersectional feminists she is trying to center. In some places, I also think that the points get a bit repetitive and fail to go far enough in their exploration of the work and counterhistory. I also think it is important to know that Kyla Schuller is a white woman and to frame her work through that knowledge.
I do think that this could be an accessible first introduction to intersectional feminism for someone who is just starting to learn about it. By going through different points in history, deconstructing the often fabricated history of white feminism, and introducing a counterhistory, Schuller does set up the reader for a longer journey and exploration of intersectionality. In many points of the book, I felt called to explore further ideas and scholars that Schuller introduces. As an introduction this can work, but I think anyone who picks up this book needs to go further and read books by the intersectional feminists that Schuller quotes.
I think the strongest part of this book is the conclusion, where Schuller pulls together all of the pieces she has introduced throughout the book and sets out some groundwork on what needs to be done to be an intersectional feminist. This was the one part where I felt Schuller went as far as I was hoping in her other sections. Here she delves into more aspects of what intersectional feminism looks like and how the reader can embrace it in their own life.
Though I ultimately wished for more for this book, I think that this can provide a starting point for someone just starting to learn about intersectional feminism as long as they use it as a springboard and delve into further work after they finish this book.
'The Trouble with White Women: A Counterhistory of Feminism' by Kyla Schuller deconstructs a history of feminism that has been centered on white women by comparing the fights of famous 'feminists' with their contemporaries that were working on intersectional liberation. By deconstructing the work of famous white feminists, Schuller demonstrates how their work props up white women at the expense of everyone else and in the process supports dominant structures of power.
I am conflicted about this book because I think there are some real strengths but it also doesn't do all that I wanted from it. I appreciate how Schuller highlights underappreciated intersectional feminists to demonstrate how far back this work has been going. I do think the book falls flat in some of the comparisons that she includes to famous white feminists like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Margaret Sanger. In deconstructing these women's work and their approaches to feminism, it felt like Schuller spent more time on them than on the intersectional feminists she is trying to center. In some places, I also think that the points get a bit repetitive and fail to go far enough in their exploration of the work and counterhistory. I also think it is important to know that Kyla Schuller is a white woman and to frame her work through that knowledge.
I do think that this could be an accessible first introduction to intersectional feminism for someone who is just starting to learn about it. By going through different points in history, deconstructing the often fabricated history of white feminism, and introducing a counterhistory, Schuller does set up the reader for a longer journey and exploration of intersectionality. In many points of the book, I felt called to explore further ideas and scholars that Schuller introduces. As an introduction this can work, but I think anyone who picks up this book needs to go further and read books by the intersectional feminists that Schuller quotes.
I think the strongest part of this book is the conclusion, where Schuller pulls together all of the pieces she has introduced throughout the book and sets out some groundwork on what needs to be done to be an intersectional feminist. This was the one part where I felt Schuller went as far as I was hoping in her other sections. Here she delves into more aspects of what intersectional feminism looks like and how the reader can embrace it in their own life.
Though I ultimately wished for more for this book, I think that this can provide a starting point for someone just starting to learn about intersectional feminism as long as they use it as a springboard and delve into further work after they finish this book.
November 8, 2021
Schuller's essential audiobook--wonderfully narrated by Christine Lakin and Mela Lee--expertly defines both white and intersectional feminism and compares and contrasts the work of some of the movements' female standard bearers. This compare/contrast literary format is both an ingenious way to illustrate white feminism's faults and harms, but to also keep this academic discussion easily digestible and accessible to all readers. Her thesis is forthright and bold: White feminism (through 1940s suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton to Facebook leader Sheryl Sandberg of Lean In fame) has failed to work towards intersectional feminism that promotes a true gender equality that dovetails with the fights for racial, economic, sexual, and disability justice. In short, white feminism promotes equality for white, middle-class women and forgets to include ALL women, including trans women, Black women, poor women, and disabled women.
Schuller isn't shy in her condemnations of the work of well-know white feminists. The writings and work of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Alice Fletcher, Margaret Sanger, Pauli Murray, Janice Raymond, and Sheryl Sandberg are dissected to show their flaws and how they held back opportunities for all women by centering white women in the narrative for equality. On the flip side, the work and achievements of often-overlooked (at least in school and history books) Black, trans, and indigenous women are touted. I had no clue a trans woman activist named Sandy Stone worked tirelessly to promote trans rights in the 1970s and 1980s. Yet, I HAD heard about Anita Bryant, an anti-trans writer and singer from the same time period.
I highly recommend this book, particularly for white women. It's an essential examination of white feminism's past and present insistence on centering white, middle-class women as the only ones who deserve true equality. Instead, as Schuller advocates for here, intersectional feminism is the true goal. It centers all women, no matter economic circumstance or racial, ethnic, or gender identity. For all women to be treated equal in the world's power structures, all women need to be fought for...not just white, middle-class women.
Much thanks to @NetGalley and @HachetteAudio for the free copies of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Schuller isn't shy in her condemnations of the work of well-know white feminists. The writings and work of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Alice Fletcher, Margaret Sanger, Pauli Murray, Janice Raymond, and Sheryl Sandberg are dissected to show their flaws and how they held back opportunities for all women by centering white women in the narrative for equality. On the flip side, the work and achievements of often-overlooked (at least in school and history books) Black, trans, and indigenous women are touted. I had no clue a trans woman activist named Sandy Stone worked tirelessly to promote trans rights in the 1970s and 1980s. Yet, I HAD heard about Anita Bryant, an anti-trans writer and singer from the same time period.
I highly recommend this book, particularly for white women. It's an essential examination of white feminism's past and present insistence on centering white, middle-class women as the only ones who deserve true equality. Instead, as Schuller advocates for here, intersectional feminism is the true goal. It centers all women, no matter economic circumstance or racial, ethnic, or gender identity. For all women to be treated equal in the world's power structures, all women need to be fought for...not just white, middle-class women.
Much thanks to @NetGalley and @HachetteAudio for the free copies of this book in exchange for an honest review.
December 28, 2025
If your brand of feminism requires pushing others down to raise yourself up, you aren’t attaining freedom, you’re doing oppression.
This book outlines all the ways that white women used (and still use) racism, homophobia, transphobia, and outright lies and manipulation to gain access to the halls of white male opportunity, while barring the gate for those they had to climb over to get there. Outlined in a few main sections, and mainly taking a point/counterpoint structure, featuring a few main figures from each arguing side, this book clearly shows the lengths that white feminists will go to ensure access and opportunity for themselves, at the expense of others.
That’s not my brand of feminism.
To be honest, I haven’t studied the history of feminism much. OK at all. I’ve read feminist books, but they’ve all been more modern - not the feminisms of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, or Gloria Steinem, or Betty Friedan, for example. Not really for any particular reason (until now), but just because more modern works appealed to me more. Likely because I’m interested in the sociopolitical and socioeconomic policies that I see harming communities every day, and those topics are the ones that I gravitate toward reading. That they often intersect with feminism is a bonus. I consider myself a feminist (not a “white feminist” though I am white, to be clear), but I’m no scholar of feminism as a topic in and of itself. I’m more interested in what that feminism is DOING. Is it helping or hurting? Is it helping EVERYONE? Or is it harming, or excluding and leaving some behind?
But this book also looks at brands of modern feminism through the lens of Sheryl Sandberg, another book I haven’t read and have no intention of reading - though I do have a reason for that one: I have no interest in “having it all”, the family AND the career AND the beautiful house AND AND AND… and working myself to the bone without complaint to get it. I don’t have to read her book to know I don’t want that life. Sure, she may be a billionaire, but “having it all” just seems like another form of social oppression to me, especially when men aren’t expected to abide by the same requirements of work and family and home. That’s not freedom, that’s playing a man’s game and being expected to keep up and even win despite half of the pieces missing, all the high-scoring board areas are blocked, and the rules say explicitly that you can never win anyway.
I can tell a con when I see one. I don’t want to play that game. But that section was still relevant and fascinating because I did see a bit of myself represented, obliquely, in less than flattering terms. Allow me to elaborate.
The counter to Sandberg in that chapter was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, someone that I hugely respect and appreciate for the clarity and directness with which she addresses the failings of policy to address systemic inequalities and lack of opportunities. She’s brilliant and I admit that she can pretty much do no wrong in my eyes. (Obviously with the caveat that this isn’t a cult, and if I found out tomorrow that she had done something horrific, I would no longer respect her and would expect and hope for her to be held accountable. Obvs.) But back to the point. Schuller was clear in her call out that we can tend to expect TOO MUCH of the people we see as this type of firebrand - the ability to put together powerful, poignant speeches on the fly, and host politically themed podcasts while playing video games on Twitch, bake cookies, and manage Twitter (refuse to call it anything else) like a champ, all while looking perfectly made up and fierce. Those expectations are astronomically high - and yet too often we tend to hold them for powerful people, EVEN WHEN those powerful people are trying to say that we should not, that grace should be given to people who don’t live up to society’s expectations, because that’s OK too, and it doesn’t make them less than.
And I admit, I did feel a bit called out. Not because I consciously expect AOC to be on Goddess-level prep for everything she ever does, but because I never really stopped to think about how much work goes into it, how exhausting that level of always on would be, how much pressure there is to be that face of a generation of new, young, progressive congresspeople speaking for us. AOC is 7 years younger than me, but I want to be her when I grow up. That’s a lot of pressure to put on a person! (Even if she doesn’t know it.)
The point is… it takes ALL KINDS to make a feminism, and we all have to help each other up and over obstacles sometimes. If I see you pushing someone else down to help yourself get over… we aren’t on the same team, and I will no longer be helping you. You can get over yourself.
Highly recommend this book.
This book outlines all the ways that white women used (and still use) racism, homophobia, transphobia, and outright lies and manipulation to gain access to the halls of white male opportunity, while barring the gate for those they had to climb over to get there. Outlined in a few main sections, and mainly taking a point/counterpoint structure, featuring a few main figures from each arguing side, this book clearly shows the lengths that white feminists will go to ensure access and opportunity for themselves, at the expense of others.
That’s not my brand of feminism.
To be honest, I haven’t studied the history of feminism much. OK at all. I’ve read feminist books, but they’ve all been more modern - not the feminisms of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, or Gloria Steinem, or Betty Friedan, for example. Not really for any particular reason (until now), but just because more modern works appealed to me more. Likely because I’m interested in the sociopolitical and socioeconomic policies that I see harming communities every day, and those topics are the ones that I gravitate toward reading. That they often intersect with feminism is a bonus. I consider myself a feminist (not a “white feminist” though I am white, to be clear), but I’m no scholar of feminism as a topic in and of itself. I’m more interested in what that feminism is DOING. Is it helping or hurting? Is it helping EVERYONE? Or is it harming, or excluding and leaving some behind?
But this book also looks at brands of modern feminism through the lens of Sheryl Sandberg, another book I haven’t read and have no intention of reading - though I do have a reason for that one: I have no interest in “having it all”, the family AND the career AND the beautiful house AND AND AND… and working myself to the bone without complaint to get it. I don’t have to read her book to know I don’t want that life. Sure, she may be a billionaire, but “having it all” just seems like another form of social oppression to me, especially when men aren’t expected to abide by the same requirements of work and family and home. That’s not freedom, that’s playing a man’s game and being expected to keep up and even win despite half of the pieces missing, all the high-scoring board areas are blocked, and the rules say explicitly that you can never win anyway.
I can tell a con when I see one. I don’t want to play that game. But that section was still relevant and fascinating because I did see a bit of myself represented, obliquely, in less than flattering terms. Allow me to elaborate.
The counter to Sandberg in that chapter was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, someone that I hugely respect and appreciate for the clarity and directness with which she addresses the failings of policy to address systemic inequalities and lack of opportunities. She’s brilliant and I admit that she can pretty much do no wrong in my eyes. (Obviously with the caveat that this isn’t a cult, and if I found out tomorrow that she had done something horrific, I would no longer respect her and would expect and hope for her to be held accountable. Obvs.) But back to the point. Schuller was clear in her call out that we can tend to expect TOO MUCH of the people we see as this type of firebrand - the ability to put together powerful, poignant speeches on the fly, and host politically themed podcasts while playing video games on Twitch, bake cookies, and manage Twitter (refuse to call it anything else) like a champ, all while looking perfectly made up and fierce. Those expectations are astronomically high - and yet too often we tend to hold them for powerful people, EVEN WHEN those powerful people are trying to say that we should not, that grace should be given to people who don’t live up to society’s expectations, because that’s OK too, and it doesn’t make them less than.
And I admit, I did feel a bit called out. Not because I consciously expect AOC to be on Goddess-level prep for everything she ever does, but because I never really stopped to think about how much work goes into it, how exhausting that level of always on would be, how much pressure there is to be that face of a generation of new, young, progressive congresspeople speaking for us. AOC is 7 years younger than me, but I want to be her when I grow up. That’s a lot of pressure to put on a person! (Even if she doesn’t know it.)
The point is… it takes ALL KINDS to make a feminism, and we all have to help each other up and over obstacles sometimes. If I see you pushing someone else down to help yourself get over… we aren’t on the same team, and I will no longer be helping you. You can get over yourself.
Highly recommend this book.
September 22, 2022
"Across the decades, white feminists’ overwhelming insistence that sex oppression is the most prominent and widespread form of oppression ironically enshrines the identity of Woman as the sine qua non of feminism while minimizing the force of sexism itself. [...] In fact, fetishizing the identity of Woman as the basis of feminist politics actually makes it more difficult to recognize sexism as a structure of exploitation and extraction."
???????????????????????????????????????????
???????????????????????????????????????????
October 14, 2021
Racist, counterproductive, and degrading. Hard pass.
January 19, 2022
The trouble with white women is we keep looking at them through the eyes of white women.
April 10, 2022
"The trouble with white feminist politics is not what it fails to address and whom it leaves out. The trouble with white feminism is what it does and whom it suppresses."
The Trouble with White Women: A Counterhistory of Feminism was a clearly written and persuasively argued look at how every era of feminism had white feminists and intersectional feminists organizing around similar issues in very different ways. I learned a ton -- both about organizers I thought I knew a good amount about as well as people who were completely new to me. This was a book that I know will stick with me for a long time. If you're interested in feminism and/or U.S. history, I'd highly recommend The Trouble with White Women.
September 19, 2025
First of all, shoutout to Bea and Jules from The Death Panel and also Melissa Gira Grant. They had a great episode titled "Statutes of Limitations" that mentioned this book and gave more grace to the book than it deserves.
I can't remember the exact section where I realized that this author couldn't handle this book and exactly why, but I realized it very early. Schuller was able to critique white feminism more easily than she was able to explain why any of the counter examples she gave actually did what she was saying they had done. That's not to say that her critique was "good," per se. I remember making an update around the Harriet Beecher Stowe/Harriet Jacobs chapter that the author couldn't handle the book, but the critiques flowed better. A lot of the examples she gave for the "counterhistory" were just good ole representation politics. Like what is the point of mentioning pocks if they're doing the exact same thing as the white women/men she's critiquing. I think the section about eugenics is when I realized she didn't know what the hell she was talking about because how is Black people parroting eugenics politics suddenly something that should be given grace? And that reminds me! The Sandberg/AOC chapter was the most egregious because they do the exact same things but somehow AOC doing it is giving "intersectional feminism." How is it that Sandberg pointing out her morning sickness is her trying to make her white feminism "girl next door adjacent," but AOC showing she's tired on Instagram, or cooking NOT the same thing. She is a politician! A wock pock being in the room does not magically make them an activist or an ally. How are you critiquing Alice C. Fletcher for working with Indian Schools but glossing over the fact that Zitkala-Sa ALSO worked for and recruited with them! But my biggest problem with this book could be boiled down to the phrase "jack of all trades, master of none." The book would have gained a lot more ground if she would have just focused on critiquing white feminism through the eras or if she HAD to give a counter-history, only focusing on one particular era/comparison. The best chapter was the Harriets and even that chapter didn't give enough to how hypocritical Stowe was (an abolitionist with a plantation!) OR focus enough on Jacobs. By the time we got to the Zitkala-Sa chapters and on it'd pretty much set in for me that their "counterhistory" was just the fact that they were there, period.
And this review is starting to get redundant but I could go on so I will just end it here.
I can't remember the exact section where I realized that this author couldn't handle this book and exactly why, but I realized it very early. Schuller was able to critique white feminism more easily than she was able to explain why any of the counter examples she gave actually did what she was saying they had done. That's not to say that her critique was "good," per se. I remember making an update around the Harriet Beecher Stowe/Harriet Jacobs chapter that the author couldn't handle the book, but the critiques flowed better. A lot of the examples she gave for the "counterhistory" were just good ole representation politics. Like what is the point of mentioning pocks if they're doing the exact same thing as the white women/men she's critiquing. I think the section about eugenics is when I realized she didn't know what the hell she was talking about because how is Black people parroting eugenics politics suddenly something that should be given grace? And that reminds me! The Sandberg/AOC chapter was the most egregious because they do the exact same things but somehow AOC doing it is giving "intersectional feminism." How is it that Sandberg pointing out her morning sickness is her trying to make her white feminism "girl next door adjacent," but AOC showing she's tired on Instagram, or cooking NOT the same thing. She is a politician! A wock pock being in the room does not magically make them an activist or an ally. How are you critiquing Alice C. Fletcher for working with Indian Schools but glossing over the fact that Zitkala-Sa ALSO worked for and recruited with them! But my biggest problem with this book could be boiled down to the phrase "jack of all trades, master of none." The book would have gained a lot more ground if she would have just focused on critiquing white feminism through the eras or if she HAD to give a counter-history, only focusing on one particular era/comparison. The best chapter was the Harriets and even that chapter didn't give enough to how hypocritical Stowe was (an abolitionist with a plantation!) OR focus enough on Jacobs. By the time we got to the Zitkala-Sa chapters and on it'd pretty much set in for me that their "counterhistory" was just the fact that they were there, period.
And this review is starting to get redundant but I could go on so I will just end it here.
January 23, 2022
“In getting history right, we also open up the chance for a new kind of future.”
Schuller’s presentation of “a counterhistory of [American] feminism” is incredibly well-researched, interestingly framed (juxtaposing two contemporaries through different waves of US feminism), and distills what could be dryly academic biographies into engaging prose. Through this work, she successfully argues the virtues of intersectional feminism vs the more myopic and harmful “white feminism”.
The unfortunate reality is that in today’s climate, I feel like I have to be delicate in my criticism of a book like this, so again, please note that I absolutely agreed with the overall thesis. While there are few different areas that I would critique in a 1:1 conversation, the one that stands out — and where this collection mostly fell short for me— was that several times I felt like the author was projecting her commitment to certain modern doctrines onto historical figures. Perhaps the research that supported these assumptions was edited out or buried in the footnotes, but I found it off-putting as a reader.
In the end, thanks to Schuller’s living intersectional feminism and citing so many incredible scholars in her book, I now have a long list of other writers and historians to check out, as well as a cavalcade of historical figures to learn about. I would definitely recommend this book if you’re interested in learning more about “who’s left out of the history books” and are comfortable sitting in the discomfort of having your assumptions challenged.
Schuller’s presentation of “a counterhistory of [American] feminism” is incredibly well-researched, interestingly framed (juxtaposing two contemporaries through different waves of US feminism), and distills what could be dryly academic biographies into engaging prose. Through this work, she successfully argues the virtues of intersectional feminism vs the more myopic and harmful “white feminism”.
The unfortunate reality is that in today’s climate, I feel like I have to be delicate in my criticism of a book like this, so again, please note that I absolutely agreed with the overall thesis. While there are few different areas that I would critique in a 1:1 conversation, the one that stands out — and where this collection mostly fell short for me— was that several times I felt like the author was projecting her commitment to certain modern doctrines onto historical figures. Perhaps the research that supported these assumptions was edited out or buried in the footnotes, but I found it off-putting as a reader.
In the end, thanks to Schuller’s living intersectional feminism and citing so many incredible scholars in her book, I now have a long list of other writers and historians to check out, as well as a cavalcade of historical figures to learn about. I would definitely recommend this book if you’re interested in learning more about “who’s left out of the history books” and are comfortable sitting in the discomfort of having your assumptions challenged.
March 20, 2025
For my own WHM read. An absolute must read for white women who are striving to be an intersectional feminist. This book helped enlighten me to some deep flaws within feminist icons, while also introducing me to new women heroes. I am looking forward to adjusting my women’s studies curriculum to be more inclusive and cognizant of white women’s wrongs
April 29, 2024
I learned a lot about the history of white feminism and thought it was very very interesting. Love the format. Would definitely recommend to all
June 25, 2024
Well-researched and well-formatted. Written in a way that's accessible to people without much familiarity with feminist history/theory but enough to chew on that it's worth reading even if you aren't new to the game. Honestly, even people who are out there right now practicing genuine intersectional feminism may not have a full understanding of the long history of white/assimilationist/bioessentialist "feminist" movements and the consistency with which people who refuse to engage with more than one axis of opression only end up strengthening the system they claim to be against. The Trouble With White Women does a solid job of building a framework from which we can better understand not only the movements of the past and present, but of the future.
December 17, 2021
One of the most important, critical, and necessary books i have ever read.
February 13, 2024
One of my favorite things, amongst many, about this book is its title. And yes I’ve read it all when it comes to picking it apart. There are the liberal white women that are turned off by the title, the ones that harbor some major discomfort but just can’t seem to admit it. Then there are the conservative / moderate white women that just call every opinion they disagree with extreme. And then there are the white women that won’t pick this book up because they don’t want to come off as a “woke know it all”. I’m not here to sit here and analyze views that I don’t associate with, so I’ll give you mine as a first generation woman of color.
Truth be told, I was skeptical when I picked this book up and saw it was written by a white woman. I’ve had bad experiences in the past reading white authors trying to formulate arguments on the basis of intersections between race, gender, sexuality etc. when they don’t hold any marginalized identities in said categories. So, Kyla Schuller was fighting an uphill battle already. That said, her choice of title sent a message to WOC that she is willing to perceive herself in an accurate light. She understands the collective harm her group has imposed on others. This title says to me, “yes, I acknowledge the harm done by my community, I do not try to separate myself from it, and I will fight to make it heard”. She’s not a white woman that claims to be above them all, nor is she one that is “instructing” other white people on race related matters (cough cough Robin DiAngelo). Instead, very gracefully, she weaves together each instance (from the very beginning) of white feminism. She starts in the mid 1800s with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony joining forces with white supremacists to suppress the passing of the 15th amendment in lieu of white women suffrage. She does in depth analyses of Alice Fletcher’s outright genocidal views on “unfit people” (essentially referring to colored, queer, and disabled persons) and her impact on the Native American community. She also explores Margaret Sanger’s birth control activism, essentially snowballing into yet another form of genocide rooted in white supremacy eugenics and scientific racism. All the above are celebrated “feminists” that high school students learn about in American history class, and the reason we don’t know about the BIWOC that made the most impact in terms of social justice is because they have been written out of history.
I think this read will come off different to different demographics (obviously). What I mean here, is that for me, as a woman of color, it very much validated my experiences growing up in a white world and being friends with mostly white women. There’s this one quote that I actually just sat with for a minute because I so deeply resonated with it.
When it is a question of race, I let the lesser question of sex go. But the white women always go for sex, letting race occupy a minor position - Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
I can’t speak to exactly what white women think when they read this, but I imagine it is uncomfortable to confront one’s own subconscious and implicit biases. White feminism is so deeply entrenched in our society, that I truly don’t think any white woman can be free of it until they continuously educate themselves and seek the truth about white female historical complicity in perpetuating systems of oppression. This book is a great start.
Truth be told, I was skeptical when I picked this book up and saw it was written by a white woman. I’ve had bad experiences in the past reading white authors trying to formulate arguments on the basis of intersections between race, gender, sexuality etc. when they don’t hold any marginalized identities in said categories. So, Kyla Schuller was fighting an uphill battle already. That said, her choice of title sent a message to WOC that she is willing to perceive herself in an accurate light. She understands the collective harm her group has imposed on others. This title says to me, “yes, I acknowledge the harm done by my community, I do not try to separate myself from it, and I will fight to make it heard”. She’s not a white woman that claims to be above them all, nor is she one that is “instructing” other white people on race related matters (cough cough Robin DiAngelo). Instead, very gracefully, she weaves together each instance (from the very beginning) of white feminism. She starts in the mid 1800s with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony joining forces with white supremacists to suppress the passing of the 15th amendment in lieu of white women suffrage. She does in depth analyses of Alice Fletcher’s outright genocidal views on “unfit people” (essentially referring to colored, queer, and disabled persons) and her impact on the Native American community. She also explores Margaret Sanger’s birth control activism, essentially snowballing into yet another form of genocide rooted in white supremacy eugenics and scientific racism. All the above are celebrated “feminists” that high school students learn about in American history class, and the reason we don’t know about the BIWOC that made the most impact in terms of social justice is because they have been written out of history.
I think this read will come off different to different demographics (obviously). What I mean here, is that for me, as a woman of color, it very much validated my experiences growing up in a white world and being friends with mostly white women. There’s this one quote that I actually just sat with for a minute because I so deeply resonated with it.
When it is a question of race, I let the lesser question of sex go. But the white women always go for sex, letting race occupy a minor position - Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
I can’t speak to exactly what white women think when they read this, but I imagine it is uncomfortable to confront one’s own subconscious and implicit biases. White feminism is so deeply entrenched in our society, that I truly don’t think any white woman can be free of it until they continuously educate themselves and seek the truth about white female historical complicity in perpetuating systems of oppression. This book is a great start.
February 18, 2022
I was curious to read this "counterhistory of feminism", especially in light of recent events and conversations, including how white women voted in the last presidential elections, how they benefit from affirmative action, their role in upholding white supremacy, etc. Didn't know much about the book or author but it was promoted at my local library so it seemed like a good pick up. Schuller takes a perhaps different approach by talking about well-known white feminists and looking their work really relies on the labor of Black, indigenous, poor, queer, and trans women.
Overall, the book was very dull. It's well-researched, but extremely dry and as critical reviews note, it perhaps focuses too much on the white women whose names we typically already know or have easier reference to rather than the underrepresented whose names we do not. It does feel rather repetitive and does not do what it quite sets out to do. For me the framing might have worked better if it had been framed a little differently by focusing on the lesser known women from marginalized groups more.
That said, there's certainly value to this. As a work that discusses feminism in a more comprehensive manner (as opposed to previous works or studies), it is probably useful to have or to begin but of course no book or work can be an "everything" resource to everyone.
Was it useful? Yes. Is there stuff to learn here? Also yes. Will this work for everyone? No. You can tell from some of the negative reviews is that there are some who will never be interested, even if it comes from another white woman, as I understand Schuller is.
I got this as a library borrow but wouldn't be surprised if it shows up as a textbook for college classes. Overall would recommend borrowing it from the library to at least decide if you need to buy it for a reference.
Overall, the book was very dull. It's well-researched, but extremely dry and as critical reviews note, it perhaps focuses too much on the white women whose names we typically already know or have easier reference to rather than the underrepresented whose names we do not. It does feel rather repetitive and does not do what it quite sets out to do. For me the framing might have worked better if it had been framed a little differently by focusing on the lesser known women from marginalized groups more.
That said, there's certainly value to this. As a work that discusses feminism in a more comprehensive manner (as opposed to previous works or studies), it is probably useful to have or to begin but of course no book or work can be an "everything" resource to everyone.
Was it useful? Yes. Is there stuff to learn here? Also yes. Will this work for everyone? No. You can tell from some of the negative reviews is that there are some who will never be interested, even if it comes from another white woman, as I understand Schuller is.
I got this as a library borrow but wouldn't be surprised if it shows up as a textbook for college classes. Overall would recommend borrowing it from the library to at least decide if you need to buy it for a reference.
December 19, 2021
The sorts of ad hominem attacks this book has provoked from white feminists indicates its necessity. It is an honest look at white feminism and the implications of its compliance with white supremacy. It's refreshing to know that some white women are able to assess the larger context accurately.
It is shocking that truth presented in an honest way is countered with infantile temper tantrums as are found in these reviews. The primary narcissism displayed by such phrases as 'you don't get to dictate feminism to me' followed by one long whine-fest of faux-victimization, as well as defense reactions to the title, dovetail with Robin DiAngelo's White Fragility.
It doesn't matter how many temper tantrums infantile white feminists have in their zeal to regress to primary narcissism. Intersectional feminists will continue to move forward, even if they are clinging to our calves and whining like two year olds.
It's shameful that they cannot seem to evaluate the book objectively because they cannot seem to tolerate the reality of their unjust enrichment.
It is shocking that truth presented in an honest way is countered with infantile temper tantrums as are found in these reviews. The primary narcissism displayed by such phrases as 'you don't get to dictate feminism to me' followed by one long whine-fest of faux-victimization, as well as defense reactions to the title, dovetail with Robin DiAngelo's White Fragility.
It doesn't matter how many temper tantrums infantile white feminists have in their zeal to regress to primary narcissism. Intersectional feminists will continue to move forward, even if they are clinging to our calves and whining like two year olds.
It's shameful that they cannot seem to evaluate the book objectively because they cannot seem to tolerate the reality of their unjust enrichment.
March 7, 2024
This book illustrates how complex of humans we all are! The book is enjoyable to read - very clear, story-like, historical writing. The chapter connecting TERFs and whiteness was particularly insightful to me. It was odd, then, to me, that the author did such a beautiful job articulating the ways that TERFs have caused significant harm in the history of the movement, and then relies on the phrase "men and women" to discuss "all people" throughout the conclusion. As someone finishing up writing a book myself, I am cautious with this critique as I know we all unknowingly use language that doesn't sit well with others, yet I do urge us, as "intersectional feminists" (author's words), to remove the phrase "men and women" from our vocabularies and writing.
January 27, 2022
Found my way to this book via my best friend and our shared love of Dr. Brittney Cooper, and loved every second of it. Kyla Schuller's research and writing shine brightly, and the way she spotlights overlooked activists in feminist history by analyzing them right alongside the often-written about white women is a brilliant way to discuss how specific a brand of politics "white feminism" is and how harmful it is as an ideology.
What's important about this book is that it reminds me the "big names" such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Margaret Sanger were often merely side notes or cutesy info boxes in my history books (in the style of 'and oh, this is what the little ladies were doing while real history was happening!' in the margins). The erasure of non-cis, non-straight, non-white women is emphasized even more heavily when juxtaposed with how little attention is given even to white feminists. In exploring the history of these women, those remembered and those forgotten, side by side, the propensity of white women to take up all of the limited space men give us at the table is artfully exposed, and rightly judged persistently and perniciously harmful.
I loved the way this book was written, and loved what I learned from it; its definitely a book I will consider a key part of my journey to be a better feminist as each day goes by. And it comes highly recommended by Brittney Cooper, who is probably my favorite contemporary feminist, and who provides the foreword for this book.
My only caveat is that I found Schuller's chapter on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes to lack the analytical skill the rest of the book was so good at. I find AOC to be flat-out obnoxious, and Schuller seemed to be more interested in writing AOC starstruck love-letters than continuing with her analyses, though she made good points. I thought her purpose would have been better served if she'd chosen Stacy Abrams, Rashida Tlaib, or Ayanna Pressley.
What's important about this book is that it reminds me the "big names" such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Margaret Sanger were often merely side notes or cutesy info boxes in my history books (in the style of 'and oh, this is what the little ladies were doing while real history was happening!' in the margins). The erasure of non-cis, non-straight, non-white women is emphasized even more heavily when juxtaposed with how little attention is given even to white feminists. In exploring the history of these women, those remembered and those forgotten, side by side, the propensity of white women to take up all of the limited space men give us at the table is artfully exposed, and rightly judged persistently and perniciously harmful.
I loved the way this book was written, and loved what I learned from it; its definitely a book I will consider a key part of my journey to be a better feminist as each day goes by. And it comes highly recommended by Brittney Cooper, who is probably my favorite contemporary feminist, and who provides the foreword for this book.
My only caveat is that I found Schuller's chapter on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes to lack the analytical skill the rest of the book was so good at. I find AOC to be flat-out obnoxious, and Schuller seemed to be more interested in writing AOC starstruck love-letters than continuing with her analyses, though she made good points. I thought her purpose would have been better served if she'd chosen Stacy Abrams, Rashida Tlaib, or Ayanna Pressley.
July 16, 2021
Reviewed/Posted: July 16, 2021
Pub Date: Oct 5, 2021
I recieved a digital Advanced Readers Copy of 'The Trouble With White Women: A Counterhistory of Feminism' by Kyla Schuller from Netgalley and Bold Type Books.
'The Trouble with White Women' is a concise history of feminism in the United States. Schuller portrays white feminists such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Margaret Sanger, whose brand of feminism seeks to place white women, particularly middle and upper class white women, in positions traditionally belonging to white men within the structures of inequality that our society upholds. However, she contrasts these white feminists with a counterhistory of feminism, using the histories of Zitkala-Sa, Pauli Murray, and Sandy Stone to give the reader a history of what many now recognize as intersectional feminism.
Without resorting to a simple narrative of white guilt, Schuller uses well researched history to show that a patriarchal society can only be dismantled in favor of equality for all women if other systems, such as white supremacy, colonialism, and capitalism, are dismantled alongside it.
Schuller expertly utilizes history to show us our options for the feminist movement going forward, and how we can make society a more equitable one for everyone.
Pub Date: Oct 5, 2021
I recieved a digital Advanced Readers Copy of 'The Trouble With White Women: A Counterhistory of Feminism' by Kyla Schuller from Netgalley and Bold Type Books.
'The Trouble with White Women' is a concise history of feminism in the United States. Schuller portrays white feminists such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Margaret Sanger, whose brand of feminism seeks to place white women, particularly middle and upper class white women, in positions traditionally belonging to white men within the structures of inequality that our society upholds. However, she contrasts these white feminists with a counterhistory of feminism, using the histories of Zitkala-Sa, Pauli Murray, and Sandy Stone to give the reader a history of what many now recognize as intersectional feminism.
Without resorting to a simple narrative of white guilt, Schuller uses well researched history to show that a patriarchal society can only be dismantled in favor of equality for all women if other systems, such as white supremacy, colonialism, and capitalism, are dismantled alongside it.
Schuller expertly utilizes history to show us our options for the feminist movement going forward, and how we can make society a more equitable one for everyone.
August 23, 2024
I never write reviews for books, but I would recommend this to EVERY feminist I know who is white, and does not want to be solely a white-feminist.
Dense history I will likely listen to a few times to fully take in. Discusses intersectional issues like race (specifically black and indigenous), birth control and abortion, SES, LGBTQ+ issues, and the trouble with the “having it all” mentality.
Dense history I will likely listen to a few times to fully take in. Discusses intersectional issues like race (specifically black and indigenous), birth control and abortion, SES, LGBTQ+ issues, and the trouble with the “having it all” mentality.
April 1, 2022
A must read for anybody but especially white people and ESPECIALLY for white women. I never stopped learning and never stopped being impressed.
June 7, 2025
The only problem with this book is the very people who should read it never will. Excellent historic look at the history of feminism, specifically the ugly truth behind white feminism. A must read.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 158 reviews