Books like Beyond the Pale: White Women, Racism, and History

This book deserves to be read much more than it seems to be getting read. I lost count of how many times the author said things like "I didn't find much material on this". I've read a number of books that critique mainstream/white feminism for its racism and related fails, but this is the first book I've read that focuses explicitly on racism/whiteness/white supremacy in women's activism and feminism, and it's helpful to see this history in context.According to Ware, numerous white women were active in abolitionist movement. Some women drew parallels between slavery and their own status as chattel of their husbands, and the experience of abolitionist activism helped feminists formulate their own strategies. Ware analyses how ideas about femininity shaped and were shaped by participation in these movements. After abolition, it seems that most women took little interest in race issues, and where they did consider racist oppression, it was often from a broadly imperialist perspective. A number of white women went to India in the Victorian period to educate (perhaps read "civilize") women there, but it seems they were hampered by their own racist attitudes and by the inevitably toxic atmosphere.Far more important than what they themselves did and thought, is how white women were seen and used. Throughout the history of white supremacy, the white woman has been weaponised against people (especially men) of colour. Any possible threat to the person or honour of a white woman by a man of colour has historically been returned with deadly, collective, and otherwise wildly disproportionate violence. The threat to or abuse of the woman can be imagined or fabricated if an excuse for such violence is needed, if a rebellion needs to be put down, for instance. Ware also brings in some analysis of relevant literature such as A Passage to India.Particularly interesting to me was the material on and around Ida B Wells, obviously not a white woman herself, but a black female USian activist and anti-lynching campaigner who received some (direct and meaningful) support from white women, notably in the UK, where they offered her lodgings and accompanied her on her speaking tours of the country. Ware quotes some of Ida B Wells' remarks about white women involved in cases of lynching. Wells pointed out that white women chose to associate with black men and that society refused to tolerate such associations and punished black men involved in them with torture and death. Ware compares this feminist perspective, which blames the racist patriarchal culture, not the white women involved, and seeks social change, with the views of one of her supporters, Isabella Mayo, who took a more conservative view of female sexuality and racial politics, blaming the white women for bringing trouble to black men. Other women in the temperance movement, which seems to have been a major outlet for women's activism, were not at all sympathetic to the anti-lynching cause. Wells' views seem to have accorded more closely with those of Catherine Impey, a British woman who founded and edited the magazine Anti-Caste, and seems to have genuinely wanted to serve and further the interests of oppressed people of colour. Ware includes a fascinating story about Ida B Wells, Catherine Impey and Isabella Mayo that throws the state of gender and race relations at the time into sharp relief. The three women were staying together in Isabella Mayo's house in Aberdeen, as was a student from Sri Lanka (referred to by the British as Ceylon at the time) called George Ferdinands, and then they set off on a tour, Catherine Impey going on ahead. A few days after setting out, she sent a letter to George Ferdinands proposing marriage to him, saying she returned the affections she believed he felt for her but was unwilling to express due being a member of "the darker races". The man was so shocked he showed the letter to Isabella Mayo, who was scandalised, and demanded that Ida condemn Catherine and refuse to associate with her. Ida was upset. She felt Catherine had made a mistake but not done anything terrible, so she remained friends with her, so Isabella cut Ida off too, causing serious problems for her on that particular visit.The last chapter/essay explores some more contemporary tendencies of white feminism to be racist and imperialist, which is more familiar ground, but still valuable. Ware's advice for white feminists on doing better hasn't lost any of its relevance.