There are two scenes in the bestselling series Princess that have stayed with me long after I had finished reading the books that recount the true story of a Saudi princess, ghost written by Jean Sasson. She is from a wealthy family, dripping with privilege, but her gender means that she is forever constrained. Despite wealth that would make your eyes water, it is a life devoid of freedom, self-determination and self-expression.
In one scene as she despairs of her lot, her maid is busy massaging her feet. Engrossed in her own misery — as all of us too often are — she remains oblivious that this woman has left her home and family, is just as trapped in the household and must work. While the princess bemoans her own suffering due to being a woman, her privilege makes her completely blind to the suffering of the woman barely inches away from her.
The US elections tell us the same story, white women shored up their privilege by siding with white men rather than reaching across class and racial divides to address deep seated abuse of all women.
Fifty three per cent of white women voted for Donald Trump, despite him bragging about sexual assault. Despite openly saying he rates women by their looks. Despite calling women names. Despite stating that he looked at underage naked girls behind the scenes at beauty pageants.
Race has Trump(ed) gender.
But for race, you can read wealth, ethnicity, religion or any other privilege.
It just so happens that in the United States it is being white that confers significant advantages upon you. The narrative that white people are being oppressed because their rights are being taken away by minorities or women just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Instead, it’s a euphemism for something quite simple: white people have privilege, and many of them don’t want to share it around.
White women preferred to keep their white privilege, accepting that the discrimination and violence that they themselves suffer as women was the price they would pay.
Let’s not be complacent. Women everywhere need to ask themselves, if it was a choice between protecting what privilege they have or reaching across to those women who suffer far more despite our own vested interests, what would they do? Our Saudi princess story, though stark, is telling for these very reasons. It happens everywhere. Those who have some privilege within the system are unwilling to give it away, even if it is to their own detriment. Think about the heartbreaking stories in India where mother-in-laws turn their daughters-in-law into slaves for the household. Or the women who abort girl foetus in the misguided notion that a baby boy confers status on them. These are examples of women supporting a system designed to oppress them because they can salvage a little privilege for themselves over other women, and over other men too of less privileged backgrounds.
The actions of the white American women must be called out and challenged as a betrayal of women including themselves. We need to learn the lesson fast to reach out from privileged positions to raise standards for everyone. Don’t shore up your own privilege. Extend it to those around you.
Shelina Janmohamed is the author of Generation M: Young Muslims Changing the World
