The 'Gender Lens' by Sarah C. White: Summary

In her research paper, White brings up an important issue to light. That is, race is often ignored due to all the importance given to gender and sexuality. White states that, focus on gender and gender-related issues makes race and race-related issues appear less important, if not, completely ignored. But in reality, issues related to race often go hand in hand with gender based issues. The aim of her research paper was to bring importance of race and its issues into discussion alongside gender.

While working on this paper, she came across various obstacles. For example, she realized how race-based issues are worked upon so seldom and whatever little work there was, it was moved aside. Next, she found out how she herself was guilty of referencing her works as white-washed in the past. 

White correlates gender with race by giving the example of the second wave of feminism in the 1960s, which included the civil rights movement in USA. She claims that racial awareness along with gender awareness was vastly important in that time. Furthermore, she adds that race and race-related issues should be included within the domains of GAD. But she does not forget to address the lack of absolutism about race. Just as gender, race is controversial and broad in terms of definitions.

By gender lens, White means that, the issues related to gender makes one overlook the issues related to race; and even if someone wants to tackle race based issues, he or she views the problem from a gender-based perspective. She also points out the problem with applying Western Feminism in third-world countries. She mentions that, while teaching women about empowerment, it simultaneously makes them unlearn about their folk knowledge, which leads to the race-based issue. She further mentions the inclusivity and importance of black feminism in order to address different race and gender issues. Moreover, she notes out how writers of black feminism were generally ignored or white-washed throughout the history of feminism. All in all, the goal of White’s paper was to bring awareness to the fact that race cannot be ignored whenever gender is discussed since both of the discourses are equally as diverse and needs to be addressed sufficiently. Her paper also highlighted the importance of Black Feminism.