Hi Kathryn,

I appreciate your response. Thanks for being willing to talk about this in public. It's important, I think.

For me, it is a dangerous assertion that intersectional feminism has become a form of sexism against all women. That feels tied up in a lack of willingness to dig deep into our own pain. White women HAVE been taught to weaponize our tears. We use them to garner sympathy and avoid accountability (even when we don't intend to sometimes). It's so tricky!

I want to be clear. That doesn't mean our pain, or very real, lived experiences of sexism don't matter. I want you to hear that I have those experiences too. They have shaped me profoundly, and been impossibly hard. I honor yours too. They are tender, raw, and often so, so difficult.

It does mean, however, that white women have learned how to weaponize our pain to re-center the conversation on us. We can quickly inflict violence on BIPOC women in this centering without even meaning to. I won't write another article in the comments, but the weaponizing of white women's tears is something I've been guilty of at points too. Of course! I've been socialized into whiteness. Luvvie Ajayi wrote it best: “We talk about toxic masculinity,” Ajayi warns, “but there is (also) toxicity in wielding femininity in this way.”

I also want to say explicitly that trans-inclusive feminism is not negotiable for me, so I am VERY leary of language that makes it sound as if only the experiences of women who are assigned female at birth are part of the feminist world. This may not at all have been your intention, but I just need to be explicit about that in this space. I'm here for all women and folks with experiences of lived misogyny. And, we can do that and honor the unique pieces of each of our lived experiences as they pertain to both sex and gender.

And now I've written more than I intended. :) Thanks again for the dialogue.