White women try to "reclaim power" through #vanillagirl and #cleangirl beauty posts??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Holy crap, just read the Steffi Cao essay that the piece was predicated on, and... wow.

"The white girl’s soft power is in victimhood. And without it, they are unable to afford the luxuries of committing violence under the guise of it, as they have done for decades."

I, uh, am struggling with my allyship in this moment.

Random but I always think back to this article I stumbled upon. I think the purpose is to anger the reader: https://mmosner.medium.com/6-reasons-why-schitts-creek-is-the-worst-show-on-tv-1a44d7015114

Oh God, why did I read that. My poor brain.

[Anonymous]

This thread is a circular firing squad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a woman of color and I find the article silly. What I guess I don't understand is the tremendous outrage it seems to have triggered here among white women. If you think it's dumb, that's fine, but what is it about this that makes white women so damn fragile about it all?

Being constantly told you’re a “Karen,” being constantly told you are not recognizing your privilege (never mind people having no idea what struggles you or your family have faced), being constantly told you’re a “basic B” or “have no culture,” being constantly told you’re not recognizing other people (again, when people don’t actually know who you are or what you’ve done), being told you’re not an ally, or not ally enough, or that your allyship is “performative,” being constantly told you are “fragile”…basically, you are never doing it right. Which is all fine and part of life and not a hard burden to bear, but it is never-ending.

I’m a white woman and no one tells me those things (let alone constantly!!!)

Have you considered that this experience of how you feel labeled as a basic Karen may have more to do with your personality than your race?

I’m not saying it’s necessarily me, personally. But white women (especially of a certain age) are a very easy demographic to make fun of and criticize, and that often plays out in the news, social media, pop culture, etc.

NP. It is possible that white woman as a demographic group have enforced racist and other deeply harmful structures and also at the same time, white women as a demographic group have been subjected to horrifying misogyny and ageism. Both can be simultaneously true.

I…never said otherwise.

A poster who identified herself as a woman of color asked a question. I answered it. She thanked me, I thanked her. And then other white women took it upon themselves to tear apart my personal response to a personal question. *I never said* that white women were not a part of deeply harmful structures. Now did I?

[Anonymous]

I don’t think it’s good for people’s mental health to constantly read these things clearly meant to produce outrage/defensiveness. Do yourself a favor and mind your business and stop being a rube and falling into the clickbait-rage trap!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a woman of color and I find the article silly. What I guess I don't understand is the tremendous outrage it seems to have triggered here among white women. If you think it's dumb, that's fine, but what is it about this that makes white women so damn fragile about it all?

Being constantly told you’re a “Karen,” being constantly told you are not recognizing your privilege (never mind people having no idea what struggles you or your family have faced), being constantly told you’re a “basic B” or “have no culture,” being constantly told you’re not recognizing other people (again, when people don’t actually know who you are or what you’ve done), being told you’re not an ally, or not ally enough, or that your allyship is “performative,” being constantly told you are “fragile”…basically, you are never doing it right. Which is all fine and part of life and not a hard burden to bear, but it is never-ending.

I’m a white woman and no one tells me those things (let alone constantly!!!)

Have you considered that this experience of how you feel labeled as a basic Karen may have more to do with your personality than your race?

I’m not saying it’s necessarily me, personally. But white women (especially of a certain age) are a very easy demographic to make fun of and criticize, and that often plays out in the news, social media, pop culture, etc.

NP. It is possible that white woman as a demographic group have enforced racist and other deeply harmful structures and also at the same time, white women as a demographic group have been subjected to horrifying misogyny and ageism. Both can be simultaneously true.

I…never said otherwise.

A poster who identified herself as a woman of color asked a question. I answered it. She thanked me, I thanked her. And then other white women took it upon themselves to tear apart my personal response to a personal question. *I never said* that white women were not a part of deeply harmful structures. Now did I?

I wasn’t disagreeing with you and it’s odd you assumed I was.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a woman of color and I find the article silly. What I guess I don't understand is the tremendous outrage it seems to have triggered here among white women. If you think it's dumb, that's fine, but what is it about this that makes white women so damn fragile about it all?

Being constantly told you’re a “Karen,” being constantly told you are not recognizing your privilege (never mind people having no idea what struggles you or your family have faced), being constantly told you’re a “basic B” or “have no culture,” being constantly told you’re not recognizing other people (again, when people don’t actually know who you are or what you’ve done), being told you’re not an ally, or not ally enough, or that your allyship is “performative,” being constantly told you are “fragile”…basically, you are never doing it right. Which is all fine and part of life and not a hard burden to bear, but it is never-ending.

I’m a white woman and no one tells me those things (let alone constantly!!!)

Have you considered that this experience of how you feel labeled as a basic Karen may have more to do with your personality than your race?

I’m not saying it’s necessarily me, personally. But white women (especially of a certain age) are a very easy demographic to make fun of and criticize, and that often plays out in the news, social media, pop culture, etc.

NP. It is possible that white woman as a demographic group have enforced racist and other deeply harmful structures and also at the same time, white women as a demographic group have been subjected to horrifying misogyny and ageism. Both can be simultaneously true.

I…never said otherwise.

A poster who identified herself as a woman of color asked a question. I answered it. She thanked me, I thanked her. And then other white women took it upon themselves to tear apart my personal response to a personal question. *I never said* that white women were not a part of deeply harmful structures. Now did I?

I wasn’t disagreeing with you and it’s odd you assumed I was.

You acted like you had some big point to make based on what I said.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a woman of color and I find the article silly. What I guess I don't understand is the tremendous outrage it seems to have triggered here among white women. If you think it's dumb, that's fine, but what is it about this that makes white women so damn fragile about it all?

Being constantly told you’re a “Karen,” being constantly told you are not recognizing your privilege (never mind people having no idea what struggles you or your family have faced), being constantly told you’re a “basic B” or “have no culture,” being constantly told you’re not recognizing other people (again, when people don’t actually know who you are or what you’ve done), being told you’re not an ally, or not ally enough, or that your allyship is “performative,” being constantly told you are “fragile”…basically, you are never doing it right. Which is all fine and part of life and not a hard burden to bear, but it is never-ending.

I’m a white woman and no one tells me those things (let alone constantly!!!)

Have you considered that this experience of how you feel labeled as a basic Karen may have more to do with your personality than your race?

I’m not saying it’s necessarily me, personally. But white women (especially of a certain age) are a very easy demographic to make fun of and criticize, and that often plays out in the news, social media, pop culture, etc.

NP. It is possible that white woman as a demographic group have enforced racist and other deeply harmful structures and also at the same time, white women as a demographic group have been subjected to horrifying misogyny and ageism. Both can be simultaneously true.

I…never said otherwise.

A poster who identified herself as a woman of color asked a question. I answered it. She thanked me, I thanked her. And then other white women took it upon themselves to tear apart my personal response to a personal question. *I never said* that white women were not a part of deeply harmful structures. Now did I?

I wasn’t disagreeing with you and it’s odd you assumed I was.

You acted like you had some big point to make based on what I said.

Good Lord. Get rid of your victim complex. It’s a post on a message board. How embarrassing for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Considering the only current household name ballerina is black, associating balletcore with whiteness seems very silly. Anyway. I don’t think any of these aesthetic trends are uniquely white. They are probably uniquely UMC, but obviously it’s not only white people who are wealthy.

Misty Copeland is celebrated because of how incredibly unusual it is for a star ballerina to be black. Ballet is overwhelmingly associated with whiteness and thinness.

Cool, can you come up with a single while ballerina with similar levels of fame?

Gelsey Kirkland.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a woman of color and I find the article silly. What I guess I don't understand is the tremendous outrage it seems to have triggered here among white women. If you think it's dumb, that's fine, but what is it about this that makes white women so damn fragile about it all?

Being constantly told you’re a “Karen,” being constantly told you are not recognizing your privilege (never mind people having no idea what struggles you or your family have faced), being constantly told you’re a “basic B” or “have no culture,” being constantly told you’re not recognizing other people (again, when people don’t actually know who you are or what you’ve done), being told you’re not an ally, or not ally enough, or that your allyship is “performative,” being constantly told you are “fragile”…basically, you are never doing it right. Which is all fine and part of life and not a hard burden to bear, but it is never-ending.

I’m a white woman and no one tells me those things (let alone constantly!!!)

Have you considered that this experience of how you feel labeled as a basic Karen may have more to do with your personality than your race?

I’m not saying it’s necessarily me, personally. But white women (especially of a certain age) are a very easy demographic to make fun of and criticize, and that often plays out in the news, social media, pop culture, etc.

NP. It is possible that white woman as a demographic group have enforced racist and other deeply harmful structures and also at the same time, white women as a demographic group have been subjected to horrifying misogyny and ageism. Both can be simultaneously true.

I…never said otherwise.

A poster who identified herself as a woman of color asked a question. I answered it. She thanked me, I thanked her. And then other white women took it upon themselves to tear apart my personal response to a personal question. *I never said* that white women were not a part of deeply harmful structures. Now did I?

I wasn’t disagreeing with you and it’s odd you assumed I was.

You acted like you had some big point to make based on what I said.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

My God.

[Anonymous]

[twitter]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a woman of color and I find the article silly. What I guess I don't understand is the tremendous outrage it seems to have triggered here among white women. If you think it's dumb, that's fine, but what is it about this that makes white women so damn fragile about it all?

Being constantly told you’re a “Karen,” being constantly told you are not recognizing your privilege (never mind people having no idea what struggles you or your family have faced), being constantly told you’re a “basic B” or “have no culture,” being constantly told you’re not recognizing other people (again, when people don’t actually know who you are or what you’ve done), being told you’re not an ally, or not ally enough, or that your allyship is “performative,” being constantly told you are “fragile”…basically, you are never doing it right. Which is all fine and part of life and not a hard burden to bear, but it is never-ending.

I’m a white woman and no one tells me those things (let alone constantly!!!)

Have you considered that this experience of how you feel labeled as a basic Karen may have more to do with your personality than your race?

I’m not saying it’s necessarily me, personally. But white women (especially of a certain age) are a very easy demographic to make fun of and criticize, and that often plays out in the news, social media, pop culture, etc.

NP. It is possible that white woman as a demographic group have enforced racist and other deeply harmful structures and also at the same time, white women as a demographic group have been subjected to horrifying misogyny and ageism. Both can be simultaneously true.

I…never said otherwise.

A poster who identified herself as a woman of color asked a question. I answered it. She thanked me, I thanked her. And then other white women took it upon themselves to tear apart my personal response to a personal question. *I never said* that white women were not a part of deeply harmful structures. Now did I?

I wasn’t disagreeing with you and it’s odd you assumed I was.

You acted like you had some big point to make based on what I said.

Good Lord. Get rid of your victim complex. It’s a post on a message board. How embarrassing for you.

Ah, when you can’t make a point you go to insults. Got it.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thank you. I really appreciate some of the insightful posts here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:[twitter]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a woman of color and I find the article silly. What I guess I don't understand is the tremendous outrage it seems to have triggered here among white women. If you think it's dumb, that's fine, but what is it about this that makes white women so damn fragile about it all?

Being constantly told you’re a “Karen,” being constantly told you are not recognizing your privilege (never mind people having no idea what struggles you or your family have faced), being constantly told you’re a “basic B” or “have no culture,” being constantly told you’re not recognizing other people (again, when people don’t actually know who you are or what you’ve done), being told you’re not an ally, or not ally enough, or that your allyship is “performative,” being constantly told you are “fragile”…basically, you are never doing it right. Which is all fine and part of life and not a hard burden to bear, but it is never-ending.

I’m a white woman and no one tells me those things (let alone constantly!!!)

Have you considered that this experience of how you feel labeled as a basic Karen may have more to do with your personality than your race?

I’m not saying it’s necessarily me, personally. But white women (especially of a certain age) are a very easy demographic to make fun of and criticize, and that often plays out in the news, social media, pop culture, etc.

NP. It is possible that white woman as a demographic group have enforced racist and other deeply harmful structures and also at the same time, white women as a demographic group have been subjected to horrifying misogyny and ageism. Both can be simultaneously true.

I…never said otherwise.

A poster who identified herself as a woman of color asked a question. I answered it. She thanked me, I thanked her. And then other white women took it upon themselves to tear apart my personal response to a personal question. *I never said* that white women were not a part of deeply harmful structures. Now did I?

I wasn’t disagreeing with you and it’s odd you assumed I was.

You acted like you had some big point to make based on what I said.

Good Lord. Get rid of your victim complex. It’s a post on a message board. How embarrassing for you.

Ah, when you can’t make a point you go to insults. Got it.

Are you trying to be an object lesson in white woman fragility or something?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was listening to NPR yesterday while doing chores, and the "It's Been a Minute" segment came on.

They interviewed a Buzzfeed reporter, Steffi Cao, who has written that white women feel they've lost some of their political/power/beauty influence, and these #cleangirl and #vanillagirl trends are an attempt to reclaim some of that.

To kick it off, host Brittany Luse chats with Buzzfeed News internet reporter Steffi Cao about her essay, "white women want their power back: on bbls and balletcore, and the entropy of aesthetic." After scrolling on Instagram Reels, Steffi noticed that the clean girl, coastal grandmother and – most importantly – the vanilla girl trends are all ushering in a very specific aesthetic. Brittany and Steffi talk beauty as soft power and the rebrand of white womanhood.
https://www.npr.org/2023/03/28/1166458384/the-vanilla-girl-trend-shows-that-beauty-is-power

I just sat listening, incredulous, to the entire interview. It was the most bizarre thing I have ever listened to on NPR.

For context, I'm in my mid 50s, white, and have always liked minimalist everything. Minimal makeup, minimal manicure, etc. Other than perhaps my age, I'm everything she is talking about.

Having said that, since there has been a consistent push against cultural appropriation (which she touches on with the Kardashians and Miley Cyrus), I find it puzzling that she finds negative intent[b] in just being stereotypically white. She may find it boring, but I'm not sure why she thinks it's an attempt at a power grab.

I'm 100% behind centering women of color without appropriating their innovation and creativity as my own. But that doesn't mean if white women (mostly white, because there are some women of color posting in some of these trends) are posting about oval nails, delicate jewelry, or scandi home decor, it means they are trying to erase the popularity of other great content by women of color.

So, my question to the younger, more with-it crowd here, is this idea completely off its rocker, which is how it seems to me? Or am I missing some more nuanced cultural shift here?

I think it's a very silly idea that there is some organic, grass roots movement among white women to "reclaim" so-called traditional beauty standards that were, as a PP noted, created and enforced by white men.

Now if she had definitively connected these hashtags to the larger, current white supremacy movement, part of which is being driven by foreign interference she might have had something there. (Not that I am saying there is a connection, to be clear.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[twitter]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a woman of color and I find the article silly. What I guess I don't understand is the tremendous outrage it seems to have triggered here among white women. If you think it's dumb, that's fine, but what is it about this that makes white women so damn fragile about it all?

Being constantly told you’re a “Karen,” being constantly told you are not recognizing your privilege (never mind people having no idea what struggles you or your family have faced), being constantly told you’re a “basic B” or “have no culture,” being constantly told you’re not recognizing other people (again, when people don’t actually know who you are or what you’ve done), being told you’re not an ally, or not ally enough, or that your allyship is “performative,” being constantly told you are “fragile”…basically, you are never doing it right. Which is all fine and part of life and not a hard burden to bear, but it is never-ending.

I’m a white woman and no one tells me those things (let alone constantly!!!)

Have you considered that this experience of how you feel labeled as a basic Karen may have more to do with your personality than your race?

I’m not saying it’s necessarily me, personally. But white women (especially of a certain age) are a very easy demographic to make fun of and criticize, and that often plays out in the news, social media, pop culture, etc.

NP. It is possible that white woman as a demographic group have enforced racist and other deeply harmful structures and also at the same time, white women as a demographic group have been subjected to horrifying misogyny and ageism. Both can be simultaneously true.

I…never said otherwise.

A poster who identified herself as a woman of color asked a question. I answered it. She thanked me, I thanked her. And then other white women took it upon themselves to tear apart my personal response to a personal question. *I never said* that white women were not a part of deeply harmful structures. Now did I?

I wasn’t disagreeing with you and it’s odd you assumed I was.

You acted like you had some big point to make based on what I said.

Good Lord. Get rid of your victim complex. It’s a post on a message board. How embarrassing for you.

Ah, when you can’t make a point you go to insults. Got it.

Are you trying to be an object lesson in white woman fragility or something?

When someone disagrees with you or holds a viewpoint that is different than yours, they are “fragile.” When someone challenges something you say, they are “fragile.” How very interesting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Considering the only current household name ballerina is black, associating balletcore with whiteness seems very silly. Anyway. I don’t think any of these aesthetic trends are uniquely white. They are probably uniquely UMC, but obviously it’s not only white people who are wealthy.

Misty Copeland is celebrated because of how incredibly unusual it is for a star ballerina to be black. Ballet is overwhelmingly associated with whiteness and thinness.

Yeah, so what? It's an art form with European origins. Is that supposed to be a bad thing?