Thread by @feministlib

Another thought about the #alacouncil disaster is that in addition to the narratives of benevolent white ladyness that saturate the library field, we also have a potent cocktail of White Feminism + professional anxiety. 1/?

Many of the white women in librarianship have primarily experienced marginalization in terms of misogyny directed at them by white men with power over them. They lack (and have not sought out) intersectional analysis that would expose where they have power-over too. 2/?

So they think of themselves as fighting sexism by being Strong Women in Leadership ... without acknowledging the structural power they hold is often white supremacist and patriarchal *unless* they deliberately combat that system. 3/?

In addition to a narrow focus on intra-white sexism, white women who work in the library/archives field have internalized the narrative that libraries/archives are under threat from more powerful political or institutional forces. They see the field ***as a whole*** a victim. 4/?

There are seeds of truth to this, of course. Libraries and archives are often institutionally marginalized, underfunded, expected to "do more with less".

HOWEVER.

That doesn't mean library workers are never agents of white patriarchal power. 5/?

We NEED to understand this as a both/and situation. Libraries and archives are devalued in our contemporary moment. They are ALSO agents of racism and other forms of oppression. And as library workers, we are implicated in that. 6/?

We also need to understand that white supremacist patriarchy is the air we all breathe. We can't achieve personal purity by stepping outside the corrupt system. We can only commit to anti-oppression work as we move through the world together. 7/?

If you want my recommendations for putting that commitment into practice (recognizing I am still on the journey myself), here are my suggestions. 8/8 thefeministlibrarian.com/2018/06/06/eng…