America has a fetish for helpless white women. I know, I know. I sound like Dr. Umar, but before you flame me (because this is not an Umar talking point), let me explain myself.
White women have been allowed to be damsels in distress since the dawn of time. They’ve been trapped in glass coffins, pin-pricked by poison needles, locked up in castles with beasts, voiceless, unable to chase their dreams or speak their truth. And to an extent, the characters I’m alluding to are reflective of the real-life situations of women everywhere. But while women of color have had to fight wars and wade through bayous in order to save themselves, white women have been allowed to be damsels in distress.
White women have been allowed to be damsels in distress since the dawn of time. They’ve been trapped in glass coffins, pin-pricked by poison needles, locked up in castles with beasts, voiceless, unable to chase their dreams or speak their truth. And to an extent, the characters I’m alluding to are reflective of the real-life situations of women everywhere. But while women of color have had to fight wars and wade through bayous in order to save themselves, white women have been allowed to be damsels in distress.
Chew on this: Kanye West is still not allowed to be in the same room as Taylor Swift without his 2009 VMA Award outburst being mentioned, 16 entire years later. People still talk about Swift as if she’s that same 19-year-old girl standing helpless on that stage, and she’s in her mid-30s. And this isn’t a one-time thing in her career—this happens constantly. Taylor Swift isn’t allowed to speak up for herself. She’s fully embraced the damselism of her whiteness, whether it was her choice or not, and she continues to profit off of it every single day.
Meanwhile, on every other post I see about Megan thee Stallion, I see goofies commenting, “Man, free Tory,” like he didn’t literally shoot her and get convicted. Megan was forced to relive her trauma for over a year, and she didn’t stop taking heat for being an actual victim (in the purest, most unadulterated sense of the word) after her assaulter went to not jail, but prison.
So when I see Caitlin Clark, a six-foot-tall beast on the basketball court, being damselized by white people on Instagram, all I can think is that America has a fetish for helpless white women, which is why they try to paint every white woman who has been slightly affronted by anyone as a victim.
The Iowa-LSU rivalry has been bastardized into a Caitlin Clark versus Angel Reese beef by white Iowa fans. From the simple points-per-game arguments to the blatant racism towards Reese and the rest of LSU, it’s been blown entirely out of proportion. This is in part due to the misogyny that runs rampant in people’s attitudes about women’s sports. People can’t tolerate women acting exactly like men when put in the same situations as men, and they make that very clear every time they tell a female ball player to “have respect,” even though they wouldn’t demand the same of their male counterparts.
(Doesn’t it parallel nicely with the way people act like female rappers can’t have rap beef without beefing in real life? And how they get ridiculed for it? But male rappers can beef and have it just be “part of the culture”? I digress.)
Meanwhile, on every other post I see about Megan thee Stallion, I see goofies commenting, “Man, free Tory,” like he didn’t literally shoot her and get convicted. Megan was forced to relive her trauma for over a year, and she didn’t stop taking heat for being an actual victim (in the purest, most unadulterated sense of the word) after her assaulter went to not jail, but prison.
So when I see Caitlin Clark, a six-foot-tall beast on the basketball court, being damselized by white people on Instagram, all I can think is that America has a fetish for helpless white women, which is why they try to paint every white woman who has been slightly affronted by anyone as a victim.
The Iowa-LSU rivalry has been bastardized into a Caitlin Clark versus Angel Reese beef by white Iowa fans. From the simple points-per-game arguments to the blatant racism towards Reese and the rest of LSU, it’s been blown entirely out of proportion. This is in part due to the misogyny that runs rampant in people’s attitudes about women’s sports. People can’t tolerate women acting exactly like men when put in the same situations as men, and they make that very clear every time they tell a female ball player to “have respect,” even though they wouldn’t demand the same of their male counterparts.
(Doesn’t it parallel nicely with the way people act like female rappers can’t have rap beef without beefing in real life? And how they get ridiculed for it? But male rappers can beef and have it just be “part of the culture”? I digress.)
A much larger part of it is due to misogynoir, or an intolerance for black women specifically. This has been made clear in many, many different situations for black women in various fields.
White basketball fans have lovingly brandished the word “classy” like a sword in every conversation about Angel Reese. “Classy” is an inherently divisive and racist word. It’s derived, of course, from the word “class.” “Classes” are what you divide people into based on their perceived social status and wealth. So when you say that someone is not behaving in a “classy” manner, the implication is that they are in a lower “class” that you don’t see the value in. And so when you use the word “classy” to compare a black woman to a white woman, what you’re really saying is that that black woman is in a lower “class” than the white woman.
And when the only difference between that white woman and that black woman is not their gameplay, not their sportsmanship, and not their attitudes, but their skin tones, then what you’re really saying is that blackness is in a lower “class” than whiteness, and that’s racist!
“But Trinity,” you may be saying, “Angel Reese is so cocky, and she scores fewer points than Caitlin Clark regularly! They’re not saying it to be racist, they’re just saying it to tell Angel to be more humble!”
And my only response to that is, “Black women are humbled constantly for more and for less than being one of the top college basketball players in the nation. But if you’re still not understanding me, name me one D1 athlete who isn’t a little full of themselves.”
White basketball fans have lovingly brandished the word “classy” like a sword in every conversation about Angel Reese. “Classy” is an inherently divisive and racist word. It’s derived, of course, from the word “class.” “Classes” are what you divide people into based on their perceived social status and wealth. So when you say that someone is not behaving in a “classy” manner, the implication is that they are in a lower “class” that you don’t see the value in. And so when you use the word “classy” to compare a black woman to a white woman, what you’re really saying is that that black woman is in a lower “class” than the white woman.
And when the only difference between that white woman and that black woman is not their gameplay, not their sportsmanship, and not their attitudes, but their skin tones, then what you’re really saying is that blackness is in a lower “class” than whiteness, and that’s racist!
“But Trinity,” you may be saying, “Angel Reese is so cocky, and she scores fewer points than Caitlin Clark regularly! They’re not saying it to be racist, they’re just saying it to tell Angel to be more humble!”
And my only response to that is, “Black women are humbled constantly for more and for less than being one of the top college basketball players in the nation. But if you’re still not understanding me, name me one D1 athlete who isn’t a little full of themselves.”
It doesn’t stop at Reese and Clark.
It doesn’t stop at college basketball, and it doesn’t even stop at sports. Misogynoir transcends every industry because it isn’t an industry-specific thing. It wriggles its way into every part of our lives, nestles itself into our brains, and doesn’t allow us to forget it. What I’m saying is, Serena can’t get pissed without being portrayed as a gorilla, and Meg can’t speak up about her shooting without being slut-shamed, and little black girls can’t silk-press their hair without being called “fast,” and black women can’t exist without being treated as “kind-of-but-not-quite-women,” and that’s the Caitlin Clark Effect.
Or the Taylor Swift Effect. Or the White Woman In Distress Effect.
Why am I blaming this on famous white damsels? I know it’s not just them, and it takes the fetishizers to feed into a fetish. But when you’re Caitlin Clark, and you see Angel Reese being taunted, bullied, and threatened in your name, and you don’t say anything in her defense, you are a part of the problem.
When you are Taylor Swift, and you see Beyonce being looked down upon and disrespected in your name, and you don’t say anything in her defense, you are a part of the problem.
When you are a white woman fighting many of the same battles as black women, and you are watching black women face the monumental amounts of stress caused by dealing with both misogyny and racism at once, and you do not speak up, you are a part of the problem.
However, it’s understandable that they don’t speak up when, for centuries, misogyny has had a parasitic relationship with womanhood, so much so that it’s perpetuated by both men and women.
Women have a clear-ish set of expectations that we are expected to follow at all times. We have to be quiet, and when we aren’t quiet, we have to be sweet. We have to be nurturers, and when we aren’t nurturers, we have to be unbreakable. If we’re gay, we have to be masculine; otherwise, it’s a waste of a pretty face. If we have a skill, we have to look sexy doing it; otherwise, it’s a waste of a nice body. If we’re attractive, we have to want the men who want us back; otherwise, it’s a waste of a woman—the object, not the person.
It doesn’t stop at college basketball, and it doesn’t even stop at sports. Misogynoir transcends every industry because it isn’t an industry-specific thing. It wriggles its way into every part of our lives, nestles itself into our brains, and doesn’t allow us to forget it. What I’m saying is, Serena can’t get pissed without being portrayed as a gorilla, and Meg can’t speak up about her shooting without being slut-shamed, and little black girls can’t silk-press their hair without being called “fast,” and black women can’t exist without being treated as “kind-of-but-not-quite-women,” and that’s the Caitlin Clark Effect.
Or the Taylor Swift Effect. Or the White Woman In Distress Effect.
Why am I blaming this on famous white damsels? I know it’s not just them, and it takes the fetishizers to feed into a fetish. But when you’re Caitlin Clark, and you see Angel Reese being taunted, bullied, and threatened in your name, and you don’t say anything in her defense, you are a part of the problem.
When you are Taylor Swift, and you see Beyonce being looked down upon and disrespected in your name, and you don’t say anything in her defense, you are a part of the problem.
When you are a white woman fighting many of the same battles as black women, and you are watching black women face the monumental amounts of stress caused by dealing with both misogyny and racism at once, and you do not speak up, you are a part of the problem.
However, it’s understandable that they don’t speak up when, for centuries, misogyny has had a parasitic relationship with womanhood, so much so that it’s perpetuated by both men and women.
Women have a clear-ish set of expectations that we are expected to follow at all times. We have to be quiet, and when we aren’t quiet, we have to be sweet. We have to be nurturers, and when we aren’t nurturers, we have to be unbreakable. If we’re gay, we have to be masculine; otherwise, it’s a waste of a pretty face. If we have a skill, we have to look sexy doing it; otherwise, it’s a waste of a nice body. If we’re attractive, we have to want the men who want us back; otherwise, it’s a waste of a woman—the object, not the person.
When I defined classiness earlier, I failed to mention one important aspect of it: men are in a class of their own. Men aren’t asked to have class because they are not expected to be docile or complicit. Quite the opposite—they are expected to lead as members of the highest class (manhood). They set the standards. They make the rules. They are who women direct their docility towards.
White women both benefit and suffer from the “protection” of white damselism; this is because damselism was not created to protect white women at all. Damselism was actually created to control white women and to make them dependent on men. Do you think Caitlin Clark is benefitting from her fans acting a fool in LSU’s comment sections? No, no she is not, and if she was supposed to be benefiting from it, she would be. Damselism is a control tactic, an excuse to not take white women seriously, and while it can work in their favor (people do not take Clark’s taunts as seriously as Reese’s), it can also hinder their development as people (why has Clark not checked her fans, like, at all?).
And, hey, maybe it’s not Clark’s job to speak out against the racism and misogyny that Angel Reese faces regularly, even though her rivalry with LSU made her famous. Maybe it’s not Taylor Swift’s responsibility to make sure her army of 13-year-olds respects black artists, even though those artists created the genre that made her famous. All I’m saying is, it would be nice if they, you know, did. Because you don’t have to play into misogynistic tropes just because men told you to.
White women both benefit and suffer from the “protection” of white damselism; this is because damselism was not created to protect white women at all. Damselism was actually created to control white women and to make them dependent on men. Do you think Caitlin Clark is benefitting from her fans acting a fool in LSU’s comment sections? No, no she is not, and if she was supposed to be benefiting from it, she would be. Damselism is a control tactic, an excuse to not take white women seriously, and while it can work in their favor (people do not take Clark’s taunts as seriously as Reese’s), it can also hinder their development as people (why has Clark not checked her fans, like, at all?).
And, hey, maybe it’s not Clark’s job to speak out against the racism and misogyny that Angel Reese faces regularly, even though her rivalry with LSU made her famous. Maybe it’s not Taylor Swift’s responsibility to make sure her army of 13-year-olds respects black artists, even though those artists created the genre that made her famous. All I’m saying is, it would be nice if they, you know, did. Because you don’t have to play into misogynistic tropes just because men told you to.
It’s not the Caitlin Clark Effect at all. It’s the Patriarchy Effect, just as it has always been and continues to be. The Patriarchy Effect is why women can’t be rivals—they have to be enemies. The Patriarchy Effect is why women can’t fight their own battles—they either need to be spoken for or silenced. The Patriarchy Effect is why I can’t talk about women without talking about men. The Patriarchy Effect is why I can’t be a woman without considering the men around me.
But we can fight it! No really, we can. Listen to me very closely, and you’ll be able to: the next time you find yourself talking down on a woman who is not Candace Owens, take a nice, deep breath of air. If you can smell the testosterone in it, rethink what you were about to say.
But we can fight it! No really, we can. Listen to me very closely, and you’ll be able to: the next time you find yourself talking down on a woman who is not Candace Owens, take a nice, deep breath of air. If you can smell the testosterone in it, rethink what you were about to say.