I've probably written several rough drafts about this and not published them because I have good reason to believe that no matter how I say this, the trans community AND everyone else will take it wrong and hate on me in the extreme and never actually forgive me.
Let me state upfront that TERFs are morally wrong and also STUPID and so are the kind of White Women that people of color on Twitter used to rail about as handmaidens to the patriarchy and probably still do. And probably TERFs and such White Women -- abbreviated WW back when I was seeing this -- likely are two groups that significantly overlap or at least have shared characteristics and motives for their abhorrent behavior.
Nor is this post in ANY way, shape or form an apologist piece so fuck you if you try to slander me by characterizing it that way.
The reality is that White Women who play by the heteronormative rules are generally more able than other women to marry well in part because interracial marriage is still not the norm and White men still tend to make a lot more money on average than men of color.
...even though blacks are 15% of the World’s population, they are only 0.42% of the World’s richest. Thus their representation among the super rich is only 2.8% of their population share.White (Gentiles) are 16% of the World’s population, but 41.65% of the World’s billionaires, thus their representation among the super rich is 260% of their population share.Jews are only 0.2% of the World’s population, but 17.46% of the World’s richest. Thus their representation is 8,730% of their population share.
Women typically make less money than men overall and are underrepresented among the richest people on planet Earth.
Of the 3,194 billionaires in the world in 2022, only 12.5 percent were women
Off the top of my head, ALL the billionaire women I can readily think of -- Melinda Gates, Mackenzie Scott, Alice Walton -- are women you could describe as having married well. They didn't become billionaires by personally running the company their spouse founded or co-founded.
They may have to some degree been involved in running it and making decisions without formally getting credited. Still, this does NOT translate to having business contacts or a great resume.
Post divorce, Jeff Bezos is in the news for founding a space-related company. His ex, Mackenzie Scott, makes the news for her charitable giving, not her latest business deals.
Most women do not end up billionaires when the marriage ends, whether by divorce or the death of their spouse. Most poor women in the US are White AND were solidly middle class until one of the following three things happened:
1. They got pregnant (out of wedlock presumably).
2. They got divorced.
3. Their husband died (last figure I saw many years ago: in heterosexual marriages, nine times out of ten, she outlives him).
Even if you do end up rich post divorce or as a widow, your quality of life is probably never the same. You can't easily be friends with the men you knew as his WIFE. Those relationships likely die when your marriage ends even if you wish they wouldn't.
So even if you had a business idea, you probably cannot comfortably call the many business people you knew socially during your marriage and have it not be horribly misunderstood as you crossing some line and probably on the prowl for a new husband.
For most White Women who aren't among the jet set, post divorce they have little to no hope of recovering financially and ever again living in the style to which they have become accustomed.
I mean even if you leave with millions but it's a fraction of what he had, you have to dress differently and can't afford the same restaurants, etc. So your social class changes permanently even if you are in no danger of anything resembling poverty.
Women who are married well and KNOW that if the marriage ends, THIS life is OVER and never coming back AND it likely means either actual poverty or relative poverty for the REST of their lives have a serious problem even if you want to scoff at it as a first world problem.
Such women will tend to be desperate to NOT lose what they currently have knowing they likely have no hope of meaningfully replacing it and it may well mean genuine poverty for the rest of their lives.
I believe this drives the values of TERFs and the kind of White Women that people of color feel are shittier people than the men with money and power and are handmaidens to the patriarchy.
Their existence as they know it is wholly dependent upon the ongoing approval of one man such that they don't dare take any risks in terms of asking him uncomfortable questions or taking any kind of moral stand or disagreeing with him. And in some cases it may be sucking the life out of their marriage because some of the richest married well women are married to very intelligent risk takers who will grow bored with their wives as the wife grows increasingly risk averse in her communication with him and in other ways.
Genevieve shafted me for helping her and she shafted me in ways that make me understand why TERFs and White Women make the choices they make to try to desperately cling to what they have while it steadily erodes their humanity and deepens the inability of privileged White Women to recover financially and socially should their marriage end for any reason.
And I don't care to detail that but if you are trans and want social acceptance, you would do well to not act like other people don't have real problems and are just transphobic hateful assholes and not people who are almost as insecure in their ability to survive in our heteronormative world as you are while no one seems to see that.
I would start by asking planet Earth to make INDIVIDUAL ungendered public bathrooms the NORM and STOP acting like women are just assholes for not being comfortable sharing a public bathroom with trans people.
The entire heteronormative SYSTEM needs to be dismantled and re-envisioned and you do yourselves no favors by hating on people who are also being victimized by it just like you are being victimized and given no secure place in it.
Footnote
I will add that because Black women typically MUST pursue full-time paid employment, married or not, and White Women are much more likely to be married well homemakers, Black women have a great deal more say in family finances than White Women.
Think on that. White Women are all too often essentially chattel property of their wealthy husbands with no real say in anything.
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