How does the male white establishment maintain its power? What tactics do they use to exclude women and people of color from positions of influence?
In her book Mediocre, Ijeoma Oluo says the male white establishment employs various methods to preserve its dominance in political and economic spheres. The tactics aim to keep white men at the center of society by eliminating potential competitors.
Keep reading to discover how these tactics have played out historically and continue to impact people today.
Tactics of the Male White Establishment
Oluo says that, in addition to claiming power by force, white male supremacy guards its power by excluding anyone other than white men from political and economic institutions. Oluo argues that this exclusion comes not necessarily from prejudice against other groups, but rather from a desire to keep white men at the center of society by eliminating competitors. For that reason, she says, when women—especially women of color—make headway in male-dominated institutions, the male white establishment meets them with ridicule and blame, accuses them of narrow self-interest, and may subject them to outright abuse and threats.
Tactic #1: Ridicule and Blame
According to Oluo, when women achieve (or seek) power in politics or the workplace, white men often respond by refusing to take these women seriously. For instance, Oluo gives the example of Congress member Shirley Chisholm, who in 1972 became the first Black candidate (and one of the first women) to run for a major party’s Presidential nomination. Oluo says that although Chisholm was an accomplished politician, some of the press dismissed her as a distraction from serious (male) politics and critiqued her appearance and dress. Oluo argues that these basic tactics persist today, when female politicians of color such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are criticized for their appearance, youth, speech, and supposed political naïveté.
(Shortform note: According to classics scholar Mary Beard, Western culture has a long history of treating women as unfit to participate in politics and of denigrating their voices (literal and figurative) when they do so. She argues that women who speak up in political settings are often described as whiny or strident or have their speech likened to meaningless animal noises. These attacks, Beard says, stem from a cultural belief that only men are capable of serious, logical, authoritative speech—a belief that may explain why even current female politicians like Ocasio-Cortez are dismissed as meddlers or distractions.)
Similarly, Oluo says, women who break into male-dominated spheres like politics and business often become scapegoats. For example, during the Great Depression, some observers blamed record unemployment on an increased number of women in the workforce, implying that women had supplanted male workers—even though most of these women held “female” jobs like teaching and housekeeping.
(Shortform note: The tendency to scapegoat women isn’t confined to the political or business worlds or even to the US. Other commentators point out that women have historically been blamed for everything from social unrest in Napoleonic France to rising crime rates in the 1990s to male sexual violence against women.)
According to Oluo, this tendency to blame women continues today: She says that frequently, when companies appoint women as CEOs, they often do so only out of desperation when the company is already foundering. And when the companies’ woes continue or worsen, the business world blames the female executives who, in reality, were set up to fail.
(Shortform note: Former Facebook executive and Lean In author Sheryl Sandberg argues that women themselves play a partial role in the underrepresentation of women in high-powered corporate positions. Sandberg argues, for example, that many women hold back in their careers because of impostor syndrome—a specific kind of insecurity in which people doubt their abilities and believe their achievements are the result of luck alone. However, other experts argue that the focus on impostor syndrome is a smokescreen that obscures the fact that many women just feel like they don’t belong—and are treated like they don’t.)
Tactic #2: Accusations of Narrow Self-Interest
Furthermore, Oluo claims that white male society guards its power by claiming that women and people of color are only interested in representing their own demographic groups and aren’t capable of looking out for the majority (meaning white men). For example, she explains that Chisholm built her presidential campaign on a platform of popular, mainstream progressive stances—yet she was dismissed as a candidate only for Black and/or female voters. Oluo says that a similar trend occurs in the business world when non-white, non-male executives are hired in part to make companies more diverse and inclusive—only to be vilified for their attempts to change company culture.
(Shortform note: The assumption that women and people of color are only capable of representing their own demographic interests may be another byproduct of historical norms around speech and politics. According to Beard, in classical societies, women were barred from political speech at large, but they were allowed to speak in public if they were speaking specifically about women’s issues—that is, issues that affected women, the household, or the family. Beard points out that even today, many of the celebrated speeches by women are about topics such as feminism and gender inequality—as though women’s voices don’t count when it comes to any other subject.)
Tactic #3: Abuse and Threats
One final way Oluo says white male supremacy guards its position is by verbally abusing and threatening women and people of color who seek power. For example, Oluo relates that early in Chisholm’s campaign, a staffer going through airport security had a bundle of campaign flyers handed back with a racial slur written across them along with the admonition to “go home.” Sometimes, this kind of hate speech turns into intimations or threats of violence. For instance, Oluo cites an email sent to US Representative Rashida Tlaib (who is Muslim) celebrating a recent act of anti-Islamic terror and calling for more such attacks.
(Shortform note: The kinds of attacks Oluo describes aren’t just meant to intimidate, they also send a clear message that the victim isn’t welcome in mainstream society. In Stamped From the Beginning, Kendi argues that this message comes from the idea, relatively common in the 19th century, that Black people didn’t share white American values and should therefore be removed from American society. Other commentators point out that this sentiment is still around today and can be seen, for example, in then-President Donald Trump’s 2020 tweet suggesting that Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib, and two other women of color in Congress should “go back to their own countries”—although three of those four women were born in the US.)
