{"id":132112,"date":"2024-10-02T15:31:40","date_gmt":"2024-10-02T19:31:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=132112"},"modified":"2026-01-22T21:41:49","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T01:41:49","slug":"white-establishment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/white-establishment\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Ways the Male White Establishment Guards Its Power"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In her book Mediocre<\/em>, 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep reading to discover how these tactics have played out historically and continue to impact people today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Tactics of the Male White Establishment<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Oluo says that, in addition to claiming power by force, white male supremacy<\/a> guards its power by excluding anyone other than white men from political and economic institutions<\/strong>. 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\u2014especially women of color\u2014make 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tactic #1: Ridicule and Blame<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

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<\/strong>. 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\u2019s 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 na\u00efvet\u00e9. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(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<\/a> 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\u2014a belief that may explain why even current female politicians like Ocasio-Cortez are dismissed as meddlers or distractions.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similarly, Oluo says, women who break into male-dominated spheres like politics and business often become scapegoats<\/strong>. For example, during the Great Depression<\/a>, some observers blamed record unemployment on an increased number of women in the workforce, implying that women had supplanted male workers\u2014even though most of these women held \u201cfemale\u201d jobs like teaching and housekeeping. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Shortform note: The tendency to scapegoat women isn\u2019t 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<\/a> in Napoleonic France to rising crime rates in the 1990s to male sexual violence against women<\/a>.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/strong>. And when the companies\u2019 woes continue or worsen, the business world blames the female executives who, in reality, were set up to fail. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Shortform note: Former Facebook executive and Lean In<\/a><\/em> 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<\/em>\u2014a 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<\/em> like they don\u2019t belong\u2014and are treated like they don\u2019t.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tactic #2: Accusations of Narrow Self-Interest<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

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<\/strong> and aren\u2019t 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\u2014yet 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\u2014only to be vilified for their attempts to change company culture<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(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\u2019s issues\u2014that 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<\/a>\u2014as though women\u2019s voices don\u2019t count when it comes to any other subject.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tactic #3: Abuse and Threats<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

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<\/strong>. For example, Oluo relates that early in Chisholm\u2019s 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 \u201cgo home.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Shortform note: The kinds of attacks Oluo describes aren\u2019t just meant to intimidate, they also send a clear message that the victim isn\u2019t welcome in mainstream society. In Stamped From the Beginning<\/em><\/a>, Kendi argues that this message comes from the idea, relatively common in the 19th century, that Black people didn\u2019t share white American values and should therefore be removed from American society<\/a>. Other commentators point out that this sentiment is still around today<\/a> and can be seen, for example, in then-President Donald Trump\u2019s 2020 tweet suggesting that Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib, and two other women of color in Congress should \u201cgo back to their own countries\u201d\u2014although three of those four women were born in the US.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":132120,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[275,24],"tags":[1615],"class_list":["post-132112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-society","tag-mediocre","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"\n3 Ways the Male White Establishment Guards Its Power - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Ijeoma Oluo says the male white establishment uses tactics to stay at the center of society by eliminating potential competitors. 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