I never said race wasn't a factor--it just isn't as simplistic as that. The kind of woman parodied in "White Woman Syndrome" is a very small minority among white women. Yes, the mainstream beauty ideal is a white woman--but she looks and acts nothing like most white women. Yes, some upper-class women think the world revolves around them--but most white women are not upper-class, and of the ones that are, many expect hostility (not deference) from others, or feel their status as extra responsibility rather than extra privilege.
I grew up in a rural area which was almost entirely white, and to say that most of the women there expected the world to revolve around them--or even thought of themselves as the beauty ideal--would be completely, ridiculously wrong. The racism there took the form of anti-Semitism, and was obviously a displacement of class resentment--most of the anti-Semites were from the lower-class, long-established families who were losing their farms or never had any to begin with, and their resentment was against the upper and middle-class people (some of whom were Jewish) who had begun to move in and influence things.
The lower-class (white) women were taught, and taught *early*, that they would get crap because of who they were, what they looked like, and where they came from. They didn't expect to "accomplish" anything, because those weird rich people had taken the few good jobs there were and kept most of the slots in the good schools for their own children. Even if they or their daughters did manage to become a token employee or scholarship student, the culture of the schools or jobs would be alien to them, and they would face subtle or even overt prejudice against people like them. After all, everyone--conservatives, liberals, and radicals alike--thinks it's okay to pick on white trash.
Also, I think it's a little suspicious that white women are the target here rather than white men, who have more privilege than the women and are more likely to expect things to go their way. Is there a corresponding concept of a "White Man Syndrome"? I can't help but suspect that whoever came up with the idea of "White Woman Syndrome" thought that it's a woman's job to nurture and serve others, and was offended at the idea that a woman might expect someone else to serve her.
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I grew up in a rural area which was almost entirely white, and to say that most of the women there expected the world to revolve around them--or even thought of themselves as the beauty ideal--would be completely, ridiculously wrong. The racism there took the form of anti-Semitism, and was obviously a displacement of class resentment--most of the anti-Semites were from the lower-class, long-established families who were losing their farms or never had any to begin with, and their resentment was against the upper and middle-class people (some of whom were Jewish) who had begun to move in and influence things.
The lower-class (white) women were taught, and taught *early*, that they would get crap because of who they were, what they looked like, and where they came from. They didn't expect to "accomplish" anything, because those weird rich people had taken the few good jobs there were and kept most of the slots in the good schools for their own children. Even if they or their daughters did manage to become a token employee or scholarship student, the culture of the schools or jobs would be alien to them, and they would face subtle or even overt prejudice against people like them. After all, everyone--conservatives, liberals, and radicals alike--thinks it's okay to pick on white trash.
Also, I think it's a little suspicious that white women are the target here rather than white men, who have more privilege than the women and are more likely to expect things to go their way. Is there a corresponding concept of a "White Man Syndrome"? I can't help but suspect that whoever came up with the idea of "White Woman Syndrome" thought that it's a woman's job to nurture and serve others, and was offended at the idea that a woman might expect someone else to serve her.