> What baffled me was that in the opening paragraphs she felt the need to point out that the powerful men were white.

Exactly my thought. The moment I read that word I stopped being neutral towards the article and started considering it as "shit talking".

If you're writing about sexism there is really no reason to point out the men involved were white.

It sounds like "Look at those privileged nasty men!!! And they harrassed me!" instead of "These nasty men harrased me!".