History of Feminism

History of Black women's invisibility to the white woman's suffrage movement

            The social and political invisibility of black women and the complete disregard for their unique experiences could be recognized in several different movements regarding women’s rights. For a long time, there was no understanding (or even an attempt to try to understand) of how the race, sex and class of black women overlapped and shaped their unique experiences in a white society. Womanist and sociologist professor, Deborah King, refers to the discrimination of black women based on race, sex and class as “double jeopardy”. Another word that describes black women’s relationship with discrimination is “racialized sexism”, which occurs when a woman is racially and sexually discriminated against at the same time. For example, a black woman being called “ghetto welfare queen” has racist and sexist undertones, since black women are stereotypically assumed to be “ghetto welfare queens” just for being black women. Black men do not have this stereotype and neither does other women, it is a negative stereotype placed specifically on black women. Many participants of both movements, the abolitionist movement and the women’s rights movement, treated  race and gender as if they were mutually exclusive, equating blackness to masculinity and femininity to whiteness.

            In this essay, I will explain women’s part in the abolition movement and the birth of the women’s rights movement. I will go on to focus on the attitude that the woman’s rights movement had towards black women and their experiences, and explore the dismissal and invisibility of black women in the center of this movement. I will go in to detail about black women’s fight against their oppression, their struggle to be respected and acknowledged/recognized as “women”, and how their form of feminism differs from that of white women’s. Most of my information would be based off of my readings from Angela Davis’ book “Women, Race, and Class”, Louise Michele Newman’s book “White Women’s Rights”, and Deborah King’s article “Double Jeopardy”.    

            According to Angela Davis, in the eyes of slave master, slaves pretty much were genderless. There weren’t any special treatment given to female slaves, they were forced to work just as hard as black men outside in the fields under harsh conditions. Some plantations were lenient towards pregnant slave women, not out of care for the woman, but because they didn’t want anything to happen to their future slave. And in other plantations, pregnant slave woman weren’t given any breaks or special attention. Despite their pregnancy, they were forced to work just as hard as everyone else in the field as if they weren’t pregnant at all. In the plantation, black mothers weren’t seen as “mothers” at all, but were referred to as “breeders” as if they were animals. It didn’t matter if slaves were sick, slaves were forced to work and do anything the slave owner wanted them to do, regardless of how degrading. All though there were awful experiences that black men and black women shared together under slavery, there were also certain types of abuse that were mostly inflicted upon black women, such as sexual violence, pregnancy abuse and forced roles as mistresses for white men.

Through their similar experiences, black women shared a bond with black men, and together they worked together, prayed together, spread knowledge to one another, raised each other, looked after one another and rebelled together. They knew that in order to survive the evils of slavery, they needed each other more than ever.

During the 1830s, the abolitionist movement was established. There were many white women who participated in the movement. In her book, Angela Davis’ points out that white women’s high numbers in the abolitionist movement may had been influenced by popular abolitionist literature. Some authors of these books hoped to open the readers’ eyes to the evils of slavery by writing their stories in a way that white women could relate. The novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” worked to gain compassion from white women by making them see themselves in a black slave who tried to escape from her owner to prevent separation from her children. During this era, femininity emphasized motherhood, and since white women were taught that motherhood was the most important part of womanhood, this mother-child separation gained white women’s sympathy for slavery. In the book, Eliza never planned own leaving her slave owner until the threat of separation from her child, it was only then that she even thought of escaping, had it not been for the threat of losing her children she would have stayed with the master.  Al though the intent behind this novel may have been good, it exposes the author’s own ignorance of the slave community by feeding readers the idea that the threat of separation between mother and child was the ONLY reason slaves wanted to be free from the plantation. The attitudes of the black people in her novel were also problematic as it portrays black people in many awful stereotypes, such as needy and child-like.

Most authors of abolitionist literature depicted the slave woman as a poor debased victim deserving of pity, not respect and dignity. In this literature, the writers emphasized the slave woman’s debasement in order to gain compassion from white women. The more the slave woman was dehumanized by white men, the greater was the need for empowered white women to act as up lifters.  Another issue with abolitionist literature was that it focused more on the wrong doings of the evil white male but rarely ever focused on white women’s role in the oppression of slave people. In abolitionist literature, white men were the ones doing all of the evils while the helpless white women sat at home either crying or depressed over the violence that slaves were subjected to by their fathers, brothers, uncles, etc or showing some form of disapproval for slavery in some type of way. The white woman was always portrayed as the empowered wife, mother or daughter who hated the evils of slavery and wanted no part in it, when in reality; white women generally took part in the violent abuse, degradation and humiliation of slave women as well as slave men. In the eyes of most black people, they were just as oppressive and dominating as white men.   

Many of these white women saw the abolitionist movement as an opportunity to be involved in politics for the first time. While participating in the abolitionist movement, white women were introduced to the culture of politics and took part in political debates for the first time.  White men feared that white women’s involvement in politics would lead them to neglect their domestic duties as wives and mothers. White women’s involvement in politics was against their gender norms, because “women” (white women) were expected to be home while men took part in the politics. The Grimke sisters were abolitionists who caused major controversy when they gave public speeches to crowds, which was considered “indecent” for women to do back then. During this era, it was taboo and socially unacceptable for women to give public speeches. Many people, including the clergyman, condemned this radical action. The attacks that the Grimke sisters received for public speaking inspired them to get involved in working towards the rights of women.

During their participation in the abolitionist movement, many white women begin questioning the lack of rights that they had as women in America, and soon got in to the habit of comparing everything in their lives to slavery. Their white privilege blinded them to the fact that although they were under white men, they were far above over everyone else in America and played a significant role in the oppression of people of color. Al though there are many abolitionist writings and speeches that could be found of white women (such as bored housewives) comparing their positions to slavery, there aren’t any that could be found of slaves comparing their degradation to the life of a bored white housewife. If the oppression of white women and black slavery were anywhere near similar, how come slaves didn’t see any similarities between their lives and white women’s? This type of exaggeration downplayed the struggles of slavery. It’s clear that white women used the oppression of enslaved black people to magnify their own struggles 

 The women’s rights movement resulted from the sexism that white women faced in the abolitionist movement. Women’s rights activists Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Cady were the main force behind this movement, and together they established the first women’s rights convention, which took place at Senecca falls, Newyork. At this convention, the women addressed issues regarding women’s rights and discussed plans and ideas on how to end gender discrimination in politics, education, employment, etc.

 During the civil war, white women temporarily stopped working on women’s right until the war was over. When the civil war ended in 1865, the constitution proposed two new amendments; the 14^th amendment and the 15^th amendment, this was also the first time the word “men” was ever used in the constitution. The 14^th amendment penalized any state in America that denied voting rights to any male citizen, and the 15^th amendment explained that no one should be denied the legal right to vote based on race, but there was no mention of gender. Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Cady were both involved in the development of an organization called the American Equal Rights Association (AERA), which was dedicated to enfranchising women and African American males together, but when it became clear that black males were much closer to being enfranchised over women, white women no longer supported black male suffragists and constantly argued that their whiteness made them more qualified to vote than black males. Al though most of these women were abolitionists, that did not cure their racist mentality. They still had a strong belief that black people (and other people of color) were inferior and that white people were the most advanced race known to mankind. For example, a white principle didn’t want to accept Fredrick Douglas’ daughter into her school because she did not want her around the white students. This same teacher was an abolitionist. Al though she believed black people shouldn’t be enslaved; she still believed in white supremacy and black inferiority for the simple fact that she didn’t believe black children were worthy of being in the same space as white students. I could imagine this principle angrily trying to convince Mr. Douglas that despite the fact that she did not want his’ daughter at her school, she wasn’t a racist because she was against slavery.    

In 1870, the 15^th amendment was passed, granting African American males the right to vote over women. White women were highly angered by the passing of this new amendment and expressed great resentment that their so-called “slavery” continued to exist while black men were supposedly free from all forms of oppression due to their right to vote. In contrast to white women, who felt like the enfranchisement of black males was a great injustice to women, most black women (including black female suffragists) did not see this as a defeat, because to many of them, whether black women or black males got the right to vote first didn’t matter, as long as the concerns of the black population was somehow heard, regardless of which group in the black population they were listening to. Even though they knew they had a very long way to go in terms of full equality, they viewed the enfranchisement of black men as a starting point of elevating the socioeconomic status of black people as a whole.

Many white feminists viewed men (including men of color) as the true oppressors of society, and never acknowledged nor took responsibility for their significant role in the oppression of men and women of color. Many prominent white feminists have looked in to black culture and criticized what they felt was dangerous male supremacy and female subordination based on their own idea of gender oppression. Many of them argued that although black women were no longer plantation slaves under abusive white men, they were now slaves to black men under an oppressive patriarchy. One of the women who used this argument was Susan B. Anthony. In 1900, she urged the National Negro Race Conference to include Negro women, stating that ever since congress had passed the 14^th and 15^th amendment, “the colored wife owed service to a husband instead of to a slave-owner, so that legally she simply exchanged a white master for a colored one who controlled her earnings” (Newman 7). Like many white feminists of this era, Anthony was using the same argument that was once used by white women to articulate their criticism of patriarchy, an argument that was used to validate their status under white males by comparing it to the harsh realities of slavery. Black women, however, rarely ever argued from this type of position when expressing their resistance to political oppression, since they didn’t view black men as enemies/ or oppressors, but as partners in the fight against oppression in an extremely racist society that operated from white supremacy. Black women believed white people were oppressors (white men and white women), not black men or anyone else in America. In contrast to white feminists, black feminists did not see their men as the oppressor and did not feel the need to divide against them. Black women and black men resisted oppression together and shared the same desire to be free from all forms of racism, and unlike white men, many black men were supportive of black women’s fight for women’s rights.

In the woman’s rights movement, white women were more concerned with challenging the supposed “patriarchy” of an oppressed black culture than they were concerned with acknowledging the special type of oppression that black women faced under white patriarchy in a white supremacist society.  The way black women experience gender oppression in America was (and still is) very different from the experience of a white woman. Their separate experiences caused their view of gender oppression to differ greatly. For example, many white women felt like their roles as housewives were very oppressive and could be defined as a form of slavery, whereas black women didn’t see this as oppression but a privilege, since they never had the luxury of staying home to be mothers and wives to their families.

According to Lucy Michelle Newton’s book White Woman’s Rights, black women’s form of feminism protested the ways in which white culture “sexualized and victimized them, exposing the unstated but implicit racism in the ideology of true womanhood, which stigmatized women of color as incapable of chastity, purity, and moral virtue” (Newman 9). From the 18^th to the 20^th century, “women” was often used to refer to white women, with no thought of women of color at all. White women were treated as the female default, and given the respect, protection and security that men were taught to give “women”. In feminist and abolitionist discourse, the racialized gender oppression that black women experienced went ignored and black women were rarely ever recognized as “women” in discussions involving women’s rights. In both movements, black people and women were treated as though they were two separate groups with no connection to each other at all. It was as if we lived in a universe where people believed that all the women were white and all the “negroes” were men. It was as if people didn’t know that there were people in America that were black people who were women, and there was a certain of discrimination that they experienced that weren’t shared by white women or black men. Whenever black women were addressed (even today)  it was always as “black women”, “women of color”, “negro women”, never just as “women”, but since white women were seen as the default they were simply referred to as “women”. George Francis’s statement “Women First, Negro Last” perfectly exemplifies the lack of their acknowledgment of the fact that there are women who were Negros and Negros who are women. If women were first and Negroes were last, where does that lead Negro women since they fall into both categories? It was this type of attitude towards black women that prompted Sojourner Truth to give her beautiful speech, “Aint I a Woman”.

Prominent white feminists, like Susan B. Anthony, did everything they could to avoid race from being involved in the movement, which was their way of keeping the women’s rights movement as white as possible. White feminists continuously ignored the concerns of black women of color, dismissing them as “racial concerns” that wasn’t relevant to women’s rights. Whenever they mentioned women’s rights, it was mostly concerning white women and had nothing to do with the rights of women of color.  For instance, in the year of 1921, Addie Hunton, a black secretary for the NAACP, wanted to bring the issue of the disenfranchisement of black southern women to the National Woman’s Party but was denied the right to do so by Alice Paul, the president of the party, because she felt the issue was completely racial and had nothing to do with the rights of women; in other words, it wasn’t a woman’s rights issue because it didn’t affect white women and was more of a racial issue because it was something that only affected black women, who weren’t even recognized as women most of the time.  It was as though black women had to choose between being black and being a woman, which was impossible since they were from both categories. Whenever black women spoke about issues that affected them exclusively for being black women they were told by feminist organization that they couldn’t help them because they weren’t considered women’s rights and that they should go seek help from organizations dedicated to working towards racial equality for blacks. Bell Hooks perfectly sums up the invisibility of black women and the disregard for their unique experiences with race and sexism (racialized sexism), "No other group in America has so had their identity socialized out of existence as have black women. We are rarely recognized as a group separate and distinct from black men, or a present part of the larger group 'women' in this culture ....When black people are talked about the focus tends to be on black men; and when women are talked about the focus tends to be on white women."

Fed up with the treatment they were receiving from white feminist organizations, black women made their own clubs and organizations dedicated to fulfilling the needs of black women and helping each other find solutions to end their oppression. The first national convention for black women was held in1890, and black women started different clubs in the year of 1892.

Organizations like Woman’s Loyal Union, Women’s Era Club, National Association of Colored Women, and National Council of Negro Women were made for black women by black women. 

 

 The fight for women’s rights continues in 2016. Al though a lot has changed within the feminist community, there still needs to be more work towards intersectionality. Mainstream feminism is still predominately white, and there are still times where black women aren’t included or are further marginalized within the feminist community. White women are still sometimes seen as the default and their experiences are often treated as if they are universal. The treatment towards black women of color within the women’s rights movement caused Alice Walker to come up with womanism, a form of feminism that’s dedicated to the elevating of the status of black women, and giving them a space where they don’t have to worry about being silenced and they could discuss with other black women ways to help the black community out of oppression. What are one of the ways in which white women and women of color could work together to achieve true gender equality? By realizing that race, class, sexuality, socioeconomic status, etc shapes a woman’s experience in society, and that this needs to be acknowledged in order to fight for the equality of all women, not just the white ones.

            In this essay, I explained women’s part in the abolitionist movement, and how the women’s rights movement was formed. I explained the social and political invisibility of black women and how the movement refused to defend them in many ways. I spoke about black feminism and the different organizations designed to help liberate black women and their entire race.

Reviews

[Carol Cashes]

This was an interesting and informative read. As I was born with right to vote, the Suffragette movement was not a topic of specific interest to me, and I only knew what I was taught in school. I never really pursued the matter beyond that as my interests were fairly pedestrian until my 40's. (1990's). I am anxious to bring this piece to the attention of my friend, with whom I discuss all things that I do not have first hand knowledge of regarding race. She tells me that for a smart woman, I can be incredibly naive about such things as I do not think or act in terms of race and continue to be surprised when confronted with it, especially in its more subtle forms. But, she does not fault me for this blindness: she knows my mindset and realizes that while I personally take for granted the fact that all people are the same, I should not still be surprised that that statement does not hold true for far too many people. I guess you could say she forgives my ignorance regarding those people who still cling to archaic and even barbaric points of view. Yes, I am definitely going to print this out for her - this topic is at least a two-luncher! Lunch is our favorite activity and at least two hours are devoted to that pastime. We discuss many deep subjects with the occasional foray into gossip! Thank you for providing next week's agenda.

[Madame Murrell]

No problem at all Ms Carol! This was actually an essay I had to do for my gender studies course. I did alot of research on it and learned alot. I'm glad you learbed alot from it as well and I hope your friend like it:)

[Carol Cashes]

Your essay shows that research and even the passion with which you found yourself with on some of these points is evident. My friend and I are very close, I love her because she is smart, she's a woman, a mother, and a wife. She is the only African American friend that I felt comfortable asking things like why is it called a "permanent" when it straightens her hair as opposed to the frizzy gnarly mess that white women end up with! She knows that I'm not asking questions because I'm curious about her as some kind of exotic or alien "species", if you will, but because I'm white and just plain don't know. *laughing* I definitely will be showing her some of your work to get her feedback.

[Madame Murrell]

Okay :) let me know what she thinks!