"White feminists could claim race priviledge by insisting that they were more intelligent and deserving of rights than other demeaned groups, but doing so both negated the idea of a common womanhood and reinforced the subordination of Africans, Asian, Native American, and Mexican women as well as men." (pg 76)
I think that quote does a good job summarizing why many white women chose to only fight for equality amongst white women. Clearly, there were several important women who spoke out and initiated events, groups, and introduced ideas. Maria Stewart, (the women who spoke out publicly against slavery), did not shy away from the public, despite the negative feedback she was receiving. She bravely stood up for her right to free speech as a human, not focusing on her African American race or "inferior" female gender.
Religious guilt seems to be a common theme in fighting for the equality of all women. Preaching about Christian duties and the faith of Christians seemed to draw people in, proving to be an overall effective strategy. Was this because people valued religion more than racial equality? Or simply because people could easily identify their "job" as Christians, and were reminded of them?
I thought it was great that Sojuorner Truth talked about the ruling over black women if black men got their rights. She brings up a good point in a sneaky way in that while she makes it clear that black women and white women need to be guarenteed their rights, she makes sure to point out that the goal is to change the conditions from how they were before, as freeing one group of people will still create an unbalance of power.
On page 80, it says that the National Association of Colored Women spread throughout several states while they focused on the unfair lynching of African Americans. Were whites allowed to be members of the National Associate of Colored Women?
My question is: Do you think that it is fair for someone to choose not to fight for a world-wide issue if it does not fall on that individual's "agenda," even if the person believes that the issue should be changed?
In other words, is it fair for someone who believes that all women deserve equal rights not to advocate for the equality of black women, simply because they don't see it as on their agenda?
The packet was very much about what we briefly discussed in class; blacks and their status during the entire feminism movement. Though the anti-slavery movement in some ways, is responsible for the birth of the feminism, little was ever actually done to benefit blacks once the needs of white women became involved. Initially, the feminism and anti-slavery movements went in hand in hand as one woman, Emily Collins described, "All through the Anti-Slavery struggle, every word of denunciation of the wrongs of the Southern slave, was I felt, equally applicable to the wrongs of my own sex...." (pg. 28 in Dicker) However, the racist feelings of some, and previously decided ideas about blacks, specifically black women, changed their involvement in the feminism movement. It was thought that the black women were below white women, because of thier sexual impurity. "White women's reluctance to work with black women, rested in part on this supposed moral divide between white female purity and black female depravity." (pg. 81 in No Turning Back) As a result blacks were forced to create their own suffrage groups. Further, allowing the participation of blacks in women's suffrage groups, meant the groups would lose much support from the south. Overall, the entire feminism movement was very much racially divided.
“Is it fair for someone who believes that all women deserve equal rights not to advocate for the equality of black women, simply because they don't see it as on their agenda?”
Heather, this is exactly what I wanted to talk about. I do not believe that it is fair for a someone who believes that ALL women deserve equal right to not advocate for black women also. After reading this packet I realized how messed up the women’s movement is. Yes they want equal rights, but point blank, it is only for white women. I think this because they use the African American race as a way to advanced themselves, and also they disregard that the African American race HAS women in there that also want to be liberated. It said so on page 76- “White feminist could claim race privileged by insisting that they were more intelligent and deserving of rights than other demeaned groups, but doing so both negated the idea of a common womanhood and reinforced the subordination of African, Asian, Native American, and Mexican women as well as men”.
I don’t see how advocating for black women is not on their agenda. Like I said in class, all these group of woman want to be liberated but refuse to want to anything with one another. I found page 80 and 81 the most interesting. On these pages white women were insulting black women, saying it was impossible for them to be ladies. This reading in general just makes me mad.
So my question is why do you think all these groups didn’t work together? Did that have a neglect or positive affect on their advancement to gain equality?
This reading did a lot to reiterate the truths in the Dicker. However, I feel like we have talked a lot about Black Women, but not about other women of color. Therefore, I enjoyed the information about Jewish Women, Immigrant Women, etc. The connections between women's rights and lynching is something that I never would have considered, and yet the implications are fascinating. It is not only racial prejudice that affects women, but social violence that is based upon racism. You'd think that, due to instances of domestic violence, white women would be horrified by lynchings against black men, even if they still had prejudices. Certainly, what Alice Paul did to Ida Wells-Barnett was truly nothing in comparison to the callousness women could show against other minorities. I was intrigued to learn that, despite the Southern missionary women's groups that worked to prevent lynchings and defend lynching victims, "...the resurgent Ku Klux Klan established a Women's KKK, which in 1924 claimed a membership of a quarter million." (pg. 81) Clearly, women's devotion to social justice causes truly went both ways. Do you think lynching was, by nature of its racist justifications by the perpetrators, a feminist issue? Obviously it was an important issue to resolve, but did it illustrate the same characteristics of oppression that limited women?
The first sentence of this article reads, "The rejection of inherited privilege that nurtured European feminisms also called into question other social hierarchies..." Nurturing is a good word choice, because white, middle-class women could easily fall back upon their economic, social, and racial status to support them in their fight for suffrage and other rights. And yet, the author claims that this "inherited privilege" was rejected by some women, therefore conveying their determination to force change the hard way. I was also inspired by the quote on page 77 by Maria Stewart, " Let us no longer talk of prejudice till prejudice becomes extinct at home. Let us no longer talk of opposition till we cease to oppose our own." Were women hurting their cause or helping it by engaging in internal turmoil of this nature? Would a more all-inclusive approach to suffrage have tipped the balance of this delicate issue, or could women have killed two birds with one stone?
To try and answer Heather's question about Christianity, I believe that, since traditional women were "supposed to be" highly religious, women saw religious issues as a sort of special female calling. Also, tying their activism to religion made was a slightly less controversial way of combating social justice issues. By talking of religious duty, women could feel accepted by the rest of the community, and still engage in radical politics.
I felt as if there was a distinct distinction (hee-hee) between the reading and the packet in the more direct accusations by Freedman of racism withing the women's activism groups. Where dicker will only mention offhandedly that the southern women's suffragists excluded for reasons both political and racist, Freedman focuses more directly on racism in the first wave feminist groups, pointing out such activities as trying "to bolter their unpopular cause by exploiting racial stereotypes directed at both African Americans and the masses of catholic and Jewish immigrants arriving form Europe." In addition Freedman seems to more directly state that the issue of racism was being actively ignored by women's rights activists as opposed to excluded for political reasons.
Though I now appear to have been sorely mistaken, I had come under the impression while reading the Dicker that two central groups existed within the first wave feminist movement, firstly a group that believed the moral and logical imperative to include other oppressed groups within their movement outweighed the practical, political disadvantages, and a second which believed that, though morally and logically other groups deserved the same rights which women were at the time demanding, the inclusion of such groups would create a hostile political atmosphere, hindering the movement. But it seems that there existed little support of the victimized African Americans by female activists. How is it possible that a movement which had its roots in abolitionism could fail to continue on the path or racial equality? Or, were the people involved in abolitionism truly not interested in racial equality as the text suggests? Were they in fact solely interested in the abolishment of slavery, but failed to see the moral quandary presented by further oppression of African Americans?
I like this book (reading..) about a MILLION times more than our other book. It's incredible to me how the author can reinterpret the same events mentioned in Dicker with such a clearly different interpretation.
Where the Dicker paints a picture of white middle class female suffragists in different turns as "fair," "religious," and "radical," the rejection of black women for the most part seems almost softened in comparison to this reading. When I read the Dicker, I agreed whole heartedley with Olivia Mac's point in class today: white woman, although feeling for their black sisters, thought it would detract from their suffrage goals and only ill against these freed black women was to disinclude them in their activities.
Yet in "No Turning Back," we see a picture of a very aggressively anti-"different" women---black women, Jewish women, Asian women, Mexican women, etc. If anything, many white feminists became enemies of liberation, as explored in this excerpt on page 81:
"White women's reluctance to work with black women rested in part on this supposed moral divide between white female purity and black female depravity...Few white women's clubs took heed of this message. Along with excluding African Americans they ignored the call to help abolish lynching. When Wells called for support in her campaign, the leader of the influential WCTU, Frances Willard, failed to speak out and even seemed to condone lynching as necessary to protect white women's virtue."
Yet perhaps it could be argued that this is almost reasonable. After all, black MEN are the victims of lynching, not women, so one could say that by ignoring/supporting lynching doesn't prove flawed in forwading the goals of (white) women. Naturally I don't believe this at all, but I tried to see what these women were perhaps thinking at the time. Yet another quote on this same page lies this doubt to rest:
"In the aftermath of suffrage, white women's racial attitudes ranged from intolerance to neglect to engagement...the resurgent Ku klux Klan establiushed a Women's KKK, which in 1924 claimed a membership of a QUARTER MILLION."
I COULD NOT GET OVER THIS. A QUARTER MILLION!!!!! Forget women who are passive in their racism, these women were ACTIVELY organizing to inhibit/prevent liberation towards black men AND BLACK WOMEN. THESE PEOPLE ARE NOT FEMINISTS.
So besides being shocking just in terms of truth, you'll notice nothing even hinting to this is really written in the Dicker. Its as if the necessary dates and people collaborate in the two readings, yet the Dicker omits insane facts like the aforementioned. True, many other things were repeated between the two readings and certainly corroborate each other, yet there's a distinctly scarier image offered by this packet. So no, there are no real contradictions between the two, just BLARING sins of omission.
Also, Dicker has yet to even mention the words, "Asian" (specifically, Chinese,) "Mexican," "Catholic" and "Jewish." I find this interesting because while we've definitely delved into the significance of Christianity throughout the North, South, and culture of the United States at this time, issues regarding incoming Catholicism and Judaism have yet to be explored. True, we've only had three days in this class, but what started off as an incredibly complicated scenario with race, gender in class gets even harder with different religions. Even if white women called themselves "better" Christians than black men and women alike, at least they're all Christian right? Well, obviously not because there wouldn't be a problem in the first place if someone just said, "We're all WOMEN, right?," or, even MOST radical---"We're all PEOPLE, right?"
I guess at this point my only real question is, with SO many groups involved and with everyone kind of having a stake in it one way or another, was there anyone/group NOT involved in suffrage/rights issues? Or is this, on a theoretical level, just not possible, to not be involved?
OH and I was writing this while Hardy must have been writing his. But I want to respond (briefly) to his "moral quandary" question.
In a word--yes. I do believe they were aware of the moral quandary on a cursory level but was somehow able to definitively (or seemingly definitively) pick a "side."
So, this might be strange, but I'm going to come out in say it in the only way I really know how.
This reading made me really uncomfortable.
Well, for most of it I felt okay... disappointed/disillusioned with the gestures of many of the white feminists in regards to the inclusion of black women, for sure, but that disappointment was something that made sense to me and I was totally comfortable with. I mean, it was super disheartening. The Dicker readings started me off gushing about how harmonious and beautiful it was that these two groups who were being treated unfairly were coming together and helping each other, the next night it seemed that white women were sort of taking advantage of this connection they made to better only themselves, totally leaving behind black women... which is, in itself, absurd. I mean, if you're talking about the betterment of ALL women, then its illogical to cast out any sect of... females. But still, Dicker portrayed it in a way where it looked like these leading, white feminists were FORCED to pin african american rights (plus, more specifially, african american WOMEN'S rights) against white women's rights... and if they had to choose only one, they ended up choosing themselves.
But this reading was different. It showed these white feminists and shown, with brutal honesty, their EXACT replication of the system women were trapped in, just on a different scale. Exactly what feminism was trying to counter it was creating with different variables.
So, all of that is obviously abhorrent. And that, I guess, is what started making me feel uncomfortable. But by the end of the reading, I felt uncomfortable for a different reason.
On page 82, in summing up the chapter, Freedman started talking about how these white women totally ignored when black women's organizations reached out to them. Specifically with the issue of making public the horrific jim crow lynchings of black men. This is when I started to feel weird... because, in all honesty, I started to question whether these feminists needed to take responsibility for this particular event. As HUMAN BEINGS, of course they needed to take responsibility. But specifically feminists? I'm not so sure. The reading emphasized that it was the lynching of black men, and unless you're going with this all encompassing definition of feminism (the one where feminism needs to cure every "ism" that exists) which hadn't really been thought of yet, I'm not sure that that situation was a "FEMINISM"'s responsibility.
They already had the responsibility to help these black men and women, but not because they were feminists. Because they were human beings.
Do humans get so blinded by their "causes"?
So I guess my question would be, by creating a term like feminism (meaning any term that implies you are pushing for the rights of a specific group of people), with that name do you inevitably compromise all other groups' rights in relation to the group your fighting for?
In response to Heather's question, I don't think it's right or fair for people to believe in a cause but ignore it if it could hinder the success of their desires, but I do think it is understandable. It's certainly not the most honorable course to take, but as we talked about in class on the first day, it's almost necessary to pick which battles to fight at once. If not, it could turn into the unattainable "why don't we all just be better people?" Where would one make the cut off? Women in other countries aren't free, does that mean the women's movement can't be over until all women in the whole world have the same rights as each other, since everyone is supposedly part of the sisterhood? Actually the answer is probably yes, since feminism continues to this day and will almost definitely always be active. So while I do understand the need for logistical reasoning to cut down on who to help out it really sucks and especially didn't seem fair since supposedly most of the women's rights activists had been fighting so strongly for black rights earlier. It seemed uber lame that as soon as it could threaten 'their' (meaning the white activists') cause they'd totally back down from their original arguments.
I really appreciate that we read different historical interpretations because these two readings portrayed a VERY different picture. While Freedman's No Turning Back can get convoluted, it definitely addresses the racism within many of the White Women's-Rights groups.
Like Heather, I really liked Sojourner Truth's argument that if you give only the Black men the vote, they will just become the masters of the Black women, and then nothing will have changed.
I also liked that this reading addressed the different tactics which the White women's rights groups employed through the lens of what message each sent to the black women. This is represented on page 76, when she says "White feminists COULD claim race privilege by insisting that they were more intelligent and deserving of the rights than other demeaned groups, BUT in doing so both negated the idea of a common womanhood and reinforced the subordination.." While the author could have been more clear at some points, she also more thoroughly examined the dilemma of 'What would you say/do to get your own interests passed? Who would you undermine and stereotype to achieve your goal?
And in response to Rachel’s question [“With SO many groups involved and with everyone kind of having a stake in it one way or another, was there anyone/group NOT involved in suffrage/rights issues? Or is this, on a theoretical level, just not possible, to not be involved?”],
I believe that there were a lot of people who were not involved. Because we are specifically studying Women’s movements most of the readings focus only the key players of women’s movements rather than many who did not participate at all. I think that it is very easy for people to be apathetic and un-involved, although I don’t believe that those people necessarily did not have opinions on the issues, they just didn’t care enough or perhaps were simply unable, to get involved. To place this in the context of a CSW example: most CSW community members hold a consensus that leaving cups and plates in random buildings is bad, many openly object during discussion assemblies or close their respective buildings to dishware, however many people not only continue this behavior, but do nothing to rectify this behavior when they encounter it in others.
...In regards to the KKK’s claim of a quarter million members, extremist groups are infamous for inflating their numbers.
My Question: In some of their racist tactics, do the ends justify the means? Not simply in terms of the suffrage struggle, but in larger terms Is it ever okay to malign a group facing a similar struggle in order to try to help your group succeed?
[This is something I wonder when I think about how Non-profit organizations are all always fighting for the same funding; there's only so much money to go around and yet most of them all have equally heartwarming goals]
I liked this reading much more than our book. It seemed to address issues and events that the book did not think to and was much more organized. Literally every topic sentence addressed what the paragraph was going to be about making it much more simple to follow but still offered complex incite.
Like previously stated by almost everyone the dilemma over race within the context of the female sex was a major topic of this reading. It brought up interesting points on how the adoption of the idea that white women were superior to black women negated the concept of common womanhood and forced a split in women’s campaign for rights.
What tonight’s reading talked about and what was left out of the book was its failure to persuade racists to acknowledge women’s ideas without the issue with race. The reading said that it barley increased the votes in the south and the north, so in reality it might have hurt their cause more than reinforce it.
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