Racist white feminists
Hi again;
As you know, I’ve set myself the task of learning about feminism. This post is part of my quest.
I’ve found that many of the early white feminists were also… racists.
Shame on them, of course… but maybe we could talk about their circumstances.
Of course, I won’t be able to discuss their case within a short blog post, so please read from other sources too. I’ve included some references at the bottom of this post.
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We view the world influenced by where we are born; the times we live; our formal and informal education; the media around us; our families and communities -work, culture, leisure, religion, politics, friends etc-
When we surround ourselves with people with similar views to our own we reinforce them and come to see them as unquestionable.
We are unaware of our own biases.
In XIX America slave ownership among affluent families was common. Many white people accepted it unquestioningly.
Some of them, however, rebelled against this and started speaking out. For instance, the Grimke sisters grew up in a family of slaveholders. They saw the injustice of slavery and dedicated their lives to fight against it. They objected to a system that profited from slavery: «how much greater the condemnation of those who, not merely receive the stolen products of the slave’s labor, but voluntarily purchase them”(Grimke p.196)
Angela Davis explains how anti-slavery movements prompted political awareness in abolitionists women: “As they worked with the abolitionist movement, white women learned about the nature of human oppression -and in the process, also learned important lessons about their own subjugation” (Davis p. 39)
When black men gained the right to vote in USA many feminists were angry. They blamed the abolitionist movement for women’s failure to gain the vote.
I won’t go into the political interests behind the vote in here; it would take too long to explain.
However, years later Sylvia Pankhurst, another pioneering feminist, noted how some groups could be manipulated against their own interests:
«In the First World War, Sylvia had seen how racism was used to deflect anger away from the powerful by dividing working-class communities amongst themselves” (Connelly p.109).
Or another example, using sexism: “Women munition workers faced additional pressures. The employers quickly identified the potential offered by these new, unorganised workers who, as women, were used to low pay. Many were forced to work an excessive, and often illegal, number of hours […] for which they were paid less than male workers. This gave rise to resentment among male workers who feared the women were undercutting their jobs” (Connelly p.79)
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I could now offer my thoughts about whether early white feminists were manipulated to have racist views, or whether society was to blame, or they could have tried harder…
But I didn’t live their situation and my opinions are redundant.
I’ll leave you to ponder the question for yourself.
Is this discussion relevant today?
Yes, I think so. «Feminism is about questioning privilege and power -our own and other’s» (Van Der Gaag. p. 66).
I think we are all at risk of being biased, today as much as in XIX America.
Perhaps we could aim to be aware and question our own prejudices so we stop being manipulated by those in power.
Or …we could find someone to blame and keep the system just as it is.
Thanks for reading this
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Further reading:
Women, race & class. Angela Y Davis. 2001.
On Slavery and Abolitionism.Sarah Grimke and Angelina Grimke 2014.
Sylvia Pankhurst: suffragette, socialist and scourge of Empire. Catherine Connelly 2013.
Feminism: Why the world still needs the F-word. Nikki Van Der Gaag. 2017.
Other feminist books