It may seem strange now that white and black women didn't feel much common cause in antebellum times. But I think at the time an enslaved black woman was thought of by whites in that order: slave first, black second, woman third.
Alot of the feminism of the 20th century just didn't exist in most of the 19th, especially the antebellum South. Voting and other equal rights weren't even widely popular among women at the time (and aren't even universal today). What seems today like an obvious alliance didn't seem so at the time.
Your comment was so great - thanks
I totally agree on how white women viewed the enslaved woman. Which, is how I would think one would have to view them to maintain a disconnect and detachment to be able to live, work with and aid in their enslavement.
In terms of the absence of feminism and the extreme patriarchy during that time -- it has been the most helpful in helping to really
get and empathize with many of the women --- and even some of the men. It has also helped me understand the history and relationship dynamics of white and black women.
I was watching a documentary or lecture discussing the abolishment and suffrage movement and learned many women during that time who did support the emancipation of the enslaved and women's rights - they did not want Black women to be able to have the same rights. And neither did Black men --- now aiding and benefiting from patriarchy. That too has been very hard to come to grips with - as it is a major issue
still in our community.
All and all - this is all very eye opening and helps better explain the the full picture.
These women were passionate figures who greatly advanced women’s rights in the public, but history tends to forget the racism that fueled white feminism and the omission of black women from this pivotal movement. By the mid-1850s and the start of the Civil War, many feminists were still promoting emancipation, but the movement still severely excluded black people of all genders; this latent racism eventually became explicit in feminist arguments supporting female suffrage.
After the Civil War ended in 1865, it was expected that black men would gain the right to vote. Shortly after, in 1870, the fifteenth amendment was ratified, allowing men to vote no matter their “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Understandably, women were upset that they did not gain the right to vote as well, but one would think that after emerging from the abolition movement, supporters of feminism would not base this anger off of race. “What will we and our daughters suffer if these degraded black men are allowed to have the rights that would make them even worse than our Saxon fathers?” (qtd. in Ginzberg interview).
These blatantly racist words were unfortunately Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s. Essentially, she said that women would suffer more persecution under black men with political power than under the white men who had systematically oppressed white and black women for centuries. In an interview with NPR, Lori Ginzberg, the author of Elizabeth Cady Stanton: An American Life, highlights the main problem with white feminism after the Civil War: “She demanded — in the true liberal tradition — access to the mainstream of American society in terms of professions, education, law, politics, property and so on. But when she said ‘women,’ I think … that she primarily had in mind women much like herself: white, middle-class, culturally if not religiously protestant, propertied, well-educated. And my disagreement with Stanton is that she… came to see women like herself as more deserving of rights than other people.” Even today, we find white, middle class feminists who are not reaching past their demographic and supporting the rest of their sisters. The issues of black women fall to the back burner of social justice movements time and time again.
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Even so there were black male leaders who opposed Douglass’s support of rights for women. In the essay
Reconstructing Black Masculinity I state that most black men recognized the powerful and necessary role black women had played as freedom fighters in the effort to abolish slavery, yet they still wanted black women to be subordinated. Explaining further:
They wanted black women to conform to the gender norms set by white society. They wanted to be recognized as men, as patriarchs, by other men, including white men. Yet they could not assume this position if black women were not willing to conform to prevailing sexist gender norms. Many black women who had endured white-supremacist patriarchal domination during slavery did not want to be dominated by black men after manumission. Like black men, they had contradictory positions on gender. On one hand they did not want to be dominated, but on the other hand they wanted black men to be protectors and providers. After slavery ended, enormous tension and conflict emerged between black women and men as folks struggled to be self-determining. As they worked to create standards for community and family life, gender roles continued to be problematic.
These contradictions
became the norm in black life.
However, as Lemons also points out about Douglass’ writing, there seems to be a distinct lack of black female support (which was seen all across white feminism anyway): “despite Douglass’s lifelong devotion to female liberation and ongoing battle for black independence, black female subjectivity is edited out of the text of black male feminist representation” (Lemons 24). Since most white women and black men did not explicitly support black women, black women had to push even harder to gain their long awaited equality.
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“While women’s suffrage in the US has its roots in the anti-slavery movement prior to the 1860s, they increasingly found that having any support for black people was a drag in their campaign,” says Adams. “White suffragettes found it would be better if they distanced themselves from black women.”
Source(s):
http://northernlightnhcc.org/?p=149
http://www.npr.org/2011/07/13/137681070/for-stanton-all-women-were-not-created-equal
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/wo...the-suffragettes-the-uncomfortable-truth.html
http://blog.fair-use.org/2007/12/31...elationship-to-masculinity-from-we-real-cool/