The first sorority to demand equal rights

[33girl]

Originally Posted by breathesgelatin

It sure is.

By the early 20th c. portion of the movement we see some radical women involved (eg Alice Paul) who did have larger visions than just helping white women.

But it crops up again in the 2nd wave feminist movement of the 60s & 70s--for example the willingness of NOW to ignore the black voter rights movement in the south in order to achieve its aims for women. There has always been a profound racism/ethnocentrism in women's movements (which have been primarily led by elite white women). Thus the womanist movement and others which rose up to critique this model.

I would say that current feminist thought (primarily 3rd wave feminism & its integration with other disciplines such as queer and postcolonial studies) is still trying to remedy & confront this profound legacy of racism within feminism.

/women's studies lecture

I just finished a book called The New Victorians (the title refers to current "feminists") and you pretty much summed up about half of it.

In other words, black middle class women who need decent child care and job opportunities really do not give a shit that someone who has the $$$ to go to Vassar feels oppressed by a "girls with big boobs get into Chuck's Bar for half price" poster someone hung on a telephone pole. Hence why they don't get involved in the women's movement as it is today.

[DSTCHAOS]

Originally Posted by 33girl

In other words, black middle class women who need decent child care and job opportunities really do not give a shit that someone who has the $$$ to go to Vassar feels oppressed by a "girls with big boobs get into Chuck's Bar for half price" poster someone hung on a telephone pole.

Yeah. While there has always been an attempt by many to be outraged by such things, we understand the reality of the matter. The reality is that many of the women that we protest alongside will run off with their white male counterparts and perpetuate racial discrimination. Not all, but in a structural and more general sense.

It's the age-old debate over race, class, or gender. This is why people like bell hooks and Angela Davis took a lot of the stances that they took. It's really difficult to say that my gender or socioeconomic status are most important when I'm not up to social and structural par with other women who share my socioeconomic status. And I'm attached to black men whose position and experiences diverge from their white male counterparts who share their socioeconomic status.

It's also important to note that while black women stood by black men throughout this country's history, we haven't always been treated equally by these men. There was a great deal of sexism in the Civil Rights and Black Power Eras and this continues to this day, in general. It's the hypocrisy of wanting black women to support black men through structural constraints but to also want black women to put up with being mistreated based on our gender. "Support us...but shut up."