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Assignment One

Angela Davis explores the women’s rights movement in chapter 3 of Women, Race & Class, “Class and Race in the Early Women’s Rights Campaign”. I found the way Davis connected white women and women of color under the oppression of male supremacy while exposing the flaws in the cohesion of the women’s rights movement to be very insightful and offer a deeper perspective on the standard understanding of the first women’s rights movement. Davis begins discussing the flaws with the “radical men” at the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention in London as the initial spark that led to the famous convention at Seneca Falls. A convention that was supposed to represent freedom of oppression from the dominant male hegemony ironically excluded women from participation. Women began working towards equality long before the Anti-Slavery Convention and Seneca Falls. There was a significant class division amongst women – in the late 1700s/early 1800s, women were the majority workers in textile mills yet still legally the property of their husbands or fathers (the same way slaves were the legal property of their owners). These working women were not entitled to their wages, still had to defer rights to men and weren’t included in the social movement of elite women. The culmination of events brought attention to the fact women and African Americans were suppressed and suffered in similar ways at the hands of the white men controlling and limiting their rights. Women, slaves and working class individuals joining forces to fight oppression was a hugely powerful component to the success of the women’s right movement and progression towards equality. Although it was difficult for some elite women to relate to lower class individuals (and especially slaves) their joined suffering created power in numbers that allowed for a more active push towards equal rights, the right to vote, education, power over wages, worker’s rights and so much more.

I think this is something that we still see today, especially with the modern political climate. It’s almost as if some women don’t see how they are oppressed in society. It is difficult to connect to and empower other oppressed women if you are unable to see the oppression that you exist under. I think about women who support Trump and don’t understand how some of the things he has said or some of his appointees could potentially pose a threat to women’s rights and the rights of minorities (including LGBT individuals). It makes me think of the elite women who initially saw themselves as separate from working class women. I wonder if these women don’t want to relate to feminists the same way women of the gilded cage didn’t want to relate to textile workers. History has shown that there is power in numbers and when minorities and oppresses demographics join forces, change is more effective.