THANKS FOR THE HERSTORY

WOW I can't wait to see this movie! Thanks for a great review - it is wonderful to see more and more herstory coming to light! Looking forward to your book too!

by Meryl Ann Butler (43 articles, 42 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 350 comments) on Sunday, June 1, 2008 at 4:04:17 PM
 

suffrage and the Clintonites

I've always thought it was interesting how during the Black suffrage movement (for Black males) educated Caucasian women rallied to the cause, yet decades later when American society finally got around to enfranchising women only a few exceptional African American intellectuals like Frederick Douglas, Sojourner, "Ain't I a woman?" Truth, and Ida B. Wells actively supported the "suffragettes". The answer, of course, lies in the racism of the very same white suffragists we've all come to regard with great historical affection.

Now, 88 years later, when an African American appears to have a fairly good chance of being elected to the nation's highest office a faction of supporters of that candidate's White female rival are crying foul and threatening to form a "Women's Party" whose sole purpose will be to defeat the Black person's candidacy. This, while the White female candidate in question flippantly quips about the possibility of assassination and her supporters call the Black candidate "un-qualified" or even a "misogynistic racist Black-supremacist anti-Christ". And, get this; those same Clinton supporters are likening themselves to the Suffragettes and quoting Susan B. Anthony.



The feminist movement in North America, it should be recalled, was begun by Africans and Native Americans. For our purposes let us confine our examination to the former. If feminism is to be defined, in essence as philosophy of conscious struggle for women's rights, freedoms and sovereignty then every captive African woman who made a conscious choice to be the pillar of her family or community so that her grandchildren or theirs might some day be free must rightly be called a nascent feminist. Those who chose to do more and who actively rebelled typically suffered and sacrificed more than the women who were stoned and beaten in the streets of New York in their all-white marches for women's rights to vote.

Of course, all of these are heroes, white or Black, upon whose shoulders we tepidly stand today, but at the same time that women were gaining the right to vote Black folks in America were still getting lynched (Tulsa, 1921 , Rosewood, 1923) and where was the concerted indignation of the White Surrafgist/feminists?

So, when I hear certain Clintonites denounce Michelle Obama for not being "proud(er)" of America as they vow to keep an African American from reaching the presidency my thoughts are; "You've come a long way ('baby') - all the way from 1921 to 1868".

by evan davis (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 2 comments) on Sunday, June 1, 2008 at 6:31:04 PM
 

Wyoming women had the right to vote before the Amendment

As many are willing to admit, many who want something done call on a woman. In the case of Wyoming, women had to vote in order to have enough franchised citizens to form a state. Thus the motto "The Equality State." My father homesteaded in Wyoming in 1918. My mother met him there in 1921. She was quick to tell me that when I was 21, I could vote, and it didn't take the US government to do it. And then she added a little extra news. As a schoolgirl, I knew women couldn't serve on juries. I was outraged and wanted a logical reason. She said "they" believed women were too emotional to make good decisions. We chuckled.

Women in the Mountain West are plenty independent. They write about it in High Country News sometimes.

by Margaret Bassett (25 articles, 1685 quicklinks, 29 diaries, 1015 comments) on Wednesday, June 4, 2008 at 9:07:15 PM
 

Ha! I just KNEW you had inside info

thanks for commenting, Margaret. 

I did not know that background info about Wyoming - what an interesting piece of information - that they needed women to count so they could qualify as a state! 

How charming your mother, like you, didn't buy into the stereotypes men foisted on us. 

In researching election history, I learned that because the suffrage movement connected itself with the prohibitionists (Women's Christian Temperance Union), the political clout of both dramatically increased.  I haven't yet confirmed this but I suspect part of the reason the 19th Amendment finally passed was that there was some kind of compromise - e.g. the men said, you let us drink and we'll let you vote. 

by Rady Ananda (110 articles, 262 quicklinks, 30 diaries, 888 comments) on Wednesday, June 4, 2008 at 10:12:20 PM