Achieving Feminist Goals Across Social And Ethnic Barriers

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Achieving feminist goals across social and ethnic barriers By Lauren Rabaino | WS 450 Feminist Theory | Final Report | June 11, 2009

Feminism was a movement that, from the start, wanted to ignore the “color” issue. At the convention in Akron, Ohio when Sojourner Truth gave her infamous speech, women were worried that the race problem would get in the way of the feminist agenda. “Every newspaper in the land will have our cause mixed with abolition,” the chairman of the convention was documented as saying (Truth 93). That initial tone of divide among feminism and other forms of oppression has forever laid a path that places white, middle class feminism at the forefront, leaving women of color and lower class in the dust. Feminism is a movement that, to this day, continues to exclude women of minority classes and races, but that there is hope that in the future the movement can become all-encompassing. Iris Marion Young argues that minorities endure five layers of oppression that the majority – white, middle-class women – are generally shielded from. The five forms of oppression include: exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism and violence. Although not explicitly stated, we see these five forms of oppression reiterated in the writings of various minority feminists. Young describes exploitation as oppression what happens directly through political means and Sojourner Truth exemplifies this form in her powerful speech about the struggles she endured as a slave (Young 5, Truth 90). Marginalization refers to the group of underclass people whom the labor force will not use (Young 8). An example of this notion in action is materialized through examples given by Elizabeth Martinez about the Chicana woman who is forced to work in the fields in her adolescence out of necessity and lack of other options for generating an income for her family (Martinez 41). Young describes powerlessness as

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a form of oppression experienced by the non-professionals of the workforce who lack privileges of the professional sector (Young 10). Cultural imperialism is defined by Young in the following manner:

To experience cultural imperialism means to experience how the dominant meanings of a society render the particular perspective of one’s own group and mark it out as the Other (Young 12). This very definition of cultural imperialism is what Esther Ngan-Ling Chow describes as the “individual or psychological” struggles Asian Americans endure when faced with the conflict of accepting ideals of the American feminist movement (Chow 212). Young describes the final form of oppression – violence – as the obvious: random, unprovoked attacks (based solely on race) and sexual assault (Young 13). The women who wrote the Combahee collective statement talk about the latter when addressing the fact that Black women are often sexually assaulted because of their race and gender combined. Each form of oppression is illustrated within the writings of various minority feminists. The reason each of these forms of oppression is important in terms of minorities is because it exemplifies perfectly the reasons why feminism has not been an all-inclusive movement thus far. The problems endured by women of color go far beyond the scope generally addressed by the white, elitist feminists. Typically, they aforementioned group fights for “equality” in the vague sense or “women’s rights.” The goals of feminists are dispersed and often unclear, but all rooted in completely restructuring society. Looking at the writings of leading white feminists, it’s further proven that minorities are left out of the picture. For example, in Virginia Woolf’s essay Professions for Women, she writes about the unjustness for women writers when it comes to the “Angel in the House” (Woolf 60). What she doesn’t consider is that during her time period, the difficulty for women to write honestly and openly about their

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sexuality was not even close to being an important issue for women of color. In fact, most women of color in that time period did not have education, much less a valid consciousness for the difficulty of writing about women’s issues. The goals and concerns for someone like Woolf versus someone like Truth during that time period were on opposite ends of the spectrum. We see a theme of disconnect throughout most examples of minority feminist writing. As Elizabeth Martinez argues in La Chicana, Chicana women are oppressed with two additional layers above sexism – oppression and imperialism (Martinez 41). This makes the struggle of Chicana women even more difficult to endure. The Chicana woman has to deal with struggles the average white woman doesn’t, like being a single mother. The women’s liberation movement headed by white, middle class Americans rejects the traditional family; the Chicana feminist uses the family as “a source of unity” and as a “major defense against the oppressor” (Martinez 43). When these understandings of the world and empowerment are different among women with different backgrounds and cultural histories, finding a common ground for goals becomes difficult. The white feminist focuses solely on sexism, but not on the imperialism or racism aspects that have become so intertwined in the sexism dealt with by Chicana women. The solution is not to take each problem one at a time by first solving racism, then moving onto imperialism, then fighting sexism alongside the white women. It does not work that way because the three issues cannot be separated. As Martinez says, “They are all a part of the same system, they are three faces of the same enemy” (Martinez 43). The only way to overcome all three is to understand how they are linked and face it as one problem instead of three separate problems. This is something the white feminist has not done. Esther Ngan-Ling Chow argues that – much like the Chicana woman – Asian women endure layered forms of oppression that the white woman cannot fathom. The Asian woman has

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six tiers of oppression to overcome: individual, racially, culturally, class, gender and legalpolitical (Chow 213). For an Asian woman to contribute to the feminist movement led by the white, middle-class woman, she would risk throwing out another important part of her identity: her ethnicity and culture tied to that ethnicity (Chow 213). Psychologically, this is a drain. Adjusting to an American culture is a contradiction of Asian culture (Chow 213). Asian women struggle to find the balance between American culture and Asian culture, and balance between acceptances from the two different groups of people she is supposed to please. This is a problem that the white feminist movement doesn’t consider or address because she only has one standard by which to base her identity: that of the middle class white person. African American women endure different problems in day-to-day life than that of the white woman. Those differences are clear even in a time as early as Sojourner Truth’s days. Unlike the white women who needed to be helped into carriages and lifted over ditches, that was the least of Truth’s concerns, and isn’t she a woman too (Truth 95)? She had done the work of a man in her lifetime because of the racial oppression she endured, heightening and changing significantly the problems she dealt with in the realm of sexism. The black women of the Combahee River do no separate concepts of racism and sexism; for example:

We know that there is such a thing as racial-sexual oppression which is neither solely racial nor solely sexual, e.g., the history of rape of Black women by white men as a weapon of political repression” (Combahee 32). Bell Hooks’ essay “Feminism: A Movement to End Sexist Oppression” is a shining example of how we can move forward with feminism to achieve an all-encompassing movement. She argues that we cannot move forward with feminism until we first define what feminism is and the goals being sought after. They key point Hooks makes is that women do not all share a common vision of what “equality” means – a statement which perfectly captures the reason why feminism

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is not a movement for all races and social classes. A black woman would not want equality to a black man because she knows that he is oppressed in the same way that she is, therefore being “equal to men” is not a goal the black woman wants to achieve (Hooks 23). What being “equal to men” really means is being equal to the middle-class white man. The way feminism exists now is inherently repulsive to women of color because supporting it would mean supporting a racist cause (Hooks 24). The question of how to include all women in the feminist movement is not an easy one to answer. Bell Hooks suggests using different terminology when referring to feminist action. Instead of saying “I am a feminist” she suggests every feminist say “I advocate feminism” (Hooks 26). The small difference in dialogue could bring about radical change because it makes feminism approachable and actionable. Although a valid argument, changing language alone is not enough to bring ethnic minorities to the roundtable on feminist issues. If minorities truly want to be involved in feminism, then they can unite to create their own movement, as suggested by Chow (Chow 216). Although the struggles among Chicanas, Asians, blacks and other minorities are different in their own unique ways, they – for the most part – endure many of the same struggles. This is why, Chow argues, they should unite. But ultimately, all women –white and colored – will have to work together to achieve real change:

Only when different groups work effectively and strategically together as a political force will all women achieve a new political consciousness and gain collective strength to supersede the race, gender, sexual, class and cultural differences that now divide them (Chow 218). So how can this be done when all the different goals mentioned in this report have been so conflicting? Feminists want to restructure society, but the standards for such a restructure are radically different among different races and social classes. It’s about changing the mindset first.

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Not only white women, but colored women, too, need to see the perspectives of others. Charlotte Bunch is the feminist with a goal far beyond a united feminism movement in the United States; she believes that feminism can be truly successful once it has become a global movement (Bunch 250). The solution to uniting women across different geographical barriers with different goals and problems is finding the links at the root of those problems that are shared among all women – whether it is the white feminist or the third-world mother (Bunch 251). Today, we still have not achieved a true feminism that sees the interconnectedness between racism and sexism and addresses the two as a single cause. But we’re getting closer. Grassroots forces like the blog ThinkGirl.net have petitioned the mainstream media for its confirmation of the white-driven, middle class feminist movement (Think Girl). In June 2008, contemporary feminists Ann Russo and Melissa Spatz started a petition called “Stop the False Race/Gender Divide: A Call to Action” when they saw unfair media coverage between Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton during the 2008 presidential election (Petition Site). Part of the statement is as follows:

We do not accept the logic that criticizing sexism must be tied to a denial or minimization of racism. Sexism and racism, as well as other forms of oppression, are interconnected . . . The misogynist spectacle against Hillary Clinton is directly tied to her white, middle class heterosexuality, which is different from attacks on women who are not white, middle-class and heterosexual. We are dismayed that when media pundits frame Michelle Obama as an angry black woman, or as unpatriotic, or suggest that she should be the target of a “lynching party”, there has been so similar feminist outcry by white women” (Michelle Obama Watch). This recent petition shows that we still have a long way to go in the movement. Perhaps even more disheartening is the fact that the petition only garnered a total of 556 signatures (Petition Site). But still, it is a step in the right direction. If the momentum of these small movements

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continues to grow, then the future for a completely united feminism may not be impossible to achieve. In the United States, there has been a history of disassociating racism and sexism as linked forms of oppression. From the early days of feminism, Sojourner Truth showed the world that there was another perspective to be seen, yet feminists persevered with a continually white, elitist agenda. To this day, feminism is not a movement that is inclusive for all women of different ethnicities and social classes because the goals of feminism do not take minorities into consideration. As the voices of those minorities continue to gain momentum through the present and into the future, there is growing hope that feminism will someday become the universal, allencompassing movement that it needs to be to achieve true success, and thus freedom for women around the world.

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Works Cited "A Petition to Uphold Feminism that Doesn’t Exclude Black Women Like Michelle Obama |." Michelle Obama Watch. 11 June 2009 . Chow, Esther Ngan-Ling. “The Feminist Movement: Where are all the Asian American Women?” (PDF, No date). Combahee River Collective. “Combahee River Collective Statement.” (PDF, No date). Hooks, Bell. “Feminism: A Movement to End Sexist Oppression.” (PDF, No date). Martinez, Elizabeth. “La Chicana.” (PDF, No date). "Sign the Petition: Stop the False Race/Gender Divide." Think Girl. 11 June 2009 . "Stop the False Race/Gender Divide: A Call to Action - The Petition Site." Create free petitions - write a petition at thepetitionsite.com. 11 June 2009 . Truth, Sojourner. “Ain’t I a Woman.” Young, Iris Marion. “Five Faces of Oppression.” (PDF, no date).