Women of Color and the Women's Movement

The following discussion began with a query regarding the contributions of
women of color to the women's movement.  The query gave rise to a lengthy
discussion that also included such issues as inclusion of women of color
in women's studies courses, racism in the women's movement, and the
difficulties of talking about race.  The discussion took place on WMST-L
in September and October 2000.  For additional WMST-L files now available
on the Web, see the WMST-L File Collection.

PAGE 1 OF 5

i am looking for references that specifically address the issue of the
contributions of women of color to the women's movement.  i am primarily
interested in historical figures.
any suggestions?
i will compile a bib and post it to the list if there is sufficient interest.
thanks in advance.
tamara
wskckcc  @  aol.com

Try Paula Giddings, _When and Where I Enter_, a history of black women's
movement (including feminist movement) which touches at times upon the
relationship of black women to feminist movements.
Alyson Buckman
Austin College

_Words of Fire: An Anthology of African-American Feminist Thought_ edited by
Beverly Guy-Sheftall is an excellent collection of writings by Black women,
and includes writings from as early as 1831.

Kari Kesler
Texas Woman's University

Try The Feminist Memoir Project...it might be a good place to start.

Victoria Heckler
vdheckler  @  aol.com

Try,

Paula Gunn Allen's "Who is your mother? Red Roots of White Feminism" in
her collection _The Sacred Hoop_.

Zitkala-Sa's _American Indian Stories_ (circa 1900)(aka Geraldine Bonner);
especially the forward.

The long-standing argument about whether the U.S. Constitution was based
on the Iroquois Confederacy is given an interesting twist in
_The Untold Story of the Iroquois Influence on Early Feminists_ by Sally
Roesch Wagner Sky Carrier Press, 1996.  She writes, "I had been haunted by
a question to the past, a mystery of feminist history: How did the radical
suffragists come to their vision, a vision not of a Band-Aid reform but of
a reconstituted world completely transformed?"  A blurb for her book is
at:

http://www.pinn.net/~sunshine/book-sum/wagner2.html

Deborah

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Deborah A. Miranda
English Department
Director, EOP Writing Program
University of Washington
Box 354330   Seattle, WA  98195
vm: 206-685-2461
email: <dmiranda  @  u.washington.edu>

something REALLY bothers me about this question being framed in the
first place--does anyone conceptualize the question "what have white
women contributed to the women's movement?"--the question itself
perpetuates/legitimizes "otherness" status which it seems to me we
should have gotten out of a while ago--by now we should have an
understanding of this history as an integrated whole which encompasses
ALL the diverse threads which have woven the fabric--if we don't, it
seems to me we need to take a close look at THAT...

am i by myself in this?...

debbie <louis  @  umbc.edu>

I just bought a book by Joy James called "Shadowboxing: Representations of
Black Feminist Politics." I haven't read it yet but it looks wonderful.
Dorothy Miller
dcmiller  @  twsuvm.uc.twsu.edu
Dorothy C. Miller
Assoc. Professor & Chair
Center for Women's Studies
Wichita State University
1845 Fairmount
Wichita, KS 67260-0082
316-978-3358
FAX: 316-978-3186
dcmiller  @  twsuvm.uc.twsu.edu

The original message read:

> >     << i am looking for references that specifically address the issue of
> >     the contributions of women of color to the women's movement.
> >

Yes, I think this situates white women as being at the center of the
women's movement, and women of color on the margins/unrecognized/silenced.
As a Native woman, I appreciate that Debbie noticed this; however...the
question itself remains:  do white feminists now acknowledge this gap in
their understanding of the evolution of the women's movement, and
are they making an effort to notice those marginalized voices?

The question as phrased did not offend me simply because it states the
obvious:  the women's movement has been very segregated.  Fact.  And, as a
woman of color, I can tell you that the women's movement is *still* a
mostly-white movement.  Okay.  So address that--as this question seems to
be trying--and let's get to it.

We are far, far from being past this issue.  I think we have hardly begun
to address it, much less live out some kind of resolution.  To say
"shouldn't we be past all that" isn't realistic.  It's idealistic,
wonderful, and how I wish it were true--but we're not there yet.

Thanks, Debbie, for bringing this up.

Deborah Miranda
UW

[In response to a message from Deborah Miranda]:

As much as wish I could disagree w/ Deborah, I think she's absolutely
right.  My own experiences confirm her statement.  Plus, I've been working
for the past 2 years w/ Gloria Anzaldua on an anthology, kind of a follow-up
to _This Bridge Called My Back_, & the responses we've received...from a
very wide range of people...also indicate that there's still a lot to be
done on this issue.  (Which isn't to say that progress hasn't been made,
b/c there's definitely been some progress.)

AnaLouise
**********************
AnaLouise Keating
English Department
Aquinas College
1607 Robinson Rd., SE
Grand Rapids, MI 49506
Office: 616/459-8281 x. 4468
Fax: 616/732-4487
Home: 616/954-6576
Email: zami  @  mindspring.com

"You must act as if it is impossible to fail."--Ashanti Proverb

Let me say first that I don't mean my comments to be
critical of the original post, which was:
>> >  i am looking for references that specifically address the issue
>> >  of the contributions of women of color to the women's movement.

Like Deborah Louis (below),
I was also a little thrown by the question at first, which implied
(to me) that the seeker was looking for ways that women of color
had contributed to a women's movement not their own.  This
made me think about how different feminisms (I'm using the
term broadly -- not all of these movements would
call themselves "feminist") get portrayed in the classroom.

What texts like "Words of Fire" or "Chicana:  The Historical Writings",
or "Dragon Ladies:  Asian American Feminists Breathe Fire"
suggest to me is that women of color have developed their
own fairly distinct women's movements around issues in their own
communities (much as white women did -- and of course, there's some
overlap between all of these movements).  But, to answer Deborah
Miranda's question below, from many of the intro to feminism /
feminist theory syllabi I've seen, this does not seem to be recognized.
Instead, the courses tend to focus on white women's writings
(sometimes beginning the semester with Sojourner Truth), and
then bring in women's of color writings later, to illustrate a response
to the feminist movement.  So writings by feminists of color and
womanists are almost always  portrayed as being in response to
writings by white feminists, while white feminists are credited with
creating feminism in the first place.  While certainly there are plenty
of writings  that were indeed responding to, for instance, racism in the
women's movement, many others were focused on creating womanist
theory around specific issues in a given community.  The myth that
women of color only developed theories and  politics in response to
white feminism robs these theories/politics of their own particular
histories and aesthetics.

I think we also need to think about whether we should talk about
"the women's movement" and "feminism" and insist that these
be seen as diverse yet unified wholes, or "women's movements"
and "feminisms", and insist that there really isn't any unification,
but rather many different projects that sometimes overlap.  In my
intro classes, I try to do both, so that my (mostly white) students
don't use the term "feminism" in an unexamined way, but also so
that they recognize why, for example, poverty and police brutality
are feminist issues, even if certain feminist groups might not address
them.

I'm glad that this issue is being addressed here.  And thanks to the
person who posted the original query for sparking this discussion.

Jessica Nathanson
Doctoral Candidate, American Studies
Women's Studies Concentration
State University of New York at Buffalo

Deborah Louis wrote:
> by now we should have an
> understanding of this history as an integrated whole which encompasses
> ALL the diverse threads which have woven the fabric--if we don't, it
> seems to me we need to take a close look at THAT...

deborah a. miranda wrote:
> Yes, I think this situates white women as being at the center of the
> women's movement, and women of color on the margins/unrecognized/silenced.
> [snip]  do white feminists now acknowledge this gap in
> their understanding of the evolution of the women's movement, and
> are they making an effort to notice those marginalized voices?

Florence Howe's edited volume, out this month, called *The Politics of
Women's Studies: Testimony from Thirty Founding Mothers* has some
interesting items relating to this issue. The usual criticism is
repeated --e.g., Professors Nellie McKay and Beverly Guy-Sheftall express
some of the axioms that keep circulating about  women's studies in the early
days:  white women's "conscious or unconscious" racism is one of these; the
invisibility of black women is another. The baseline position seems to be
that women's studies was originally "white women's studies."  Although quite
a number of the chapters in this book in fact show that this was not the
case, it is a constantly repeated charge.  Interestingly, yet another spin
is placed on the subject by anthropologist  Elizabeth  Kennedy, whose
chapter blames white women for this narrative. i.e., she sees this narrative
itself not as reflecting reality but as excluding the important work of
black women from women's studies' early years!

What I conclude from all this is that whichever story one tells,  the moral
remains the same: white women are to be blamed.  A basic conflict evidently
exists-and is reflected in the stories in this volume--between claiming, or
implying the claim, that discrimination marginalized black women from women'
s studies, and the simple recognition of numerical realities in this
country.  There seems to be an implicit demand  that minorities (whether of
race or sexual orientation)  be greatly overrepresented in women's studies
if accusations of racism, homophobia, etc., are not constantly to be cast.

__________________
daphne.patai  @  spanport.umass.edu

[In response to Daphne Patai]:

I disagree.  To be white, and to conclude that white women are always to
be blamed, is to sidestep the issue yet again.  It is a habit of culture,
a colonizing impulse, that is to blame--not a specific "racial" group.  In
this case, most white women at the forefront of the women's movement as we
commonly think of it came to consciousness in a culture that centered on
racism.  Fact, not blame.

If we all operate by, as you say, "the simple recognition of numerical
realities in this country," then we boil injustice down to numbers rather
than physical, emotional, economic, spiritual and inter-generational pain.
If American Indians are only 1% of the US population, is pain or injustice
felt by that population somehow less, or smaller, or no longer injustice
at all?  What is this, pain that is measured by the percentage of your
"racial" group's population?

If crimes against a group of people were committed because of their racial
composition, and if those crimes are committed by a culture that is
dominant in both population and cultural power, it is still an injustice.

Now, if we go by "numerical realities," then white women better start
keeping out of Southern California.  It's tipped far over the scales into
predominantly Hispanic, Black and Asian populations.  So, discrimination
against white women in Southern California--be it academic, feminist, or
other kinds of misrepresentations or absent representations--is okay,
right?

White women, as I recall, *were* the under-represented minority in the
original women's movement, and that was the thorn in the side that drove
women to the sufferage movement.  There weren't many women doctors,
authors, etc., and white women wanted more options and opportunities.
Because women are "half the human race," is that the ****only* reason they
deserved human rights?  If women were, say, 1% of the human race, would
they suddenly have no right to representation, and no reason to protest
historical and current sexism?

Just some questions I have.

Deborah Miranda

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Deborah A. Miranda
English Department
Director, EOP Writing Program
University of Washington
Box 354330   Seattle, WA  98195
vm: 206-685-2461
email: <dmiranda  @  u.washington.edu>

In a message dated 9/10/2000 3:46:03 PM Central Daylight Time,
daphne.patai  @  SPANPORT.UMASS.EDU writes:

<< What I conclude from all this is that whichever story one tells,  the moral
 remains the same: white women are to be blamed. >>

This seems to be a tremendously reductive reply to what has turned out to be
an interesting discussion.
Alyson Buckman
Austin College

Perhaps the discussion could be better framed not around blame or
representation but the fact that the focus of the first two waves of the
women's movement--and perhaps could also be added the contemporary
environmental movement-was based on the concerns and ideology of white,
middle class women. That focus has changed somewhat, but it seems to me
that there is still lack of dialogue between say, chicana feminists and
those of a more Western orientation, not to mention lack of acceptance of
other ways of looking at what it means to be a woman.

Benay Blend
blend  @  nm.net

Thanks to all of you who responded to my request for references.  What a
flurry of reactions I seem to have generated.

The context of my request is this:  One of my students was selected to attend
the Feminist Leadership Institute held by the Feminist Majority.  My student
is a non-traditional, African-American female.  She came back very
disappointed and angered at what she perceived to be an agenda that focused
on white middle class females exclusively.  I am not saying this is what
actually transpired.  I am saying that this is her perception and she came
back angry and disappointed.  I am in the process of writing a letter to the
feminist majority in which I air her concerns.  Based on a conversation I
have had with them so far, they are very willing to listen.  And I am
confident that they will take those concerns seriously and make whatever
changes are necessary  to ensure that no one leaves with that impression
again since that certainly was not their intent.
Meanwhile  . . . I want to reassure my student that even though (in my honest
opinion), the woman's movement was racist and classist in origin and
marginalized women of color, that is no longer the case.  Hence my letter to
the Feminist Majority.  And hence my request for references on the
contributions of women of color so that I can pass them on to my student.
Thanks again to all those who provided me with references.  Here they are:

Paula Giddings.  When and Where I Enter

Susan Brownmiller.  In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution

Beverly Guu-Sheftall, ed.  Words of Fire: An Anthology of African-american
Feminist Thought.

Paula Gunn Allen.  The Sacred Hoop.

Zitkala-Sa.  American Indian Stories (circa 1900) (aka Geraldine Bonner)

the Untold Story of the Iroquois Infleunce on Early Feminists by Sally Roesch
Wagner Sky Carrier Press, 1996.

Joy James.  Shadowboxing: Representations of Black Feminist Politics.

all best.
tamara
wskckcc  @  aol.com

>the fact that the focus of the first two waves of the women's
>movement--and perhaps could also be added the contemporary
>environmental movement-was based on the concerns and ideology of
>white, middle class women.

i think this is exactly the kind of statement some of us are talking
about--i would disagree strenuously (and empirically!) with this--it is
not the conceptualization i present to students because it is
inaccurate--but it is apparently alive and well in academia, continuing
to engender and reinforce the misperception, thereby giving rise to
questions such as the one which initiated this conversation...

debbie <louis  @  umbc.edu>

Deborah,
you brought up a very important issue and actually it is very basic point
 of view.

Ruth Frankenberg's _White Women, Race Matters_ is a good introduction
about whiteness and women
I also found Vron Ware's _Beyond the Pale. White Women, Racism and History_
1992, Verso, very interesting and groundbreaking work.

These are very good books to start but if anybody knows anything else, it
 would be more than welcome.

Jonna Roos
jonna.roos  @  helsinki.fi

hi,

i've been following the thread on "contributions of women of color" with
great interest, and am wondering if some of you who have pointed out the
need to stop thinking/teaching texts by women of color as supplements (and
not in the derridean sense!) to the (white) feminist canon -- could offer
some concrete pedagogical strategies for teaching them otherwise. i'm
curious how you deal with this issue in the classrooms and at conferences.

i am into chapter four of bell hook's _teaching to transgress: education as
the practice of freedom_ which i think nicely lays out the terms for the
need to teach differently, with the multicultural classroom in mind, etc --
but i'd love to hear how some of you have done this, or are doing this.

thanks,
jane

It seems to me that this discussion perfectly replicates another one in
women's studies, about the status of women's historical contributions in the
past.  Two models seem available: 1) women did all sorts of important things
and have been written out of the record by men, and 2) women were
marginalized and oppressed and couldn't do much of anything.  The problem is
that if one opts for # 1 women also have to take on responsibility for the
creation of this imperfect world and can't blame all its ills on men and the
patriarchy.  Whereas if one opts for # 2, then one can't blame the
patriarchy for writing women "out" of history. Either way, a more complex
picture emerges than the usual one of blame, redemption, or retribution.
       The same thing is, apparently, still going on in relation to race and
the women's movement. (This is surprising, given the many dozens of books
available on the subject, and the way race is written into all the women's
studies programs I know about.)  Was it an exclusionary white women's thing
or was it not (and if it was, why? Is it really a matter of "racism"?).  Or,
if not, did white women write women of color out of the story?  As I
mentioned yesterday,  both these perspectives, and some others, are present
in the new book on "founding mothers"  edited by Florence Howe.
       I personally believe that responsible and careful historical work,
not driven by ideological agendas, can answer these questions to a
significant extent.
D.
---------------------------------
daphne.patai  @  spanport.umass.edu

I agree that many white feminists still assume white experience
to be central to women's movement.  At Georgia State, those who teach
Women's Studies core courses, both graduate and undergraduate, make a
conscious effort, not to "add women (of color) and stir" but to make women
of diverse backgrounds and diverse feminist thought central from the
beginning when planning courses.  Our students have led the way much of
the time.
I recomment that "we" (meaning all feminists and white feminists in
particular) get a grounding if we haven't already by reading

bell hooks, *Ain't I A Woman*, and her other books;
Patricia Hill Collins's *Black Feminist Thought*;
*Words of Fire* (ed. Beverly Guy-Sheftall);
*But Some of Us Are Brave* (ed. Gloria Hull, Patricia Bell Scott, and
Barbara Smith);
*When And Where I Enter*;
*This Bridge Called My Back*;
Audre Lorde's essays;
Paula Gunn Allen's *The Sacred Hoop*;
-- and that's just a start.

Regards,
Charlene

M. Charlene Ball, Administrative Coordinator
Women's Studies Institute
Georgia State University
Atlanta, Georgia  30303-3083
404/651-4633
404/651-1398 fax
wsimcb  @  panther.gsu.edu
http://www.gsu.edu/womenpower

>> the fact that the focus of the first two waves of the women's
>> movement--and perhaps could also be added the contemporary
>> environmental movement-was based on the concerns and ideology of
>> white, middle class women.
>
> i think this is exactly the kind of statement some of us are talking
> about--i would disagree strenuously (and empirically!) with this--it is
> not the conceptualization i present to students because it is
> inaccurate--but it is apparently alive and well in academia, continuing
> to engender and reinforce the misperception, thereby giving rise to
> questions such as the one which initiated this conversation...

The exchange above really struck me, as did some of the other
comments on this topic.  It seems that we really don't have a
consensus of what is meant by "the women's movement".  I
heard a panel of participants in the Feminist Memoir Project
that struggled with this very issue.  These women challenged
many of the claims that the second wave of feminism had been
exclusively middle-class and white, and argued that not only
had women of color participated, but that many white women
in the movement had also been anti-racist.  This was not at all
the perception of the second wave that I'd learned or that many
of my contemporaries had learned in our Women's Studies classes.
After the panel, a colleague noted that she'd heard academics who
had been well outside of "the women's movement" criticize it for
being the MOST racist social movement.  Given that there were
at least some groups (the Furies come to mind) who did at least try to
develop an anti-racist politic, however successfully or unsuccessfully,
it seems unreasonable to say that the second wave was more racist
than any other social movement.

But I think there's a defensive about this stance that
prevents us from figuring out how to develop an anti-racist
feminism, and that denies the reality of racism in "the women's
movement".  So one of the problems of this whole discussion
seems to be, how do we at once acknowledge the racism of
the second (or any other) wave -- which in part means recognizing
the extent to which the issues and goals of the movement were
formed by white, middle-class women -- and yet not erase the
presence and work of women of color in the second wave and
elsewhere?

I want to add that I don't think this discussion needs to be
(or has been) about blaming anyone.  I do think there is
a danger that classroom discussions can devolve into
finger-pointing, and in fact this happened in some of the
classes I took as an undergraduate in the late '80s.  (I think
this is a common stage for newly politicized undergraduates
to go through.)  But in general, I've seen students move
past this stage and develop reasoned critiques of feminism
and of Women's Studies that have resulted in individual
students taking responsibility for themselves, whatever
role they play in the world (including recognizing and sometimes
resisting different forms of privilege they enjoy).

Jessica Nathanson
Doctoral Candidate, American Studies
Women's Studies Concentration
State University of New York at Buffalo

In a message dated 9/11/2000 10:28:57 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
daphne.patai  @  SPANPORT.UMASS.EDU writes:

> Two models seem available: 1) women did all sorts of important things
>  and have been written out of the record by men, and 2) women were
>  marginalized and oppressed and couldn't do much of anything

Seems to me this isn't an either/or situation. Seems to me both of these
exist simultaneously.

Judith Laura
Ashira  @  aol.com
 <A HREF="http://members.aol.com/Ashira">http://members.aol.com/Ashira">http://members.aol.com/Ashira</A>