After working together for decades, some women felt like they had been abandoned, and some lashed out bitterly. Some of the remarks considered racist were actually more about class. I’m not saying this to justify them, but to put things in historical context. Some educated white women were furious that uneducated men would vote before them. They insulted men of every ethnicity. Class issues did not divide neatly between black and white. Just as there were educated whites who looked down on poor whites, so were there educated blacks who looked down on poor blacks.

To put it another way: Some white suffragists felt betrayed when black men were given the vote before them. Some black suffragists were unhappy, too. But there also were a number of white and black women who worked hard for the 15th Amendment.

Ebonygrrl, I think women of different ethnicities – not just white women – sometimes seek power through relationships with men. Male privilege extends across the spectrum.

I don’t think those foremothers were too happy (and they made it clear) when it looked like black males were going to get the vote before them! The bottom line is that many white feminists gain a measure of power through their relationships with white men (fathers, lovers, brothers), and when those connections are challenged their status as “top women” is challenged. Not another black male before us!

I’ve seen this argument made a few times, and while I don’t dispute the points, it seems to me that since black women get the raw end of the deal on both race and gender, why does no one ever argue that black women should have gotten the vote before everybody else?

I’m not being combative, it’s just every time I see this, it irritates me that giving the vote to black women first is so out of the question that nobody ever bothers to mention it. Too bad Sojourner Truth didn’t apparate into the middle of the Anthony/Douglass debate and squash them both.

Thanks

the suffragist movement would NEVER have gone anywhere without men. it was MEN who passed the ammendment to allow women to vote. yeah, some men suck. some men want working women so that they don’t have to work. some men, like my dad and my boyfriend, think women are their equals, and that women’s equality is as important as their own.

I agree with all the other stuff you’ve said, but this particular argument is, at best, wobbly. It’s very similar to HRC saying King and other civil rights leaders needed Johnson to sign the legislation. Which was rightly decried as a dodgy argument.

you really can be a feminist without hating men. and men really can be feminists themselves. i know quite a few.

Agreed. And I suspect Virginia and Rachel are clever performance artists.

I thought the purpose of EMILY’S List was to promote women candidates in order to strengthen women challengers, the goal to get a woman elected as president.

Only they played opportunist by throwing their support behind Clinton, who, while being a pro-choice woman candidate for president, fails the “true progressive” test. I’m sure that there were dissenting voices saying wait for the right woman; I’m sure that the majority raised the issue that women have had to take a back seat to Black men going all the way back to the 1860’s and that now is the time.

I watched Bush Monday night. Right behind him was a woman. In front of him, although I have volumes of problems with her, was a Black woman. If Sen Clinton is promoted, there will still be women in the Senate. On the other hand, Obama is currently the only African-American.

I also understand that the nature of the netroots is the nature of email, people tend to hit the send button before reading how words will be read by others. I find myself responding to posters who “cross the line” in their criticism of Clinton. Men have to be respectful or their comments will be perceived as sexist, and frankly, sometimes they are.

I found Maureen Dowd’s observation today enlightening:

“But Obama is the more emotionally delicate candidate, and the one who has the more feminine consensus management style, and the not-blinded-by-testosterone ability to object to a phony war.

“As first lady, Alpha Hillary’s abrasive and secretive management of health care doomed it. She voted to enable W. on Iraq so she could run as someone tough enough to command armies.”

We have discussed identity issues to death in this campaign. Why is that? Surely it is not in Sen Obama’s best interest. Who but Mark Penn, author of “Microtrends” and CEO of Burson-Marsteller would want to separate us into nicely fitting “identities”?