I don’t know about you all, but I can remember pretty clearly learning about the Seneca Falls Convention in middle school and high school. For a brief review, it took place in 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York. It was a meeting of white suffragettes, such as Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony, at which they ratified a Declaration of Sentiments and stuff like that. There was a single person of color present: Frederick Douglass. Now, I remember learning that he was there in textbooks and things like that, but not much more than that. I seem to recall it being mentioned how unique it was that a man–any man–was in support of women’s suffrage at the time, and the fact that it was Frederick Douglass just made it more noteworthy.
Looking back on it now, though, I always wondered about what Frederick Douglass really thought of these suffragettes. How did he feel giving speeches about the importance of women’s rights to a group of women who–at least in part–refused to allow black women to be included in this very group because of race? Elizabeth Cady Stanton and her compatriots often used the example of black people as an argument for women’s suffrage because, from their point of view, it was ludicrous that black people of any gender should be allowed freedom before white women. Douglass was forced to choose between fighting for black male rights and white female rights. In the book, The Mind of Frederick Douglass by Waldo E. Martin (University of North Carolina Press, 1986), I read that in an 1854 pamphlet in support of (white) women’s rights, Stanton complained: “We are classed with idiots, lunatics, and Negroes” (p. 158). I also read that Douglass was once giving a speech at the Women’s Rights Convention of 1869, and he stated that white women could never understand the importance of the black fight for freedom, because for women, it simply wasn’t a matter of life or death. Apparently, someone called out from the crowd, “Is that not true about black women?”, and Douglass called back, “Yes, yes, yes; it is true of the black woman, but not because she is a woman, but because she is black.” Susan B. Anthony joined him onstage shortly thereafter for a debate: she stated that the only thing black suffrage would do was “put 2,000,000 colored men in the positions of tyrants over 2,000,000 colored women, who until now had at least been the equal of the men at their side” (p. 159).
Anthony is saying that “Freedom for black people means more patriarchal oppression,” and racist logic like this is used to justify much white supremacy to this day. Skewed statistics demonstrating the awful plights of women of color are used to justify the economic hardships of people of color throughout American society. I realize this isn’t exactly late-breaking news, but I just thought it was interesting how visible it was, even this early in the history of American women’s rights.
Gender Agenda 
interesting post, ben. i was vaguely aware of the racism of first wave white feminists but not to this extent.
im curious, would you mind explaining this a bit more? “Skewed statistics demonstrating the awful plights of women of color are used to justify the economic hardships of people of color throughout American society.” it was an interesting comment and im having some trouble interpreting it.
I wasn’t trying to call out first-wave feminists as racist specifically, but the underlying racism of much feminism in and of itself. My comment about the skewed statistics is not something I have concrete examples of on hand, which is to say I’ve only heard about it second-hand. What I mean, though, is that much racist behavior in modern American society is carried out under the provision that women of color need protection from men of color. The pressure on women of color to deny that they are stereotypical victims of abuse makes their social position doubly impossible, because of the ever-present threat of being written off as just another horror story or pitiful statistic on a newspaper page. The Susan B. Antony comment is just the earliest American example of this that I’ve come across.
It’s also important, I think, to note how little modern feminism has progressed beyond these prejudices. The idea that feminism might not have a place for you–and that this racism is actually “for your own protection”–is an idea I bet most white feminists have never had to deal with. For this reason, white feminists are probably left confused when people of color fail to see the appeal of feminism. Or, this is at least the way it seems to me. What does everyone think about it?
Ork,
have you read “women, race, and class”? It gives a great overview of this whole mess. It’s hard to not wonder how the black rights and women’s rights movements would be different (probably stronger) if Anthony and Stanton and their supporters (and by their supporters I don’t mean all white women’s rights activists, though I’m sure their propaganda brought many to their side) hadn’t been so poisonous to their solidarity.
It disturbs me that Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Stanton are still widely recognized as two of the greatest (if not the greatest) feminist icons in American history. First, because they arguably hurt the feminist movement more than they helped it in the long run. Second, because it doesn’t acknowledge that female slaves were really the first (or some of the first) active feminists in their own communities, though obviously the conditions under which they established these communities were atrocious. And third, propping up reputed, upper middle class women as our major feminist icons in general seems to deceive people into thinking that real feminism is a rich woman’s hobby, and not a populist struggle.
HA, that was longer than it was supposed to be. Originally I was just going to suggest the book. Not that I’m apologizing.
yeah i picked it up but didnt read much of it. its the one by angela davis right? thanks for the rec anyway. i may look at it again when im done with my reading list.
Whoa, weird, I’d never encountered the “black men are better off being oppressed because if they had the same rights as white men, they’d just be oppressing black women [even more]” line of reasoning. I guess because I always just saw men as dominant and didn’t question that? In the sense that I didn’t see black men and black women as equals, I mean; I always saw a disparity there, so for white feminists to argue that blacks regardless of sex were equally fucked…it just didn’t/doesn’t make sense to me.
Assuming that WERE true, though, I can see where the white feminist arguments were coming from (and they would’ve made more sense if they hadn’t been coupled with the “AND THUS WHITE WOMEN DESERVE RIGHTS BEFORE ANY BLACKS” idea because that is even MORE racist). Still, I think it’s stupid. It’s like…”we are white and our men are already in power and thus we have a right to be liberated before blacks/black women, because if we approved black liberation, that would start with the men and then they’d fuck over the black women and we’d have to start all over again from an even messier position.” Meh.