by: Kim Chen
The Woman Suffrage Movement is often credited with having begun at Seneca Falls in 1848 resulting in American women gaining the right to vote in 1920 (National Women’s History Museum, The Most Significant achievement of Women in the Progressive Era). The movement was concerned with, but not limited to, women’s economic rights, voting rights and the education of other women regarding the importance of the right to vote (National Women’s History Museum, The Most Significant achievement of Women in the Progressive Era). A retrospective reflection on the first suffrage movement is important because it helps feminists today to avoid similar mistakes. I will demonstrate that the movement prioritised white women’s needs, and, in the process, black women were sidelined.
Excluding black women from the suffrage movement demonstrates a lack of intersectionality. Intersectionality was first coined by Kimberle Crenshaw, it means understanding oppression as eventuating from the overlay of race, religion, sexual orientation, disability, and gender (Crenshaw, Demarginalising the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Anti-discrimination Doctrine). For example, the oppression which a black, lesbian woman faces cannot be divided into separate categories of what oppression black, lesbian and women face. It is the combination of all three. Relating it back to the first suffrage movement, white suffragettes failed to acknowledge that ‘women’s rights’ did not encompass black women’s rights nor the rights of other women of colour. The first suffrage movement was what is commonly called today as ‘white feminism’.
The fetishization of power contributed to oppressing black women’s needs. Potentia is the idea that the power for change is inherent with the people, this power cannot be taken away (Dussel, Twenty Theses on Politics). When people form groups and delegate an individual to represent the group’s concerns, the delegate is expected to represent those concerns accurately. The delegation of power is called potestas and when used positively, it is called obediential power (Dussel, Twenty Theses on Politics). Applying this to the suffrage movement, all people – including black women – had the power to take part in changing politics. However, when black women expressed their opinion to the leaders of the suffrage movement, their concerns were often not represented. This is the fetishization of power, when power is used to dominate another group (Dussel, Twenty Theses on Politics). Despite black women being a part of the suffrage movement, the failure for suffrage leaders to represent their concerns constitutes the fetishization of power.
Black women were simultaneously were highly visible and invisible within the movement. The very categorisation of the ‘black woman’ makes them visible and opens them to objectification as a category (Collins, Black Feminist Thought). By virtue of being black within a predominantly white movement, they are hyper visible. However, black women were rendered invisible through racist beliefs and were treated as an outside within a movement that was for women. The Washington parade in 1913 saw black women pushed to the back of the demonstration, separated from the rest of the suffragettes. Whilst the segregation made them visible, it signified the oppression they suffered within the broader suffrage movement. Therefore, black women within the suffrage movement were both hyper visible and invisible at the same time.
Often the first suffrage movement is lauded as the movement which paved the way for women’s rights. However, upon analysis, we realise that the movement excluded black women. The leaders of the movement did not represent black women’s concerns, hence demonstrating a fetishization of power. Furthermore, this goes towards demonstrating that the movement was not intersectional, women of colour were not represented in the right to vote in 1920.
References:
Crenshaw, Kimberle, 1989, ‘Demarginalixing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics’ University of Chicago Legal Forum, Vol 1989, Issue 1
Collins, Patricia, 2000, Black Feminist Thought, 2nd edition, New York and London: Routledge
Dussel,Enrique D., 2008, Twenty Theses on Politics, United States of America: Duke University Press
National Women’s History Museum, The Most Significant achievement of Women in the Progressive Era https://www.womenshistory.org/resources/general/woman-suffrage-movement