Gender and Race: There Influence on Women’s Rights

Through the whole of history women have been treated as the lesser sex. The rights that women have gained have been fought hard for and should not be looked at as an easy task. Delving deeper into the issue of women’s rights the other factor has been race. African American woman have fought just as hard if not harder than Caucasian women because they not only had to overcome the issue of being the “inferior” gender, they had to contend with all the stereotypes that have been projected onto them in the last several hundred years for not being white. They had to overcome the many things that their ancestors had left for them to overcome as well as the conditions that they found themselves in. I am going to examine how women have overcome gender equality issues as well as how they are still fighting for equal rights and what effects that race has had on the advancements of women’s rights in the nineteenth and twentieth century in the United States. I will be using the resources that have been given to me to look at and examine the social, educational, political and economic feats that have been attained by African American women in the United States in the last three hundred years. 

            The start of the gender inequality issues that women in our country have dealt with goes back to the very start of the country. When the colonies were founded, there were few places were women found work other than as a mother or a teacher in the home, these issues date back to the 1600s, however the start of gender inequality in African American women follows shortly thereafter due to the initial lack of slaves until the slave trade really got started when the colonies proved that they had valuable resources and needed yet another resource, man power of the free variety to harvest the land and to capitalize on the many things that they had just stumbled across by coming to America. Men were often used in the fields and did hard labor, we have seen this in many different ways in books, historical documents and even movies. Harriet Jacobs said that, “slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women.” [1] This is one of the things that she wrote in her book Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Written by Herself. She thought that slaves, particularly women and girls had a sexual vulnerability, as well as the pigment of their skin to contend with. There were many incidents where women were brought into the main house of the plantation to be house maids because the women and children of the house were less scared of having a female slave than a male slave. The issue in this is that many plantation owners found that women of “color” were something exotic and a “toy” and wanted to be the first to test out the waters of sex with a woman of a different race. Female slaves were often raped and then left for dead and some even became the mistresses of plantation owners, thus making what Jacob’s said about sexual vulnerability to be very true. Continuing through the1800s African American women were still being enslaved prior to the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. Even after the thirteenth amendment was passed men and women were still being enslaved. This was one of the first steps that African American had to overcome on their long journey to gender equality that they are still fighting for today, “black women experience a special kind of oppression and suffering in this country that is both racist and sexist because of their dual racial and gender identity."[2] This means that women dealing with the harsh and deplorable conditions of slavery were also made out to be in the wrong due to their gender. Many male plantation owners would have sex with their female slaves or have them be house maids so that they could have a little “spice and variety” in the home regardless of whether or not they were married.

Women of color had not only their gender to contend with as a factor in their struggle for freedom and rights, but the color of their skin was also working against them up through the time of World War I when there was a leap made forward in women’s rights, even if there were still people and places in the United States that refused to accept the reality that women and African American’s are real people and not just three fifths of a person as the Compromise would have lead us to believe during the creation and foundation building of the United States. One of the women who stood up for women’s rights was Maria W. Stewart, she was a freed slave who was residing in Connecticut. Stewart gave four lectures that would have very little effect on the education and right of African American women, but she was one of the first to call for a need for schools for African American women, “How long shall the fair daughters of Africa be compelled to bury their minds and talents beneath a load of iron pots and kettles….Possess the spirit of independence….Sue for your rights and privileges.” [3] She was met with opposition not only of the white population of the country, but even by the male African American’s who thought that women being educated was almost as much of a waste as white males thought. Male superiority complexes knew no skin tone at any point in history, both white and African American men alike believed that women were the inferior gender, with males being the superior.

            The last decade of the 1800s saw the emergence of the black women’s club movement come out on a national scale. White women, though fighting for the same rights as black women still did not feel that their gender made them equal, they still saw themselves as superior. This lead to the First National Conference of Colored Women which was held in Boston in July of 1895. [4] There were many things on the convention agenda, but one of which was the education of both African American boys and girls. Girls were still not being educated on the equal level of boys and the issue of making sure that both boys and girls were educated was very important to the ability and continuance of rights for African American women, educating little girls would hopefully help them become educated women fighting for the rights that the women at the conference were trying to get them.

            One of the things that women have struggled with since the dawn of time is the sexual nature that comes with being a woman. Feminine wiles, charms and the curves that come with having the body bestowed by Venus. Though these things seem silly, it is why many women were violated. It is something that has been noted in almost every paragraph of this paper and something that African American women wanted to help to control. One of the things that African American women wanted to make more readily available in the latter half of the 1800s and the first half of the 1900s was birth control. Though this was not a prevention of the sexual atrocities that were happening against women, or the inability to provide for a family it would help in the results. “Limiting the size of families was a deliberate strategy of some women for improving the economic viability and the standard of living in the black community…and by 1900 black women had significantly lowered their birthrate as well as infant mortality,” [5] The issue of birth control was helping to improve conditions of living and was only a start to the African American women’s movement to attain rights in regards to reproduction. These rights would be fought for and eventually attained in the 1960s.

Moving into the nineteenth century and the start of World War I women had been fighting and struggling hard for the right to vote which would be one more step in the advancement of Women’s rights and in 1920 with the passing of the nineteenth amendment that right was granted. Most people who examine the women’s suffrage movement often overlook the fact that there were African American women who fought hard during the suffrage movement as well. One of those women was Nannie Burroughs, she would eventually become the first president of the National League of Republican Colored Women in 1924. [6] Leading up to the success of the women’s suffrage movement was the entrance of the United States into World War I and this also provided a stage for women to enter the workforce and thus prove their value to those who doubted them. During the 1920s most African American women performed domestic work and made up about fifty percent of the labor force in the United States. [7] Most historians like to attribute the fact that African American women were not considered for other jobs such as secretarial work and teaching and White women were being considered was because of their race as well as their lack of education. The continuing of the domestic work continued through the 1960s in the United States and the passing of The Civil Rights Act of 1964 which not only gave equal rights to African Americans, but also to women as a whole. Though many would still say that the true equality that was given by the passing of this law is only on paper and is still in process of being enacted.

In the 1960s and 70s prior to the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 the Black Feminist movement was coming to the forefront and gaining much attention from the media both negative and positive. Media takes on many forms not only television and radio but also in papers and books, one such paper was a position paper written by the Student Non-Violence Coordinating Committee entitled “Women of the Movement” this paper documented the thought that women of the SNCC were becoming angered by the sexism the men were showing them and that the women were realizing that the battle they were fighting was not only one of race but also of gender oppression. The paper become one of the first manifestations of the modern women’s movement. [8] It has been pointed to by many modern feminists as one of the reasons that they have joined the organizations that they work for as well as to have a basis for multiple papers that have been written since 1967 documenting the gender oppression that African American women have faced since the beginning of the United States of America as well as thoughts on where to take the fight on resolving the issue of gender inequality.

Women’s rights continued to be fought for and are still being fought for even now after the declarations that have been made and laws that have passed in the last century, because even though there are laws that state that women are equal to men, there are many women who would beg to differ. The reaches of African American women in the work place have changed in many ways since they were slaves. Black women account for fifty three percent of the black labor force according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2002. [9] More so than that is the fact that most forty four percent of black family households are headed by a single female no spouse present in the home. [10] This could be an argument that even though women have long struggled for equality in the workplace, there are women who have made such a strong impact in the labor statistics that they should be rewarded, whether or not this will actually happen is not something that statistics can determine, but it is remarkable that women, let alone African American women are proving people wrong each and every day, because they were set up for failure and are using the resources that they have been given to work and reach for the goals that they have set for themselves, even if it is purely out of necessity.

Looking at the advancements made in the workplace by African American women it should also be noted that, “of the four race-gender groups- black males, black females, white females and white males- black females made the largest occupational gains from 1940-1980.” [11] Not only did African American women change the type of jobs that they were working, making the move, as noted before, from the domestic place into clerical, retail and health care positions, [12] but they also improved the wages being made and ultimately they made a giant historical significance and impact on the economic status of not only African American’s in general, but for women in general. These numbers and statistics have been weighed against the gap of racial comparisons as well as gender comparisons of what income and economic status is and what it means to each individual group of people that were documented by the US Department of Labor.

            Taking a deeper look at the education of black women is something that changed very much after the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because an education could not be denied to anyone at that point. It is sad to think that only in the last one hundred years that education has been made mandatory and that until that point it could be denied to anyone based on gender, race or just because you did not like the other person. It was important that rights and laws were established to make sure that education was seen as important as it truly is. Though until 1964 you did not have the ability to just chose education, but one the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed it did not matter if you were a male, female, black or white, you had the right to an education and the right to do with it what you chose. Education is something that is so often not looked at as a happy thing or as a right because it is something that is required now to not only get a good job, but to get anywhere in life. Becoming equal in the workplace was pivotal, based on the education that was received. This means that even from an early age, it was important to train and educate the men and women of our country. African American women set out to make the workplace more equal and the passage of antidiscrimination laws for the workplace in the 1970s would help to finally correct and put things on par with equality. [13] The issue here was that for the most part all it did was to make sure that men were not discriminated against based on color. Which still left women both black and white without equality in the workplace and this continues today. Women everywhere will continue to tell you that even though they do the same jobs as men they are not equally compensated nor do they receive the same attention and praise that men do in the workplace. This is true for both white and black women in the United States because even though laws have been added in attempt to gain equal rights, it is the enforcement, or lack of enforcement, of these laws that makes them laws, and thus far we as a country have yet to see the total equality between genders, and this is even more true for people of the “inferior” gender and race, African American women.

With my project I wanted to examine through a research paper the different factors and thoughts as to why it took so long for women and more specifically African American women to get their “place” in society and receive equality in the United States on an educational, economic, social and political standpoint as well as examine the difference of opinions that historians have as to why it took over two hundred years to attain the equality and rights that they fought so hard for and the differing thoughts that historians have as to what the actual influence of events such as the Civil War, World War I and changes to the United States Constitution and the passing of laws in the twentieth century was. Women have made such a huge stride forward in attaining rights in the past two hundred years and it is very important that women’s rights are looked at not only from a gender standpoint but also from a racial standpoint as we were encouraged to do in this course. I think that by examining the different statistics as well as historical resources that were given to me in this class that I have successfully looked at the research and implemented it in a way that shows that gender and race have played a large part in the attainment of rights for African American women in the last two hundred years. 

Works Cited

 [1] Beverley Guy-Sheftall, Scott, William R., and William G. Shade. Upon These Shores: Themes in the African American Experience. New York: Routledge, 2000. (348)

[2] Beverley Guy-Sheftall, Scott, William R., and William G. Shade. Upon These Shores: Themes in the African American Experience. New York: Routledge, 2000. (347)

[3] Beverley Guy-Sheftall, Scott, William R., and William G. Shade. Upon These Shores: Themes in the African American Experience. New York: Routledge, 2000. (349)

[4] Beverley Guy-Sheftall, Scott, William R., and William G. Shade. Upon These Shores: Themes in the African American Experience. New York: Routledge, 2000. (353)

[5] Beverley Guy-Sheftall, Scott, William R., and William G. Shade. Upon These Shores: Themes in the African American Experience. New York: Routledge, 2000. (356)

[6] Beverley Guy-Sheftall, Scott, William R., and William G. Shade. Upon These Shores: Themes in the African American Experience. New York: Routledge, 2000. (355)

[7] Trotter, Joe W., Earl Lewis, and Tera W. Hunter. The African American Urban Experience: Perspectives from the Colonial Period to the Present. New York, New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004. Print. (76)

[8] Beverley Guy-Sheftall, Scott, William R., and William G. Shade. Upon These Shores: Themes in the African American Experience. New York: Routledge, 2000. (357)

[9] Trotter, Joe W., Earl Lewis, and Tera W. Hunter. The African American Urban Experience: Perspectives from the Colonial Period to the Present. New York, New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004. Print. (141)

[10] Trotter, Joe W., Earl Lewis, and Tera W. Hunter. The African American Urban Experience: Perspectives from the Colonial Period to the Present. New York, New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004. Print. (141)

[11] Trotter, Joe W., Earl Lewis, and Tera W. Hunter. The African American Urban Experience: Perspectives from the Colonial Period to the Present. New York, New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004. Print. (142)

[12] Trotter, Joe W., Earl Lewis, and Tera W. Hunter. The African American Urban Experience: Perspectives from the Colonial Period to the Present. New York, New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004. Print. (142)

[13] Trotter, Joe W., Earl Lewis, and Tera W. Hunter. The African American Urban Experience: Perspectives from the Colonial Period to the Present. New York, New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004. Print. (144)