Feminism… Thoughts! 0.3

iruo May 10, 2022 2 Comments

Hi guys, I trust y’all are doing well. So today, we’ll pick up our article on feminism where we left off. If you haven’t read the prequels, please do. Let’s get right to it.

We closed the previous article on feminism talking about the fact that several literary societies formed at the time that were devoted to the “diffusion of knowledge and the suppression of vice and immorality.” In the early 1830s, which were the Female Literary Association, the Afric-American Female Intelligence Society.

Also, apart from establishing organizations, African-American women channelled more efforts to this cause (which is the fight for the abolition of women’s slavery). Like; going on extensive lecture tours across the country, and publishing letters, poems, and slave narratives. Women like Maria Stewart, Jarena Lee, Sarah Louise Forten Purvis and Sarah Mapps Douglass all openly spoke against slavery while supporting women’s education, and citizenship rights.
Building on the activism of the women in these social movements, many upper and middle-class white women joined the abolitionist movement. The likes of Lucretia Mott, Lucy Stone, the Grimke sisters; Angelina and Sarah Moore Grimké joined various white anti-slavery organizations.

However, these societies were dominated by men and they often did not allow women to speak publicly in front of male audiences. When women ignored these societal rules, they were mocked and scorned. For example, the Grimké sisters were ridiculed for their writings and the General Association of Congregational Ministers of Massachusetts wrote a public statement against them for giving speeches in front of men in July 1837. Abolitionist women took matters into their own hands and convened the first Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women in New York City in 1837.

As they pursued this cause, their collective disenfranchisement became fairly more obvious. In 1840, the first World Anti-Slavery Convention was held in London. Unfortunately, the organizers made it clear that only men could attend the meeting. Lucretia Mott attended anyway and was joined by several other women activists including Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

After a period of debate, the male organizers decided that only men would be allowed to be speak and vote at the convention. The women were sent to the spectator’s gallery and were only allowed to watch and listen. After this meeting, Mott and Stanton decided to form a society and hold their own convention to advocate for women’s rights.

Eight years later, Mott, Stanton, and three hundred other women held the first Women’s Rights Convention. This group of women and male supporters met in July of 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York.

At this meeting, they discussed and voted on the “Declaration of Sentiments,” organized by Stanton. Closely resembling the “Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen” written by Olympes de Gouges’ during the French Revolution, Stanton declared that “all men and women are created equal.”

The document also advocated for women’s education, right to property, and organizational leadership. One of the most controversial topics on the program was women’s suffrage. Although not everyone agreed, many of these women’s rights activists believed that their goals would be hard to accomplish without the right to vote. After the first convention, this group of women began meeting regularly, and the growing feminist movement started to shift to focus on achieving suffrage and political power.

Furthermore, the central goal of the feminist movement was for women to achieve the right to vote for the next 70 years,. Although they continued to participate in other social movements, many first-wave feminists believed that suffrage was the key to unlocking other rights.

However, for other groups of women, the right to vote was not only tied to their gender but it was also tied to their race and social class. As the movement progressed, the concerns of women of colour were often overlooked by first-wave feminists. Despite often being uninvited or excluded from fully participating in white organizations, women of colour spoke out about facing not only sexism, but also racism, and classism.

African American women advocated for women’s rights alongside their fight for freedom and the well-being of their communities. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was a founding member of the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) in 1869 alongside white abolitionists Lucy Stone and Frederick Douglass. Black women, like Sojourner Truth and Charlotte Forten, joined AWSA to promote universal suffrage. Forten’s aunts Harriet Forten Purvis and Margaretta Forten were also two of the “chief actors” to help organize the Fifth National Woman’s Rights Convention in Philadelphia.

However, African American women still faced discrimination and often had to join segregated suffrage associations. In 1876, Mary Ann Shadd Cary wrote a letter to the National Woman Suffrage Association on behalf of ninety-four black women requesting that their names be added as signers of Stanton’s “Declaration of Sentiments.” Unfortunately, the names of these women were never included.

On March 3, 1913, Stanton’s National American Woman Suffrage Association organized their first suffrage parade held in Washington, D.C. Even though they required that African American women march in the back of the parade, black women still participated in the event, including the founders of the National Association of Colored Women.

Asian women also fought sexism, racism, and classism to advocate for their rights. The Page Act of 1875 banned Chinese women from immigrating to the United States, and the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 prevented Chinese immigrants from attaining citizenship and voting rights. This did not stop Mabel Ping-Hua Lee from leading almost 10,000 people in the 1912 New York suffrage parade on horseback.

Two years later, she gave a speech at the Women’s Political Union’s Suffrage Shop encouraging the civic participation of Chinese women. Unfortunately, when women in the state of New York were granted the right to vote in 1917, the Chinese Exclusion Act still prevented Lee from voting. However, when women in California earned the right to vote in 1912, Tye Leung Schulze became the first Chinese woman to vote in the United States.

Women from the Philippines also advocated for their rights. In the 1900s, the Philippines was a colony of the United States, but these women could not vote in either location. In 1905, the Asociacion Feminista Filipina (Philippine Feminist Association) was founded to encourage the “participation of women in public affairs.” Some of the members met with First Lady Florence Harding at the White House in 1922.

Latina women also fought for women’s rights while promoting social reform. In 1917, suffragist Adelina Otero-Warren was asked by the National Woman’s Party (Congressional Union) to lead their New Mexico chapter. Otero-Warren advocated that suffrage literature was published in both English and Spanish, so it was accessible to Latinx audiences. She was also instrumental in the ratification of the 19th Amendment in New Mexico, granting women the right to vote.

Luisa Capetillo used a grassroots approach instead as a labour advocate and writer to promote worker’s rights and education for women. In 1909 she published “Mi opinión sobre las libertades, derechos y deberes de la mujer” (My Opinion About the Rights, Liberties, and Responsibilities of Women) that became the first feminist thesis written in Puerto Rico. She also edited Puerto Rico’s first feminist newspaper “La mujer” (The Woman) founded by Ana Roqué de Duprey.

Duprey was also a well-known feminist and in 1917, she established the Puerto Rican Feminist League. Along with other members of this league, she also created the Suffragist Social League, the Puerto Rican Association of Suffragist Women, and the Island Association of Voting Women.