Black women’s organizations deferred women’s rights until after black liberation

Evidence

Black women’s organizations, which at one time had concentrated on social services like child care, homes for working women and help for prostitutes, became de-politicized and focused more on social affairs like debutante balls and fundraisers. Black women club members imitated the behavior of middle class white women. Those black women who believed in social equality of the sexes learned to suppress their opinions for fear attention might be shifted from racial issues. They believed they should first support freedom for black people, then later, when that freedom was obtained, work for women’s rights. — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 511

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the deferred-then-never-happened pattern of civil rights feminism described in earlier chapters of this book. — connects to: Black female activists abandoned women’s rights to fight racism instead — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 501; Historians have excluded black women from accounts of the women’s rights movement; Racism was routine within the women’s rights movement against black reformers — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 376 (+2 more)

Related

• Black female activists abandoned women’s rights to fight racism instead (similarity 0.90)
• Scholars frame black women’s organizing as anti-racist, not feminist (similarity 0.88)
• Black women organized separately after white women’s racism barred them (similarity 0.87)
• Black women rejected the movement’s execution, not feminism’s ideology. (similarity 0.87)
• White feminist organizing surged in reaction to black men gaining rights. (similarity 0.86)
• Both white and black patriarchies framed feminism as opposition to black liberation. (similarity 0.85)
• The 60s women’s movement structurally repeated the earlier movement’s racism. (similarity 0.85)
• Racial alliances superseded feminist solidarity between black and white women (similarity 0.85)
• The women’s rights movement exposed white women’s refusal to surrender white supremacy. (similarity 0.85)
• Racism was routine within the women’s rights movement against black reformers (similarity 0.84)
• 60s black liberation codified sexist role separation within the movement (similarity 0.84)
• Early black feminists were isolated from both black communities and the white feminist movement (similarity 0.84)
• Black women needed a separate feminist intellectual tradition (similarity 0.84)
• Black women faced pressure from both whites and blacks to separate racism from sexism (similarity 0.83)
• In the 1930s black and white women pursued divergent political priorities (similarity 0.83)

Broader Connections

• Black women faced pressure from both whites and blacks to separate racism from sexism #expands (0.70) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 46
• Racial alliances superseded feminist solidarity between black and white women #expands (0.60) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 507
• Historians have excluded black women from accounts of the women’s rights movement #complicates (0.50)
• Racism was routine within the women’s rights movement against black reformers #exemplifies (0.50) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 376