Black women faced pressure from both whites and blacks to separate racism from sexism

Evidence

I attributed the absence of works written by or about black women to the professor having been conditioned as a white person in a racist society to ignore the existence of black women, not to her having been born female. During that time I expressed to white feminists my concern that so few black women were willing to support feminism. They responded by saying that they could understand the black woman’s refusal to involve herself in feminist struggle because she was already involved in the struggle to end racism. As I encouraged black women to become active feminists, I was told that we should not become “women’s libbers” because racism was the oppressive force in our life—not sexism. To both groups I voiced my conviction that the struggle to end racism and the struggle to end sexism were naturally intertwined, that to make them separate was to deny a basic truth of our existence, that race and sex are both immutable facets of human identity. — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 46

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Racism was routine within the women’s rights movement against black reformers — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 376; White women’s clubs excluded black women even from token recognition — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 379; Scholars frame black women’s organizing as anti-racist, not feminist — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 466 (+18 more)

Related

• Black women organized separately after white women’s racism barred them (similarity 0.89)
• Early black feminists were isolated from both black communities and the white feminist movement (similarity 0.89)
• Black leaders resist acknowledging black male sexism to avoid complicating anti-racist efforts. (similarity 0.88)
• Black liberation requires fighting sexism as much as racism (similarity 0.88)
• Black women experienced sexist oppression distinct from racism (similarity 0.88)
• Black women needed a separate feminist intellectual tradition (similarity 0.88)
• Black women faced a double bind between racist white feminists and patriarchal black leaders (similarity 0.88)
• The women-and-blacks analogy erased black women by equating women with whites (similarity 0.87)
• Both white and black patriarchies framed feminism as opposition to black liberation. (similarity 0.86)
• White feminists dismissed black women’s attention to racial difference (similarity 0.86)
• Sexism and racism together intensified black women’s oppression beyond black men’s. (similarity 0.86)
• In the 1930s black and white women pursued divergent political priorities (similarity 0.86)
• The women’s rights movement exposed white women’s refusal to surrender white supremacy. (similarity 0.86)
• Racial alliances superseded feminist solidarity between black and white women (similarity 0.85)
• Racism was routine within the women’s rights movement against black reformers (similarity 0.85)

Broader Connections

• Suffrage politics trapped black women between racist feminists and sexist black men #exemplifies (0.70)