Early feminist theory lacked recognition of black women as knowing subjects

Evidence

Sojourner Truth was not the only black woman to advocate social equality for women. Her eagerness to speak publicly in favor of women’s rights despite public disapproval and resistance paved the way for other politically-minded black women to express their views. Sexism and racism have so informed the perspective of American historiographers that they have tended to overlook and exclude the effort of black women in discussions of the American women’s rights movement. White female scholars who support feminist ideology have also ignored the contribution of black women. In contemporary works, like The Remembered Gate: Origins of American Feminism by Barbara Berg, Herstory by June Sochen, Hidden from History by Sheila Rowbothan, The Women’s Movement by Barbara Deckard, to name a few, the role black women played as advocates for women’s rights in the 19th century is never mentioned. Eleanor Flexner’s Century of Struggle, which was first published in 1959, remains one of the very few book-length historical works on the women’s rights movement that documents the participation of black women. — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 463 (#expands, via linked claim)

If white women in the women’s movement needed to make use of a black experience to emphasize woman’s oppression, it would seem only logical that they focus on the black female experience—but they did not. They chose to deny the existence of black women and to exclude them from the women’s movement. When I use the word “exclude” I do not mean that they overtly discriminated against black women on the basis of race. There are other ways to exclude and alienate people. Many black women felt excluded from the movement whenever they heard white women draw analogies between “women” and “blacks.” For by making such analogies white women were in effect saying to black women: “We don’t acknowledge your presence as women in American society.” — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 420 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Early women’s studies programs resisted curricula focused on black women.; Absence of role models foreclosed imagining black women as professors.; Black women needed a separate feminist intellectual tradition (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Historians have systematically omitted black women from accounts of feminist history #expands (0.85) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 463
• Black women theorizing together occupies a terrain long denied them #corroborates (0.82)
• Black women needed a separate feminist intellectual tradition #expands (0.80)
• White feminists excluded black women by analogy rather than overt discrimination #expands (0.80) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 420
• Early black feminists were isolated from both black communities and the white feminist movement #expands (0.78) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 17