Early women’s studies programs resisted curricula focused on black women.

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 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Black women’s experiences were ignored and ridiculed as unworthy of study; Early feminist theory lacked recognition of black women as knowing subjects; Anti-intellectualism and academic exclusion silence Black women from both ends (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Black women’s experiences were ignored and ridiculed as unworthy of study #corroborates (0.82)
• Early feminist theory lacked recognition of black women as knowing subjects #expands (0.82)
• Historians have systematically omitted black women from accounts of feminist history #corroborates (0.80) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 463
• Historians have excluded black women from accounts of the women’s rights movement #corroborates (0.78)
• Anti-intellectualism and academic exclusion silence Black women from both ends #expands (0.75)
• Both academic gatekeeping and anti-intellectualism reinforce black women’s oppression #expands (0.75) — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 147
• Defensive interventions diverted black women from building black-centered feminist scholarship #qualifies (0.72) — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 223
• Black women faced pressure from both whites and blacks to separate racism from sexism #expands (0.71) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 46
• Feminism alone made substantial inroads into the Black academic community in this phase #complicates (0.70) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 352