Scarcity of evidence on African women philosophers reflects neglect, not absence of contribution

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 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

The first is that the 60s black movement encouraged black women to assume a subservient role and caused them to reject feminism. The second is that black women were, as one white woman liberationist put it, “repelled by the racial and class composition of the women’s movement.” Taken at face value these reasons seem adequate. Examined in a historical context in which black women have rallied in support of women’s rights despite pressure from black men to assume a subordinate position, and despite the fact that white middle and upper class women have dominated every women’s movement in the U.S., they seem inadequate. While they do provide justification for the anti-feminist black female position, they do not explain why black women who support feminist ideology refuse to participate fully in the contemporary women’s movement. — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 547 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim
• XREF: connects to: Archives that erase marginalized lives require a critical fabulation method rather than empirical recovery — , The Braided Reading EPUB: 5-Year…, 1022; African feminist thought faces a double challenge from both Western and internal critics; Black women needed a separate feminist intellectual tradition (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Historians have systematically omitted black women from accounts of feminist history #exemplifies (0.70) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 463
• Black women needed a separate feminist intellectual tradition #corroborates (0.60)
• Standard reasons for black women’s nonparticipation fail historical scrutiny. #corroborates (0.60) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 547
• African feminist thought faces a double challenge from both Western and internal critics #expands (0.55)