The second wave of feminism in the United States came at a time of great tumult over the rights of all people within the country. Fresh off of the return of women to the home after having experienced significant time working in the place of male soldiers, women grew increasingly restless while people of color who had fought in the war, were continuously disappointed at their treatment stateside. Oftentimes the issues of feminism are considered the issues of all women, but throughout this era it became apparent that the issues of mainstream feminism were not necessarily the issues of feminism in other ethnic and racial groups. When looking at the literature of the times, particularly articles from magazines and newspapers the aims and concerns …show more content…
A very specific difference between mainstream feminism and the feminism of Native American Women, was the difference between social structure in tribal groups as opposed to social structure in America as a whole. Native Americans take a collectivist view toward issues, meaning that if any gains were to be made for women. In their own words, through their own newsletter, the Wisconsin Tribal Women’s News: Najinakwe, native American feminists’ main goal was, “to promote a better future for all Indian people” (1974). Their concerns were often similar to those of mainstream feminism, such as the pay gap between men and women, domestic abuse, and reproductive rights but their viewpoint was that any gains for women would have to be for the greater good of the tribe, not to be “liberated.” As Native American women already played a large role in their own communities, we see that the sentiment of the feminist movement of Native American Women was different from that of mainstream feminism. This would be seen also, with African American …show more content…
Whereas generally white feminists were looking for the opportunity to move up in office jobs, African American women were looking to be considered for them not only as women, but also as African Americans. Author June Sochen points out that “The elite professions continued to discriminate against women, blacks, and other minority groups well into the 1960s” (1974). This exhibits that the road leading into second wave feminism showed two strikes against African American women to begin with, a concern often downplayed by women’s liberation activists who chose to amplify the voices of those women of color who felt they were discriminated against more for being women. The same can be said in regards to reproductive rights, as many women of color were concerned with forced or coerced sterilization while white women were seeking contraceptives and at times opted for sterilization. In the southern United States, especially, the concern of what political collectives such as the Black Panthers termed “Cultural Genocide” or “Black Genocide” (Caron, 1998), refers to the disproportionately administered contraceptives and sterilizations were of true concern. According to North Carolina’s Whole Women Catalogue, between the years of 1968 and 1974, 63% of sterilizations were performed on African American women (1974). This
Analytical Paper #1 There has been a drastic transformation in the importance of American women and their roles in the last four centuries. The freedom and equality that women possess today was not present in the 1600s. Americans viewed women as a minority and treated them with contempt. Unlike Americans, Native Indians treated their women and the colonial women they kidnapped with more respect, granting them with more pleasant and important tasks.
The United States has had a long relationship with the Haudenosaunee people. When Europeans invaded North America, beginning in the end of the 15th century, they found a land already inhabited by a large group of people, who they called Indians. Although their subsequent relationship was plagued by disease, wars and fights for domination, there was, inevitably, some exchange of goods, like crops, and ideas between the two peoples. Most notably, even the “Founding Fathers” of the U.S. were influenced by the Haudenosaunee Confederacy’s ideas about democracy and government. One aspect of the relationship, however, is rarely mentioned: the impact that Haudenosaunee women had on early feminists in the U.S. The two groups of women interacted very closely during the 19th century, and prominent feminist voices in the U.S., like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Matilda Joslyn Gage, and Lucretia Mott, were heavily influenced by the native women’s many freedoms.
Lakota Woman Essay In Lakota Woman, Mary Crow Dog argues that in the 1970’s, the American Indian Movement used protests and militancy to improve their visibility in mainstream Anglo American society in an effort to secure sovereignty for all "full blood" American Indians in spite of generational gender, power, and financial conflicts on the reservations. When reading this book, one can see that this is indeed the case. The struggles these people underwent in their daily lives on the reservation eventually became too much, and the American Indian Movement was born. AIM, as we will see through several examples, made their case known to the people of the United States, and militancy ultimately became necessary in order to do so.
Women, Race and Class is the prolific analysis of the women's rights movement in the United States as observed by celebrated author, scholar, academic and political activist. Angela Y. Davis, Ph.D. The book is written in the same spirit as Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. Davis does not merely recount the glorious deeds of history. traditional feminist icons, but rather tells the story of women's liberation from the perspective of former black slaves and wage laborers. Essential to this approach is the salient omnipresent concept known as intersectionality.
together for the better of the shared children. The women had a say in how they would help
This wave of sterilization came crashing down on Native American women the hardest. As Sally Torpy asserts in her thesis, Endangered...
“Reclaiming Culture and the Land: Motherhood and the Politics of Sustaining Community” is about a mother who is a Native American activist who has two children, she wants them to be raised and go to school in an Indian community. “I put my children in that school because I wanted them to be in the Indian community.” She explains that she is not sure if her children know what she is doing is common, but they know that what she is doing is right. “My children do have the sense that what I do is not necessarily common. Recently my daughter started asking me if I’m famous.” She has fought for her children to have a good life, full of community, ritual, and an understanding of who they are and where they come from.
During the seventeen and eighteen hundreds, in the Native American culture, men and women lived as completely separate people. Even though they lived separately, the jobs they withheld were perfect stability due to what men were accomplishing women couldn’t and vice versa. Cherokee Women: Gender and Culture Change by Theda Perdue is a book that communicates and portrays how gender affected the Native American culture and the relations throughout the culture. Although the title of the book can lead you to believe it is solely about women, this book strongly suggests how Cherokee men and Cherokee women were not only separate in ways of gender but how they in fact differ throughout the time period and the impact that had on the culture. Theda Perdue argues how the appearance of Europeans completely shaped and molded the traditions held by the Cherokee tribe. She does an impeccable job describing and analyzing the way things prevailed in the seventeen hundreds through the eighteen forties. She goes above
In the weekly readings for week five we see two readings that talk about the connections between women’s suffrage and black women’s identities. In Rosalyn Terborg-Penn’s Discontented Black Feminists: Prelude and Postscript to the Passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, we see the ways that black women’s identities were marginalized either through their sex or by their race. These identities were oppressed through social groups, laws, and voting rights. Discontented Black Feminists talks about the journey black feminists took to combat the sexism as well as the racism such as forming independent social clubs, sororities, in addition to appealing to the government through courts and petitions. These women formed an independent branch of feminism in which began to prioritize not one identity over another, but to look at each identity as a whole. This paved the way for future feminists to introduce the concept of intersectionality.
...e and gender, were by default always arguing for universal equality. In no instance could black women argue specifically for their rights and freedom, without necessarily raising up the all blacks and females. As the famous phrase declares, black women were “lifting as they climb” (Brown, 44). In their fight for enfranchisement, they were advocating for universal suffrage; in their movement to end lynching, they were urging, “that every human being should have a fair trial;” in the demand for fair, living wages, they were insisting that all people should have the capacity to live honestly and adequately from their pay (Brown, 34). Black women, not only assumed a peculiar position in society, where they had to band together to fight for their own rights, but also they were in a powerful situation, which granted them the capacity to fight for everyone’s rights.
Gender roles played a huge part in the Iroquois Confederacy, however, their views on the men and women in their tribe were different from the “normal” gender norms. Women have always had an honored place in the Iroquois tribes. In many societies throughout history and around the world, women have not been treated equally and given equal rights to men. However, the Iroquoian woman had a great amount of authority and power in the community. “In the Iroquois community, women were the keepers of the culture. They were responsible for defining the political, social, spiritual, and economic norms of the tribe.” (Iroquois Confederacy.) Warner (1925) states, “In the Iroquoian political system, women possessed an unusual amount of power. All the male
All men are created equal (Declaration of Independence). Yet, the Native Americans continue their fight for decades since colonization. There is a constant struggle to urge for equality from William Apess in his 1833 essay, An Indian’s Looking-Glass for the White Man. In modern day, the fight continues after his lifetime. Equality and freedom is the goal for most Native Americans. Although securing the rights of the Native Americans are progressing, it is slow. Therefore, the inequality continues at a faster pace, as opposed to major changes that would impact the Native Americans positively. Throughout history, they are exploited for their land and natural resources and severely underfunded. As a matter of fact, the common theme seems to be that the Native Americans are continuously suppressed by the “superior race”, which showcases the prevalent thoughts in America. William Apess and
The late nineteenth century was a critical time in reshaping the rights of women. Commonly this era is considered to be the beginning of what is know to western feminists as “first-wave feminism.” First-wave feminism predominately fought for legal rights such as suffrage, and property rights. A major hallmark of first-wave feminism is the concept of the “New Woman.” The phrase New Woman described educated, independent, career oriented women who stood in response to the idea of the “Cult of Domesticity,” that is the idea that women are meant to be domestic and submissive (Stevens 27).
The focus of The Women’s Liberation Movement was idealized off The Civil Rights Movement; it was founded on the elimination of discriminary practices and sexist attitudes (Freeman, 1995). Although by the 1960s women were responsible for one-third of the work force, despite the propaganda surrounding the movement women were still urged to “go back home.” However the movement continued to burn on, and was redeveloping a new attitude by the 1970s. The movement was headed by a new generation that was younger and more educated in politics and social actions. These young women not only challenged the gender role expectations, but drove the feminist agenda that pursued to free women from oppression and male authority and redistribute power and social good among the sexes (Baumgardner and Richards, 2000).
Multiracial Feminism: Recasting the Chronology of Second Wave Feminism introduces ideas by Becky Thompson that contradict the “traditional” teachings of the Second Wave of feminism. She points out that the version of Second Wave feminism that gets told centers around white, middle class, US based women and the central problem being focused on and rallied against is sexism. This history of the Second Wave does not take into consideration feminist movements happening in other countries. Nor does it take into consideration the feminist activism that women of color were behind, that centered not only on sexism, but also racism, and classism as central problems as well. This is where the rise of multiracial feminism is put to the foreground and a different perspective of the Second Wave is shown.