Also on page 80, Kerber discusses issues of black women being obligated to work by American society. Do we not still hear calls from conservative groups about forcing "welfare moms" (which they assume are poor and black) to get jobs?
Friday, July 5, 2013
Black women
How different would this book be if it focused on the obligations and rights of black women? I am enjoying the book, but like always I am determined to look for the silent voices. The obligations and rights of black slave women would offer quite a different narrative than we find in Kerber's book.
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Alex,
ReplyDeleteThat is a good point. I think she scratches the surface with the Ida B. Wells section. Unfortunately, in historical writing you have to make choices on the voices to include. I agree though, it could have been added and further supported her argument.
Linda Kerber came out of 2nd wave feminism, which was mostly concerned with female empowerment of white, middle and upper class women. That's why you don't hear minority voices in this book. What that group of women did was phenomenal, but unfortunately, they were myopic in their focus. Perhaps it would have been a much more uphill battle, fatally so, if they had fought for racial equalities along with gender equality. But perhaps, if the women's lib and civil rights movements had strongly allied, they could have accomplished much more in a shorter amount of time. It's not really fair to Monday morning quarterback from 40 years in the future, but I too was disappointed in the lack of a diverse female group in the book
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