I wrote an article about the men’s movement and its relationship with Black History.
As the men’s movement is relatively small, the impact on Black History has been nominal.
Wikipedia has a list of women’s issues on its “Women’s Movement” Page, which redirects to the Feminist Movement page. Apparently all Women in a movement are feminists, so I’ll use feminists below, to refer to all Women’s movements.
While it would be impossible to put together an exhaustive list of women’s grievances, Wikipedia’s millions of editors offer us a starting point. “These issues include: women’s liberation, women’s suffrage, reproductive rights, sexual violence, domestic violence, equal pay, sexual harassment, and maternity leave.”
I’ll use these historical grievances as a guide, as it is impossible to know how issues like manspreading, mansplaining, and demands to allow police departments to use spectral evidence in sexual assault allegations, will impact Black History.
The first wave Feminists were largely concerned with the rights of middle and upper class white women. The first struggles were the right to get their husbands arrested if they possessed alcohol.
The effects on Black History were devastating. Blacks were disproportionately targeted by not only law enforcement, but also violent crime in cities like Chicago and across the Black Belt in the South.
Women’s (Feminist) Movements and their impacts on Black History, a deeper look.
Women’s Liberation
Feminist theory posts that:
- Women, like Blacks in America, were held in bondage and slavery.
- Women have been oppressed and enslaved throughout all of recorded history.
- Women Abolitionists helped end slavery.
- There were no Feminists in the South that supported slavery.
- Women are still largely oppressed and enslaved by Patriarchy today.
Women’s Suffrage
In 1870, Black men were granted the right to vote. This catalyzed middle and upper class white women to organize into groups, focused on women’s suffrage.
These groups were overwhelmingly segregated by race and almost completely segregated by class, as poor women did not have time or money for travel nor dues.
Black Women were forced to create their own suffrage clubs.
In 1920, Women received the unconditional right to vote. Black men can vote, or receive certain government services, but only if they are registered for the Selective Service.
Reproductive Rights
While the right to vote and control government was a largely segregated affair, Feminists have long campaigned for reproductive justice for minority Women.
From the early days of the Progressive Movement, right up to today, the right for minority Women to prevent and terminate pregnancies of Black Indigenous Unborn Babies of Color has been a hallmark of the movements.
The founder of Planned Parenthood was deeply committed to ensuring these Women had government subsidized access to these critical services.
Sexual Violence
Feminist Theory posits that all men are conditioned in a cisgendered, white male, heterosexual Rape Culture (Link) to use sexual violence. They also believe that the best way to handle this is to bring people to the streets and courts, and to demand justice.
Black history is replete with Women doing precisely this. Take Emmett Till and the Scottsboro Boys, for example. A lesser known revolutionary, Crystal Magnum, was the first Black Woman to accuse white men of rape. (citation needed)
The Violence Against Women Act and the Wetterlling Act, part of the 1994 Biden Crime Law, have been widely critized by Black Lives Matter (link) as having disproportionate impacts on Black men.
Domestic Violence
Perhaps no Feminist praxis has had greater impact on Black History and Black families like the Duluth Model of Domestic violence. Building on the foundation that all men are conditioned to use a spectrum of sexual and domestic violence in the home, the Duluth Model is used to train Law Enforcement, Education and Mental Health practioners.
From it’s early days, the Duluth Model spread via Praxist International’s 1984’s “BluePrint for Safety” which was first implemented in St. Paul, MN and then spread to thousands of cities with resources specifically aimed at helping minority communities.
Equal Pay
Malcolm X, famously referred to The March on Washington as, “The Farce on Washington.” This was, in part, because it supported the Civil Rights Act, which would predictably be leveraged to most benefit White Women and harm Black men.
As of this writing, Women have made significant advancements at every level of education, (link) and have made significant strides in nearly every well-paid, non-life threatening, non-outdoor or non-deadly industry.
Blacks by contrast, have not benefited as well.
Sexual Harrassment
Sexual Harrassment in the workplace, while frowned upon by corporate policy, became an actual crime in the 1964 Civil Rights Act. It really came to prominence at a pivotal first in Black History.
In 1991, Clarence Thomas became the first Black Conservative on the Supreme Court, nominated to replace Thurgood Marshall. Following his nomination, an FBI report was leaked to the press and Black Feminists groups mobilized to stop the confirmation.
The struggle was memorialized in the anthology, All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, but Some of Us Are Brave. Editors Gloria T. Hull, Patricia Bell-Scott, and Barbara Smith described black feminists mobilizing as “a remarkable national response to the Anita Hill–Clarence Thomas controversy.[40]” The impacts of this campaign can not be overstated.
One year later, harassment complaints filed with the EEOC against Black males were up over 50 percent and public opinion had shifted in Hill’s favor.[37] Private companies then started training programs to deter sexual harassment.[36]
Maternity Leave
Modern Black mothers and fathers, with unaborted children, who have survive the lopsided, prejudicial Duluth Model, false allegations of sexual assault, and preferential hiring (link) of White women, are both allowed to take some weeks off, paid for by their employers.
All thanks to the Women’s Movement!
Many Unanswered Questions
This is just a short summary of how Black History and the Women’s Movement have intersected. So many important issues and questions to be answered at the national and local level.
Was city Councilman Phillipe Cunningham mansplaining to now City Council President Andrea Jenkins when they discussed changing MPD’s Gender-Pronoun policies all while keeping the lethal neck restraint policy in place?
Inquiring minds would love to know.
