Week 21 Flashcards
Seneca Falls/ What was it?
-Held 19th & 20th July 1848 in Seneca Falls, NY, at the Wesleyan Chapel
-The 5 women who organized it were also abolitionists
-Said to have kicked off the women’s rights & suffrage movement in the USA
-Fight for the social, civil, & religious rights of women
-300 people showed up, mostly area residents; only women were allowed to attend day 1, but day 2 it opened to men
Founders of the 1848 Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention
Lucretia Mott
Susan B. Anthony
Other organizers included
-Martha Coffin Wright
-Mary Ann McClintock
-Jane Hunt
Seneca Falls/ Part 2
-Convention discussed 12 Resolutions on women’s rights; All but #9 passed unanimously - the right for women to vote
-Declaration of Sentiments & Resolutions - a list of women’s grievance & demands; called on women to fight their constitutional right to equality
-2 August 1848 they reconvened in Rochester, NY, to reaffirm their goals with a larger audience
-72 years later, in 1920, women were allowed to vote
-This was a radical act – “the most shocking and unnatural event ever recorded in the history of womanity.“ (Oneida Whig)
-In most places women didn’t exist as legal entities in their own right, especially if they were married
Sojourner Truth (1797- 1883)
-Became a preacher around 1843, after a divine inspiration
-African-American abolitionist, preacher & feminist
-Dutch-speaking until 10, she was a slave born in upstate New York State; Birth name was Isabella
-Escaped with her daughter in 1826. Freed by the state in 1827. Moved to New York City in 1828 & that year won a court case to recover her son. First Black woman to win such a case against a white man.
-Attended the 1851 Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in Akron where she gave the infamous
speech “Ain’t I a Woman?”
Truth
-Speech is titled after the repeated refrain “ain’t i a woman?”
-Speaking to issues of racism, sexism & social class (early intersectional thinking!) - men treat women a certain way, & then women of colour worse
-Critique of the socio-political, economic, & cultural processes of Othering by showing a shared subjectivity of the experiences of pain, violence, dehumanization, & degradation among women
-Powerful challenge to essentialist concept of “woman”
-A speech calling attention to the need for intersectionality & inclusiveness (over a century before it was articulated)
-It is a classic; it still holds strong today in understanding the longterm relationship & consequences of colonialism’s partnership with racism, patriarchy, & sexism
-Identity as processes constituted in & through power relations
-Structural injustices that keep women down & divide them from each other
Truth but…
-No primary record of the actual speech exists - Truth couldn’t write; so it was transcribed by audience members
-First published version was in the New York Tribune in 1851 by Marius Robinson; the title question is not mentioned at all
-Second published version in 1863 Frances Gage; There’s new material in this version not in the Robinson including the title question & the dialect has changed in the actual wording, & there’s also attitude (fitting a stereotype?!)
There are other cases…
-Rosa Parks wasn’t the first person to refuse to give up her bus seat - Claudette Colvin, a black teenager, did it nine months before Parks
-Leaders of the civil rights movement thought that a teenager wasn’t the right person to be the face of a movement… So they ‘staged’ Rosa Parks’ act of defiance – it was planned, & based on the actions of Claudette Colvin
-But, these two were not the first to help the desegregation movement … Elizabeth Jennings in 1854 helped to desegregate the NYC trolleys! She was late for church & tried to get on a white’s only trolley - she was told to get off & she refused, she was forcibly removed; she sued for damages & won
-The decision desegregated the trolleys in NYC “the company was required as a common carrier to convey all respectable passengers, including ‘coloured persons, if sober, well- behaved, and free from disease’”
Newman & White reading
-Provides an overview of the women’s movement in Canada
-First wave = fight for voting rights
-Second wave = emerged in the 1960s along with other social movements
-Third wave = arises in reaction to first and second waves, and their lack of intersectionality; stresses women’s multiple identities
Canadian Women’s Suffrage Movement
-Started with the Toronto Women’s Literary Club in 1877
-Provinces granted the vote first
-Federally, some women got the vote in 1917- these were women with direct family members in the services, or women who were serving themselves
-Theoretically, women got the vote in 1918 (Not all of them!)
-First woman elected to Parliament in 1921
The Person’s Case
-This is where the ‘Famous Five’ became the Famous Five: Emily Murphy, Henrietta Edwards, Nellie McClung, Louise McKinney & Irene Parlby.
-The government said they couldn’t appoint a woman to the Senate because the 1867 BNA Act (Section 24) didn’t make provision for it: “The governor general shall from time to time, in the Queen’s name, by instrument under the Great Seal of Canada, summon qualified persons to the Senate; and, subject to the provisions of this Act, every person so summoned shall become and be a member of the Senate and a senator.” — women were not persons
-In 1927 Emily Murphy invited the others to join her in challenging this
-They used a point of law in the Supreme Court Act that said five people together could petition the government to direct the SC to interpret a point of law
-In 1928 the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that under the BNA Act women were not ‘persons’; The Famous Five appealed the decision to the British Privy Council
-In 1929 the Privy Council declared women persons giving them the right to sit in the Senate & enjoy full access to political involvement (theoretically – & remember it was only certain women)
Emily Murphy
-She supported eugenics – the ‘science’ that argued the human population could be improved by controlling reproduction
-She argued that the unfit ”…were “becoming vastly more populous than those we designate as the ‘upper crust.’ This is why it is altogether likely that the upper crust with its delicious plums and dash of cream is likely to become at any time a mere toothsome morsel for the hungry, the abnormal, the criminals and the posterity of insane paupers.
-
This book was an expansion on articles published in Maclean’s Magazine on the illegal drug trade, it has been called “a vicious diatribe on Canada’s growing Chinese community and the danger it posed to society.” (G&M, “To some, it’s the Infamous Five”, Oct. 19, 2004)
Emily Murphy
-She supported eugenics – the ‘science’ that argued the human population could be improved by controlling reproduction
-She argued that the unfit ”…were “becoming vastly more populous than those we designate as the ‘upper crust.’ This is why it is altogether likely that the upper crust with its delicious plums and dash of cream is likely to become at any time a mere toothsome morsel for the hungry, the abnormal, the criminals and the posterity of insane paupers.
-
This book was an expansion on articles published in Maclean’s Magazine on the illegal drug trade, it has been called “a vicious diatribe on Canada’s growing Chinese community and the danger it posed to society.” (G&M, “To some, it’s the Infamous Five”, Oct. 19, 2004)
Audre Lorde- The Uses of Anger
-Originally a keynote presentation at the National Women’s Studies Association Conference in Storrs, Connecticut, June 1981; Reprinted later that fall
-Discussion of anger against racism & how it often is delegitimized by white women & white patriarchal culture
-Mainstream culture doesn’t want racism addressed, it stifles our feelings & honesty
-Written as a response to white feminists; they must recognize the experiences of ALL women
-We cannot separate racism & sexism - intersectionality must happen
-Difference is something to celebrate & recognize!
The Uses of Anger/ Part 2
Anger is a source of power, energy & knowledge - it contains truth, it is a means of survival & a way to strive for justice
Anger is a response to racism - it should not be silenced, it should be listened to; It is not just a tool to make white people feel bad
White women fear black women’s anger instead of fearing their own racist attitudes - they are more afraid of being criticized & made to feel guilty than the fact they are perpetuating violence, pain & oppression towards women of colour
Anger can be an effective emotion for creating change, guilt is none of these! - it’s a useless emotion since it does not critique systems of power or lead to activism
Anger MUST be translated into action; dismantling systems of power is the responsibility of ALL women
We need to reexamine how we see anger & its role; reassess the role of emotions in organizing spaces of knowledge, energy & honesty; Anger can be a useful tool when used properly
