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Even the most radical white abolitionists, basing their opposition to slavery on moral and humanitarian grounds, failed to understand that the rapidly developing capitalism of the North was also an oppressive system. They viewed slavery as a detestable and inhuman institution, an archaic transgression of justice. But they did not recognize that the white worker in the North, his or her status as “free” laborer notwithstanding, was no different from the enslaved “worker” in the South: both were victims of economic exploitation. [...]
Of course the Republicans did not lend their support to woman suffrage after the Union victory was won. But it was not so much because they were men, it was rather because, as politicians, they were beholden to the dominant economic interests of the period. Insofar as the military contest between the North and the South was a war to overthrow the Southern slaveholding class, it was a war which had been basically conducted in the interests of the Northern bourgeoisie, i.e., the young and enthusiastic industrial capitalists who found their political voice in the Republican party. The Northern capitalists sought economic control over the entire nation. Their struggle against the Southern slaveocracy did not therefore mean that they supported the liberation of Black men or women as human beings.
Using slavery as its model, the convict lease system did not discriminate between male and female labor. Men and women were frequently housed together in the same stockade and were yoked together during the workday. In a resolution passed by the 1883 Texas State Convention of Negroes, “the practice of yoking or chaining male and female convicts together” was “strongly condemned.”5 Likewise, at the Founding Convention of the Afro-American League in 1890, one of the seven reasons motivating the creation of this organization was “(t)he odious and demoralizing penitentiary system of the South, its chain gangs, convict leases and indiscriminate mixing of males and females.”6
not really sure i undestand the point she's making here. like i dont get why mixing is bad, unless the implication is that it encourages sexual assault? otherwise idgi
This feminist activist was perpetrating the very oppression she protested. Yet her contradictory behavior and her inordinate insensitivity are not without explanation, for people who work as servants are generally viewed as less than human beings. Inherent in the dynamic of the master-servant (or mistress-maid) relationship, said the philosopher Hegel, is the constant striving to annihilate the consciousness of the servant. The clerk referred to in the conversation was a wage laborer—a human being possessing at least a modicum of independence from her employer and her work. The servant, on the other hand, labored solely for the purpose of satisfying her mistress’ needs. Probably viewing her servant as a mere extension of herself, the feminist could hardly be conscious of her own active role as an oppressor.
Resolved. That without expressing any opinion on the proper qualifications for voting, we call attention to the significant facts that in every State there are more women who can read and write than the whole number of illiterate male voters; more white women who can read and write than all negro voters; more American women who can read and write than all foreign voters; so that the enfranchisement of such women would settle the vexed question of rule by illiteracy, whether of home-grown or foreign-born production.
This resolution cavalierly dismissed the rights of Black and immigrant women along with the rights of their male relations. Moreover, it pointed to a fundamental betrayal of democracy that could no longer be justified by the old expediency argument. Implied in the logic of this resolution was an attack on the working class as a whole and a willingness—whether conscious or not—to make common cause with the new monopoly capitalists whose indiscriminate search for profits knew no human bounds.
a resolution passed by national american woman suffrage association under susan b anthony
In 1899 the suffragists were quick to furnish evidence of their consistent loyalty to the avaricious monopoly capitalists. As the dictates of racism and chauvinism had shaped the NAWSA’s policy toward the domestic working class, they accepted without question the new feats of U.S. Imperialism. At their convention that year Anna Garlin Spencer delivered an address entitled “Duty to the Women of Our New Possessions.” Our new possessions? During the discussion Susan B. Anthony did not attempt to conceal her anger—but, as it turned out, she was not angry about the seizures themselves. She had been
… overflowing with wrath ever since the proposal was made to engraft our half-barbaric form of government on Hawaii and our other new possessions.
Anthony consequently advanced the demand with all the force of her wrath “… that the ballot be given to the women of our new possessions upon the same terms as to the men.” As if women in Hawaii and Puerto Rico should demand the right to be victimized by U.S. Imperialism on an equal basis with their men.
this is insane lol
Although Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and their colleagues on the paper made important contributions to the cause of working women, they never really accepted the principle of trade unionism. As they had been previously unwilling to concede that Black Liberation might claim momentary priority over their own interests as white women, they did not fully embrace the fundamental principles of unity and class solidarity, without which the labor movement would remain powerless. In the eyes of the suffragists, “woman” was the ultimate test—if the cause of woman could be furthered, it was not wrong for women to function as scabs when male workers in their trade were on strike. Susan B. Anthony was excluded from the 1869 convention of the National Labor Union because she had urged women printers to go to work as scabs.9 In defending herself at this convention, Anthony proclaimed that
… men have great wrongs in the world between the existence of labor and capital, but these wrongs as compared to the wrongs of women, in whose faces the doors of the trades and vocations are slammed shut, are not as a grain of sand on the sea shore.
The great distinctive advantage possessed by the workingmen of this republic is that the son of the humblest citizen, black or white, has equal chances with the son of the richest in the land.
Susan B. Anthony would never have made such a statement if she had familiarized herself with the realities of working-class families. As working women knew all too well, their fathers, brothers, husbands and sons who exercised the right to vote continued to be miserably exploited by their wealthy employers. Political equality did not open the door to economic equality.
Early in her career as a women’s rights leader, Susan B. Anthony concluded that the ballot contained the real secret of women’s emancipation, and that sexism itself was far more oppressive than class inequality and racism. In Anthony’s eyes, “(T)he most odious oligarchy ever established on the face of the globe” was the rule of men over women.
An oligarchy of wealth, where the rich govern the poor; an oligarchy of learning, where the educated govern the ignorant; or even an oligarchy of race, where the Saxon rules the African, might be endured; but this oligarchy of sex which makes father, brothers, husband, sons, the oligarchs over the mother and sisters, the wife and daughters of every household; which ordains all men sovereigns, all women subjects—carries discord and rebellion into every home of the nation.
Anthony’s staunchly feminist position was also a staunch reflection of bourgeois ideology. And it was probably because of the ideology’s blinding powers that she failed to realize that working-class women and Black women alike were fundamentally linked to their men by the class exploitation and racist oppression which did not discriminate between the sexes. While their men’s sexist behavior definitely needed to be challenged, the real enemy—their common enemy—was the boss, the capitalist, or whoever was responsible for the miserable wages and unbearable working conditions and for racist and sexist discrimination on the job.
lol, dis bitch
Now, so Leonora O’Reilly and her working-class sisters proclaimed, they were going to fight for the ballot—and indeed they would use it as a weapon to remove all those legislators from office whose loyalties were with big business. Working-class women demanded the right to suffrage as an arm to assist them in the ongoing class struggle. This new perspective within the campaign for woman suffrage bore witness to the rising influence of the socialist movement. Indeed, women socialists brought a new energy into the suffrage movement and defended the vision of struggle born of the experiences of their working-class sisters.