The Third Wave of Feminism & Women of Color
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CHAPTER ONE THE THIRD WAVE OF FEMINISM & WOMEN OF COLOR The work of feminism and feminists are known not only as the “feminist movement,” but has also been historically segregated into racial waves. The first wave quite simply dealt with white women from the United States and the United Kingdom noting their struggle as women’s suffrage. Their fight was in the name of equality among white women who wanted the right to vote. Women of color were not included in this suffrage movement. Many of the “suffragettes” as they were once called not only fought for the right to vote, but were elite members of conservative Christian groups that fought for the prohibition of alcohol. Many have said that by 1920, or the writing of the 19th amendment, the first wave of feminism ended. The victory led white women towards a new form of empowerment, empowerment over white men, and possibly over fellow white women as well. Forty years later, the second wave of feminism began to erupt. Now with the right to vote, white women were contesting “subtle” inequalities. While (mis) representation was a major issue of the second wave, along with career opportunities and choices, black and brown women were still trying to be recognized. The second wave, which lasted about twenty years, is one of the most interesting periods in feminist and/or women’s history. Gaining the right to be college educated alongside white male counterparts had given many white women the opportunity to be competitive. However, as Betty Friedan stated so controversially (for her time) in the Feminist Mystique (1963), women were unsure, even with a college education, of what they would eventually become if not like their mothers and mothers before them (Freidan, 1963). In their argument, white women were sick and tired of being housewives, harboring proper bedside and tableside manners saleable and viable for well to do male prospects. They wanted to use their college education to become competitive with men and/or to work alongside them. Many of them rejected the tradition of having dinner prepared and served with a smile for when their husbands returned home from work. The complaint made its way not only towards the role of women in American society at the time, but it directed its attack on media. Magazines, books, television programs, and posters displayed images and textual evidence of the “ideal woman.” She cooked, she cleaned, she smiled, she laughed and spoke when motioned to do so, she kept her husband satisfied on all counts and fronts, even if she was miserable, and she was white. Freidan called this dilemma “The Crisis of Woman’s Identity” (Friedan, 123). With programs like Leave it To Beaver, the lovely June Cleaver, so polished and clean on a regular basis, provided a key example as to what women should imitate in order to land the perfect husband. Her selfless identity is comprised of her love 1 CHAPTER ONE for all things related to the home front, including her husband, and her two amazingly perfect sons. We never saw June outside of the home unless she was at a local social event, where many other white women just like her were present as well. They never confronted any social issues like rent, unemployment, long days and hard nights, or struggling to feed her sons. She accepted her skills as being solely hobby-infused; needlepoint, decorating the house, and baking, although she was college educated. This can be understood in part of Friedan’s argument towards the media that strips women of their identities once she marries and becomes a homemaker. Needlepoint was not just a part time hobby, she used her projects in and around the house as proof of her “ideal woman” status. Decorating was not because she aspired to be an interior decorator, she was obsessed with her house looking presentable—presentable to her husband and her two sons, and competitive with the rest of the married women in her neighborhood. Wearing her pearls almost always, perhaps even when naked (if she ever got naked), June, quite simply is immaculate, just like her house and her family. As mentioned before, she too reads all of the very girly magazines that offered suggestions on womanhood, beauty, and more than likely, how to be a good wife (which means, pleasing your husband and your male children). Recently, an article entitled The Good Wife’s Guide, surfaced on the Internet, and made its way into many email inboxes. Although the article has been claimed a farce, the article still raised many eyebrows, and generated much discussion about an age-old problem in our contemporary understanding of roles for women. The article lists eighteen bullet-pointed key factors as to the role of a good wife. Although all the factors are interesting, the points are summed up in the last factor “A good wife always knows her place” (1955). The key to understanding the outrage over the article was commented on by psychiatrist, Dr. Gail Saltz as simply, “man may fantasize about a June Cleaver-like wife, because he wants more control in their marriage — or even have the upper hand. Wanting more control occurs when one partner feels insecure and unsure of his, or hers, own worth and power” (2006 MSNBC Interactive). While the article is the subject of criticism, and ultimately being claimed as never having been actually published in a 1955 edition of Housekeeping Monthly, women and fictional characters like June Cleaver fit all of the qualities listed, and created a format for such. With all of this suffrage, where were women of color? When American white women received the right to vote in 1920, African Americans waited an additional forty-five years for the same privilege. While white American women attempted to break free from their housewife hell, black women were struggling to gain admittance to social events and education-based rights under the Brown Paper Bag Test, administered by fellow African Americans. When feminism is traditionally discussed, we do not hear about women of color and their dealings with suffrage. They are not classified as suffragettes or members of any groups with legitimate social problems. Feminism, for a long time was considered a white American women’s movement. During the 1920s, when American women were given the right to vote, we are not told that three women, all African American became the first black women to obtain doctoral degrees. It proved hard for many scholars to 2 .