Read the following excerpt from Frances Ellen Watkins Harper's speech at the Eleventh National Women's Rights Convention (1866):
"We are all bound up together in one great bundle of humanity, and society cannot trample on the weakest and feeblest of its members without receiving the curse in its own soul. You white women speak here of rights. I speak of wrongs. I, as a colored woman, have had in this country an education which has made me feel as if I were in the situation of Ishmael, my hand against every man, and every man's hand against me."
Based on this excerpt, which of the following statements best describes Harper's critique of the mainstream women's reform movement of her era?
- It ignored the ways in which racial oppression and gender discrimination intersect to uniquely disadvantage Black women.Cevap
- BIt should have prioritized universal gender solidarity by ignoring racial divisions to achieve women's suffrage more quickly.
- CIt failed to support the emigration of Black women to establish autonomous self-governing societies in West Africa.
- DIt relied on public political advocacy instead of encouraging covert, everyday forms of resistance.
Cevap
It ignored the ways in which racial oppression and gender discrimination intersect to uniquely disadvantage Black women.
The correct option is correct because Harper explicitly contrasts her position as a Black woman with that of white reformers. By stating that white women speak of "rights" while she speaks of "wrongs," she highlights how the mainstream movement's narrow focus on gender failed to address the concurrent racial oppression faced by Black women, laying the groundwork for intersectional analysis.
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Intersectionality in early Black feminist thought