Gender and Sexuality 18

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted …

Speech Ain't I a Woman. Wikipedia.

The quote comes from the address “Ain‘t I a woman” by Sojourner Truth (approx. 1797-1883). Born into slavery, as a free woman she was an important abolitionist and women's rights activist.

The suffragette movement was a movement for women's suffrage, especially in the English-speaking world. It was made up mainly of white women from the bourgeoisie, although the well-known Black abolitionist Frederick Douglass also spoke at their events. Black men could vote in the 1860s and 70s, and there were Black congressmen at the time (The Daily Show, 30.07.2020). Many of the suffragettes focused on a combination of anti-racist and anti-sexist concerns. However, in her 1851 address, the Black suffragette Sojourner Truth criticised the white women's movement for betraying the concerns of Black women. Truth pointed out intersectionality, the interrelations between different systems of oppression, e.g. race and gender. As late as 1913, Black women were expected to walk at the back of suffrage demonstrations. Black investigative journalist Ida Wells refused to attend them (New York Times, 28.07.2018).

*The Daily Show (Trevor Noah 2020): Unsung Black Heroines. *The New York Times (Brent Staples, 28.07.2018): How the Suffrage Movement Betrayed Black Women.

1851