“A Double Burden” and “The Rising of the Race”
Minority women faced a double burden or double oppression: first, as members of a minority group (Black, Latino, Asian, etc.) they had to endure the general discrimination and exploitation of their ethnic group taken as a whole.
Working-class minorities generally received less education than others, frequently ended up in lower-paying unskilled jobs, were often expected to live in segregated areas (either by law or by custom), were sometimes prevented from voting by law or by threat of violence (Blacks in the South in particular), were often excluded from juries, had an inadequate voice in the political system with little opportunity to redress injustices, often lacked effective representation in courtrooms, and so forth.
One cannot list quickly all the ways in which they faced prejudice and racism, discrimination and exploitation, on both a personal and a social level. Suffice it to say that American society at one time was extremely discriminatory against “colored people” and the opportunity to succeed in education, business, politics, or professional career was sharply curtailed as well.
However, all of these unfair aspects of society could be said to apply to every member of the minority group as a whole, both men and women. But from the woman’s point of view, this was not the end of the story. In addition to these social and economic forms of discrimination facing her because of her color or ethnicity, minority women often faced a second set of obstacles and challenges linked specifically to their gender and their expected subservient role as women: in short, there was no guarantee they would be treated fairly or equally by men even within their own ethnicity and culture, let alone the larger society.
This situation has been referred to by writers as an example of minority women being “doubly oppressed”. They needed to struggle for their own gender rights and equality with men, while at the same time they remained members of an ethnic minority which itself decidedly lacked full social and legal rights with the rest of American society. Minority families often lived in poverty due to the low salary of those who worked or the seasonal nature of some jobs (migrant laborers, construction workers).
They often faced periodic periods of unemployment or the necessity to travel from place to place to find gainful employment in a nomadic pattern, if only for a short time. Minority women seldom enjoyed the higher income or social status of middle class women; to the contrary, they often many kinds of deprivations and yet were still looked to as the central figure within a family expected to hold everyone together, body and soul.
Thus women of color were expected to “work miracles” with less than their white counterparts: to take care of all domestic duties (preparing food, raising the children, cleaning, etc.) She was expected to take care of the needs of her husband, and possibly other adult family members, often with a woefully inadequate amount of money if her husband’s salary was low or if he were unemployed.
She was expected to do all this while having to endure personal mistreatment due to attitudes of male chauvinism if not outright episodes of sexual and physical abuse, with little legal action open to her. In addition to this gender aspect of her “double oppression”, she continued to face the same social and economic discrimination the men were experiencing simply because they were members of a minority, be it Black, Latino, Asian, Native American, Filipino, etc.
In 1850, lacking the right to vote was just one of many forms of social injustice women faced as a group. In time, they would win the right to vote with the Nineteenth Amendment. While this was a giant step forward and remains one of the greatest victories of the women’s movement for equal rights, it by no means signaled the end of the struggle to overcome many other forms of inequality for women.
Yes, in some ways the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920 marked the culmination of a seventy-year struggle for the right to vote, but in other ways it should be seen as laying the foundation for a new beginning: it opened the doors of opportunity wider for women to have a greater voice in the political affairs of the country.
Now that they could vote they could express their opinions, they could run for office, they could organize! In short, they could influence which candidates would win and which laws were passed. Getting the vote in 1920 in one sense marks the end of one era and is the crowning achievement of that great struggle started by Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Lucy Stone in the middle of the 19th century.
At the same time, acquiring the vote in 1920 marks the beginning of a new era in which women began to ask themselves: if they were now equal with men in the right to vote, why shouldn’t they be considered equal with men in every other social and legal context?
Why should any college or profession be closed to them? Why should they get paid less for doing the same job? Why should laws and social customs favor men in so many countless ways? Why shouldn’t women have full legal and social equality with men, whether in school, the home, or the workplace?
1920 does not so much mark an end to the struggle as it marks a new beginning; a new stage in the movement for equality was underway—a second great wave of social activism was nearing critical mass, scaring and shocking many, but always with a larger purpose in mind: FULL EQUALITY!!
And if the activism and exploration of female personal freedom was “shocking” to many during the Roaring Twenties, it would seem relatively mild in retrospect some forty years later when the women’s liberation movement of the Sixties rocked society again, including casting off any and all taboos restricting sexual freedom.
Once again a new generation of women–primarily college students, social reformers, and community activists–forced everyone to reconsider women’s role in society and, most crucially, who should get to define that role.
Women from all walks of life found they had endured enough of second-class citizenship and a thousand varieties of insult and indignities. Now they as individuals, and the movement as a whole, were coming of age: women were no longer asking for equality, they were demanding it!
Many women now sought complete freedom to explore their own lives as creative and independent human beings. Their own conscience would be the judge of how well they lived; they did not need to please men or seek their approval. But even as the third wave of feminism swept the nation, women faced many of the same challenges and difficulties as men did: finding a good job where they could earn enough to support themselves and their families was not easy in general, especially so during times of economic downturn and recession.
Women had to ask themselves the same question as men asked: what were they to do if lay-offs, recession, and unemployment should occur?
Meanwhile, traditional questions remain: what should the role of the woman be in the family regarding her husband, the children, and the household? Could she ever escape entirely the continuing expectation that her skill and gentle touch was needed in the domestic sphere to keep the family healthy and whole?
Women continue to face many challenges today: some they share as members of a larger community while some are unique to their gender. The struggle, even when successful, often brings to light new challenges and unforeseen difficulties.
Whatever comes next, of one thing we can be fairly sure: women have always made wonderful and significant contributions to the well-being and success of their families and to the health of society as a whole, and they will continue to do so now and in the future. With greater freedom comes greater responsibility, certainly, but just as women have risen to every challenge they have faced in the past, they will rise to the occasion in the future.
In many ways, a new age of progress for all great mankind is dawning because for the first time women will have the rights and the freedom to take her place alongside men as a full and equal partner. In this new equality, in this new found freedom, may well rest the last best hope of mankind for discovering ways to overcome the many socio-economic crises facing our society and the world today.
In the old days, during the fierce struggles for workers to protect their rights through their union, a poem was turned into a song, a poem that talked of the day when “The rising of the women / will mean the rising of the race!” Working-class women joined that struggle for workers’ rights and they have been a significant and progressive part of the labor movement ever since.
They have also entered the professions, sciences, industry, sports, businesses, politics and so much more. They have proved time and time again that–given the same encouragement, freedom, support, and opportunity to succeed as anyone else–nothing is beyond their reach.
Women can be teachers, nurses, doctors, preachers; they can be taxi drivers and bus drivers, construction workers or skilled craftsmen; they can be auto mechanics, electricians, carpenters, and plumbers; they can be secretaries and executive assistants; they can fill middle-management roles as office managers and supervisors.
Moreover, they can be business owners, franchise owners, and corporate executives; they can be real estate agents, bank tellers and bankers; accountants and financiers; vice-presidents, chief financial officers, and CEO’s.
They can serve in the armed forces, as police officers, and fire-fighters. They can be artists, entertainers, sculptors, painters, musicians, dancers, singers, composers; they can be race car drivers or Kentucky Derby jockeys or astronauts.
They can be Olympic Game athletes and climbers of the tallest mountains; they can be members of city councils mayors, and supervisors; they can or serve on local, county, and state boards of education; they can be elected to local and state legislative bodies; they can be Representatives and Senators; they can be presidential candidates; and the list goes on!
The “rising of the women”–the long-awaited liberation of their character and mind and talent–should never be distorted as a threat to men or to society. To the contrary, these changes may well usher in a more just society at home and a new era of world peace.
Women are now being elected heads of government; if someday a group of future nation-state leaders meet and to agree to settle their differences peacefully through discussion and negotiation, one can be sure some of them will be women. It would be an altogether fitting development in the long history of mankind if women, the bearers of life, should play the pivotal role in changing national policy from habitually endorsing war to affirming the life-preserving policies of cooperation and mutual support among all nations, as among our own families and communities.
Who better to lead the world on a path toward peace? The Iroquois long ago designated the women of their tribe as the keepers of the sacred flame, the protectors of life itself.
If women remain true to their ability to treasure and appreciate the sanctity of life, perhaps it is not too late to hope that the peoples of the world—men, women, and children of every color, language, and custom—will one day sit down together as brothers and sisters at the table of brotherhood and see each other for who they truly are: not strangers or enemies but friends and relatives, human beings like themselves, with the same hopes and dreams, the same needs and fears, the same aspirations and challenges, the same abilities and potentials as anyone else!
We are all one great extended family of mankind and if the women can help us to rediscover this simple truth that we have always known—no matter how deeply buried or forgotten it sometimes appears to be—it may well be their crowning achievement above all others, the one achievement that will rise the highest and outshine every other star in the sky that has ever shed its brilliant luminescence above the planet earth: the one home to us all and to every living creature upon it.
I wish the next generation of women all the best, knowing that in some ways they are charged with a most challenging and difficult task. But remember, they will not be alone! for the rising of the women will in time lead to the rising of a new kind of man as well: more thoughtful, gentle, and wise.
And together, these new men and women, seeking freedom and justice for all, can create the kind of world human beings were always intended to have: a world of peace and justice . . . where injustice will recede into a distant past, while at the same time the hopes and promises of a brighter future will, horizon-appearing, start to come ever closer until one day the best of our human dreams will arrive: in full bloom and sunshine!
“The rising of the women means the rising of the race!”
Copyrighted by:
Dr. Rosenberg @ home
San Jose, California
Sept. 30, 2011
