Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff mom never told you. From house to
Speaker 1: folks not color. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Caroline and I'm Kristen. Today's episode is a refresh um.
Speaker 1: We're revisiting a podcast we recorded a while ago about
Speaker 1: black feminists that you should know, and we're calling the
Speaker 1: episode is Solidarity for White Women because a hashtag recently
Speaker 1: emerged on Twitter that actually caused a great debate, a
Speaker 1: lengthy debate over whether solidarity actually is for white women
Speaker 1: and what that means. Yeah, what the hashtag is referring
Speaker 1: to in general, in a nutshell and the nuttiest of
Speaker 1: nutshells I can offer, is that feminism hasn't always done
Speaker 1: the greatest job with acknowledging privilege, which is something that
Speaker 1: Caroline and I do talk about in that episode on
Speaker 1: Black Femine Us you should know. So what the hashtag
Speaker 1: solidarity is for white women is essentially all about is
Speaker 1: the fact that feminism hasn't always done the greatest job
Speaker 1: with acknowledging privilege and intersectionality and privilege essentially refers to
Speaker 1: the societal benefits that are conferred upon you on the
Speaker 1: basis of your gender, race, ability, etcetera. So the fact
Speaker 1: that Caroline and I are white feminist sitting here. We're
Speaker 1: talking to you from a position of privilege because we
Speaker 1: are white, and there are lots of social privileges conferred
Speaker 1: upon us for that. And not only are we white,
Speaker 1: we are sis gender heterosexual women, so there are lots
Speaker 1: of other privileges that come along with that because we aren't,
Speaker 1: for instance, trans or black or etcetera. You know, we
Speaker 1: were sitting at the intersection of more of the mainstream
Speaker 1: that tends to get more attention and tends to have
Speaker 1: a broader and louder platform, right, and then you also
Speaker 1: mentioned intersectionality, which is the interwoven discrimination against people on
Speaker 1: the basis of those things things like gender, race, sexual orientation,
Speaker 1: et cetera. And so the foundation of this hashtag on
Speaker 1: Twitter is the fact that a lot of women's voices
Speaker 1: are not included maybe in a larger feminist discussion, specifically
Speaker 1: in this discussion women of color and to understand a
Speaker 1: little bit more about where solidarity is for white women
Speaker 1: originated NPRS code switch Team offered a pretty tidy summary
Speaker 1: and again in a nutshell, the hashtag started with the
Speaker 1: Twitter self immolation in a way of this guy named
Speaker 1: Hugo Schweizer, whose name might be familiar to people who
Speaker 1: listen to the podcast because cited him before, and if
Speaker 1: you read Jezebel, you've probably seen his articles over there.
Speaker 1: He's also written for The Atlantic and a number of
Speaker 1: other publications because he was one of the most prominent
Speaker 1: voices among male feminists. And long story short, though, what
Speaker 1: a lot of people weren't aware of about Hugo Schweitzer
Speaker 1: is that he had developed a reputation for lashing out
Speaker 1: against women of color feminists, and meanwhile, he was contributing
Speaker 1: to these large feminist sites like Jezebel, which are largely
Speaker 1: run by white women. And when his meltdown happened and
Speaker 1: he essentially copped to his racist tendencies which had been
Speaker 1: brushed aside up until then, solidarity is for white women
Speaker 1: happened when finally, blogger Mickey Kendall started the hashtag saying, Wow,
Speaker 1: are we just now paying attention to what this guy
Speaker 1: has been doing? And I feel like we need to
Speaker 1: offer brief mea culpa for citing his work in podcasts
Speaker 1: as well. Yeah, I I can say personally, I was
Speaker 1: not aware of the extent of this slimy stuff in
Speaker 1: its background. Yeah, and I don't think that a lot
Speaker 1: of people were, which was why the hashtag really took off,
Speaker 1: because it was such uh an perfect example of how
Speaker 1: women of colors experiences and voices were not being heard. Right.
Speaker 1: And so blogger Mickey Kendall is the person who started
Speaker 1: the hashtag, and she wrote in a column and The
Speaker 1: Guardian admittedly this isn't a new problem. White feminism has
Speaker 1: argued that it should trump race since its inception, and
Speaker 1: she says that that rhetoric not only erases the experiences
Speaker 1: of women of color, but also alienates many from a
Speaker 1: movement that claims to want equality for all. And so
Speaker 1: the hashtag, in its essence is a rallying cry for
Speaker 1: greater visibility and broader platforms for non white feminist voices
Speaker 1: to be heard. And we could sit here and spend
Speaker 1: the next hour reading all of the tweets to the
Speaker 1: hashtag generated um. But we're not going to do that, um,
Speaker 1: because you could go online. There's a whole storify of
Speaker 1: a lot of these tweets to give you a sense
Speaker 1: of what these women meant by solidarities for white women
Speaker 1: and all of the the examples that they offered, and
Speaker 1: we wanted to instead take this opportunity to talk about
Speaker 1: the hashtag and also use it to tee up a
Speaker 1: rerun of our episodes Six Black Feminist Pioneers. You should
Speaker 1: know that we aired earlier this year because we did
Speaker 1: discuss some of the issues raised in this in terms
Speaker 1: of things like privilege and also trying to highlight, uh
Speaker 1: the failings of second wave feminism in terms of women
Speaker 1: of color, and also trying to shed some light on
Speaker 1: some women that you should know that aren't talked about
Speaker 1: as often as say, someone like Gloria Steinham or Betty
Speaker 1: for Dan and so I hope this isn't considered a
Speaker 1: form of tokenism on our part, but genuine and sincere
Speaker 1: acknowledgement that we know we're sitting here as two white feminists,
Speaker 1: but we also know we can do a better job
Speaker 1: of highlighting the experiences of women of color and that
Speaker 1: this issue of race and feminism started long before Twitter
Speaker 1: came around, as is highlighted in the stories of these
Speaker 1: six Black Feminist Pioneers that you should know. So with that,
Speaker 1: let's revisit that episode, Caroline before we start talking about um,
Speaker 1: these women, these incredible women. You know, what we gotta
Speaker 1: to talk about first, what ourselves obviously obviously what I
Speaker 1: mean is, Okay, we need to address briefly the issue
Speaker 1: of privilege, because we're gonna be talking about black women
Speaker 1: and feminism and how feminism relates to to black women,
Speaker 1: and as two women of Caucasian descent with very fair
Speaker 1: skin that is easily sunburned, Um, we should talk about
Speaker 1: privilege first, right, yeah, yeah, and basically recognizing that privilege
Speaker 1: is the key to having a good discussion about feminism
Speaker 1: and about black feminism in particular, which is what we'll
Speaker 1: be focusing on in this episode, because it was Bell Hooks,
Speaker 1: the feminist writer with the lower case name we'll talk
Speaker 1: about later in this episode, who said that feminism ignores
Speaker 1: non white and poor white women. Books like the Feminine
Speaker 1: Mystique overlooked an entire portion of the population. So it's
Speaker 1: important to admit that we are, as young white women Kristen,
Speaker 1: as the Feminist Wire would put it in maywelve, we
Speaker 1: have been afforded certain unearned privileges on the basis of
Speaker 1: one or more parts of our identity, and that part
Speaker 1: of our identity would be uh, you know, the being
Speaker 1: white essentially, and and speaking more to the connection between
Speaker 1: like the feminalistique and bettyfor Dan and second wave feminism. Um,
Speaker 1: there was a huge criticism, and rightfully so, about how
Speaker 1: it was largely a movement initially, that that really did
Speaker 1: speak directly to the needs of middle and upper middle
Speaker 1: class white women. UM. And to get more of a
Speaker 1: sense of that, let's go back again to Belle Hooks,
Speaker 1: she writes. For Dan's famous phrase the problem that has
Speaker 1: no name, that's from the femininistique, often quoted to describe
Speaker 1: the condition of women in this society, actually referred to
Speaker 1: the plight of a select group of college educated, middle
Speaker 1: and upper class married white women house vibes, board with leisure,
Speaker 1: with home with children, with buying products, who wanted more
Speaker 1: out of life. And for black women listening to that
Speaker 1: at the time and even today, UM, they were like,
Speaker 1: well that you were incredibly privileged to be wanting to
Speaker 1: fight this fight, because you know, you're talking about, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know, we want to get outside of the home.
Speaker 1: And these these other women who were not afforded luxuries
Speaker 1: like going to college and maybe even being able to
Speaker 1: stay um in the home, had been working outside of
Speaker 1: the home for a long time. And this also reminded
Speaker 1: me of our domestic service podcasts UM and when we
Speaker 1: were researching for that, UH, we found some some commentary
Speaker 1: on how the National Organization for Women at the time
Speaker 1: was in favor of extaying the Fair Labor Standards Act
Speaker 1: two household workers in order to make that field more
Speaker 1: attractive to lower class women, since the those middle and
Speaker 1: upper class college educated women who we're organizing with now
Speaker 1: we're going to be needing to leave the home, so
Speaker 1: they would need someone else to come in and take
Speaker 1: care of it. So we're not saying that second way
Speaker 1: feminism is bad, it just overlooked a lot, right, and
Speaker 1: Hooks wrote that, you know, the concerns of housewives of
Speaker 1: whatever class we're worth being considered, but she said they
Speaker 1: were not the pressing political concerns of masses of women.
Speaker 1: And so then you get into black feminism, which is
Speaker 1: distinct from uh like feminists second way feminism, I guess
Speaker 1: you would say, and intentionally so, right, Black feminism was
Speaker 1: something that existed outside of both regular mainstream feminism and
Speaker 1: the black liberation movement. A lot of activists at this
Speaker 1: time point out, like we've already talked about that the
Speaker 1: middle class white housewife concerns were not the same as
Speaker 1: those of a lot of either poor white people or
Speaker 1: people of color, but neither were the concerns of the
Speaker 1: Black liberation movement entirely covering those of black feminists, because
Speaker 1: a lot of people point out the Black liberation movement
Speaker 1: had a lot to do with men's Black men's rights
Speaker 1: and their manhood and there, you know, basically extending their
Speaker 1: rights in society. Yeah, I I forget which feminist scholar
Speaker 1: was writing about this, but she she pointed out that
Speaker 1: for black women at the time who were engaged in
Speaker 1: the Black liberation movement, and that encompasses several movements such
Speaker 1: as civil rights movement, black nationalism, black panthers, a student
Speaker 1: non violent Coordinating Committee UM. When they would be in conversations,
Speaker 1: when the word men would be dropped, it would be
Speaker 1: in reference to black men. When the word feminism would
Speaker 1: be dropped, it would be inherently in reference to white women.
Speaker 1: And so they were saying, well, where are we? And
Speaker 1: so black feminism was born out of this UM. We
Speaker 1: can will also bring up womanism later in the podcast,
Speaker 1: which is a word coined by Alice Walker to delineate
Speaker 1: a more intersectional um feminism from the from the main stream,
Speaker 1: to encompass everybody, not just not just white women. Essentially, yeah,
Speaker 1: bell Hooks wrote. Going back to Bell Hooks, Who Is Wonderful?
Speaker 1: She wrote that black women basically denied a part of themselves.
Speaker 1: This is coming from her book Ain't I a Woman?
Speaker 1: She says contemporary Black women could not join together to
Speaker 1: fight for women's rights because we did not see quote
Speaker 1: womanhood as an important aspect of our identity. Racist sex.
Speaker 1: With socialization, it conditioned us to do value our femaleness
Speaker 1: and to regard race is the only relevant label of identification.
Speaker 1: So there's this push to see not just your race
Speaker 1: but also your gender and how those two things combine
Speaker 1: to shape both who you are and how the outside
Speaker 1: world views you. And considering, um, that the way that
Speaker 1: those kind of things have been overshadowed by, uh, the
Speaker 1: the culture that they were living in and society for
Speaker 1: a long time. Um, why don't we talk about these
Speaker 1: six women who were like, you know what, I am
Speaker 1: really not going to have this. I don't care. I
Speaker 1: have a voice, I have a mind, and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: speak it and I'm going to pave the way for
Speaker 1: some incredible change. Yeah. One of those women was Maria Stewart.
Speaker 1: She lived from eighteen o three to eighteen seventy nine.
Speaker 1: This is coming from a PBS article about her. She
Speaker 1: was actually born free in Boston, orphaned at the age
Speaker 1: of five, and subsequently hired out as a domestic worker.
Speaker 1: She was largely self taught. She she really worked hard
Speaker 1: during her time as a domestic worker to educate herself.
Speaker 1: And she ended up meeting David Walker, who was the
Speaker 1: author of the Anti Slavery Treatise and Appeal to the
Speaker 1: Colored People of the World. And after his death Walker's death,
Speaker 1: she ended up writing articles for the abolitionist paper The Liberator,
Speaker 1: publishing anti slavery tracks and becoming one of the first,
Speaker 1: if not the first. There is a question about who
Speaker 1: was the first African American woman to speak in public,
Speaker 1: and not only in public Kristen in front of a
Speaker 1: promiscuous audience of both men and women. Now by promiscuous,
Speaker 1: we mean that's an old school term for both men
Speaker 1: and women gender. How scandalous. Yeah, And and some scholars
Speaker 1: say that she represents the first public representation of black
Speaker 1: feminism because a lot of her speeches that she gave well,
Speaker 1: and I say a lot of her speeches she only
Speaker 1: spoke publicly for I want to say, like four years, um.
Speaker 1: But during that time a lot of her stuff focused
Speaker 1: more on pro black nationalism. But she was also very
Speaker 1: insistent not just an extending education to black children, but
Speaker 1: specifically two girls and talking about how women need education
Speaker 1: just as much as those boys do. And um she
Speaker 1: published this was also very here for a woman at
Speaker 1: the time, much less um, an African American woman at
Speaker 1: the time. She published her writings in a book called
Speaker 1: The Meditations from the Pen of Mrs Maria W. Stewart.
Speaker 1: So yeah, in addition to this writing and her you know,
Speaker 1: emphasis on morality, religion, and education, she was actually a
Speaker 1: public school teacher in New York and founded schools in
Speaker 1: Baltimore and Washington, d C. Yeah, and her speeches and
Speaker 1: essays were part of a growing abolitionist movement and a
Speaker 1: stimulus for the women's rights movement. And um, and that's
Speaker 1: really important, like to to talk about how uh there
Speaker 1: she bridged not only abolition but also women's rights, because um,
Speaker 1: that was pretty rare at the time as well. If
Speaker 1: we go back to a quote from sojourn or truth.
Speaker 1: For instance, she once said, there's a great stare about
Speaker 1: colored men getting their rights, but not a word about
Speaker 1: colored women. And if colored men are to get their
Speaker 1: rights and non colored women, there's you see, the colored
Speaker 1: men will be masters over the women and it will
Speaker 1: be just as bad as it was before. And what
Speaker 1: Marie Stewart did was kind of a hearken to those
Speaker 1: those words from Sogourner truth and advocate for women to
Speaker 1: educate themselves and rise up as well. Now, you mentioned,
Speaker 1: Caroline that Stewart was a public school teacher and founded
Speaker 1: schools in Baltimore in d C. And that is an
Speaker 1: excellent transition to our next inspiring woman, Daisy Bates, because
Speaker 1: she led the effort to integrate schools public schools in Arkansas. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she and her husband actually have a great story. They
Speaker 1: worked very closely together to in segregation and improve education
Speaker 1: for black students. She was actually the president of the
Speaker 1: Arkansas in Double A CP and her husband was its
Speaker 1: regional director and they went on to run a newspaper together.
Speaker 1: He was the publisher of the Arkansas State Press, which
Speaker 1: was the largest black newspaper in the state, and she
Speaker 1: was his star wars porter and you know, of course,
Speaker 1: like when he was out of town, she filled in
Speaker 1: as publisher and editor and all this stuff. So they
Speaker 1: were actually very dynamic couple. So Daisy and the in
Speaker 1: double A c P. Took the Little Rock school Board
Speaker 1: to task after the Supreme Courts nineteen four call to
Speaker 1: in segregation, and she helped recruit those nine bright kids
Speaker 1: who would defy segregationists. Yeah, nineteen fifty four, that Brown
Speaker 1: versus Topeka Board of Education decision from the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: struck down the previous separate but equal ruling, and Dacy
Speaker 1: Bates said, hey, you know what, I guess what it's
Speaker 1: time Little Rock for for us to follow suit and
Speaker 1: desegregate as well. Of course, this was not greeted with
Speaker 1: open arms by either the school board or really any
Speaker 1: of the white people in Little Rock. It it seems
Speaker 1: like and her health became the headquarters for the plan
Speaker 1: and execution of this now that it's also became a
Speaker 1: target for for people who are looking to do violence
Speaker 1: against those wishing to desegregate. Um and speaking to Mpr
Speaker 1: Earnest Green, who was one of the Little Rock nine
Speaker 1: of that group of students who integrated Central High School, said,
Speaker 1: Daisy Bates was a poster child of black resistance. She
Speaker 1: was a quarterback of the coach and we were the players. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And after this this whole event, Uh, an advertiser boycott
Speaker 1: of the couple's paper forced it to shut down in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty nine, But she was not down and out.
Speaker 1: In four she brought the paper back in that same
Speaker 1: year ended up receiving an honorary Doctor of Law's degree
Speaker 1: from University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. Yeah, and in honor
Speaker 1: of the work that Daisy Bates did, because she became
Speaker 1: like the national spokesperson for I mean not just something
Speaker 1: that was happening in Little Rock, but it was symbolic
Speaker 1: for the civil rights movement that was kicking off all
Speaker 1: over the nation. And for that work, she became the
Speaker 1: first and only still African American July in state of
Speaker 1: the Arkansas capital when she died in and one of
Speaker 1: Daisy Bates's contemporaries was a lawyer and activist by the
Speaker 1: name of Flow Kennedy. Uh. This is coming from the
Speaker 1: New York Times, who wrote an incredible obituary about Kennedy,
Speaker 1: pointing out that she was very recognizable in a cowboy
Speaker 1: hat and pink sunglasses, often with her middle finger in
Speaker 1: the air. And it was her flamboyant attire that drew
Speaker 1: attention to the very powerful words and deeds that she
Speaker 1: did a surrounding civil rights and feminism. Yeah, I feel
Speaker 1: like Flow Kennedy was kind of an embodiment of the
Speaker 1: second wave feminism going on in Um the late sixties.
Speaker 1: She would tour around actually with Glorious stein Um and
Speaker 1: talking about feminism, and a lot of times, as a
Speaker 1: Steimond now tells, there would be men in the audience
Speaker 1: who would at some point stand up and say are
Speaker 1: you guys, are you two lesbians or what? And Flow
Speaker 1: Kennedy would look at them and say, well why, I mean,
Speaker 1: are you the my alternative? And then everyone be like,
Speaker 1: oh this snap, But yeah, she yah. She has a
Speaker 1: really interesting law school story. She was one of the
Speaker 1: first black women to graduate from Columbia Law School and
Speaker 1: was admitted to the school after threatening a discrimination suit.
Speaker 1: So when she got in she was one of eight
Speaker 1: women in the class and the only black person. And
Speaker 1: after she graduated in nineteen fifty one, she worked for
Speaker 1: a Manhattan law firm before opening her own law office
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty four. Unfortunately, she actually had to take
Speaker 1: a job at Bloomingdale's at one point to pay the
Speaker 1: rent because she was struggling in her law practice. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and practicing law initially soured Flow Kennedy because what she
Speaker 1: did at first was the first pacase she got. At least,
Speaker 1: we're representing these states of Billy Holliday and Charlie Parker
Speaker 1: to recover money owed to them from record companies. And
Speaker 1: she says that handling those cases quote taught me more
Speaker 1: than I was really ready for about government and business
Speaker 1: delinquency and the hostility and helplessness of the courts. And
Speaker 1: that energized Flow Kennedy to then move more, far more
Speaker 1: into straight up activism. For instance, in nineteen sixty six
Speaker 1: she set up the organization Media Workshop to fight racism
Speaker 1: and journalism and advertising. And in the legal cases that
Speaker 1: she took on from there were almost always very overtly political. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty eight, she actually sued the Roman Catholic
Speaker 1: Church for what she viewed as interference with abortion. In
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine, there are two big cases. The first,
Speaker 1: she organized a group of feminist lawyers to challenge the
Speaker 1: constitutionality of New York's abortion law and also that year
Speaker 1: helped represent and helped get acquitted twenty one Black panthers
Speaker 1: on trial for conspiracy to commit bombings. And on top
Speaker 1: of that, because she wasn't busy or anything like that,
Speaker 1: she was a founding member of the Nation Organization for Women.
Speaker 1: She didn't really stay highly involved with now that long
Speaker 1: because she always wanted to keep starting these little, these
Speaker 1: little fires everywhere. And I say that in in a
Speaker 1: positive way. For instance, in nineteen nineteen seventy one, she
Speaker 1: founded the Feminist Party, the political party which nominated Representative
Speaker 1: Surely Chisholm for president. And uh. One of her one
Speaker 1: of her colorful, many colorful quotes that she left behind
Speaker 1: that the New York Times quoted in their obituary ever,
Speaker 1: was quote, I'm just a loudmouth, middle aged colored lady
Speaker 1: with a few spine and three feet of intestines missing,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people think I'm crazy. Maybe you
Speaker 1: do too, But I never stopped to wonder why I'm
Speaker 1: not like a lot of other people. The mystery to
Speaker 1: me is why more people aren't like me. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: another colorful character that I know we've talked about on
Speaker 1: the podcast before is Audrey Lord, who was a poet
Speaker 1: who died in nineteen after a long battle with cancer,
Speaker 1: and a lot of her work was actually in inspired
Speaker 1: by that battle. But she referred to herself as a
Speaker 1: black feminist lesbian mother poet. You forgot warrior? Oh, I
Speaker 1: can't forge a warrior black feminist, lesbian mother warrior poet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that that was a bad omission. I mean talk about
Speaker 1: a title. Can you fit all of that on a
Speaker 1: business card? Audrey Lord was one of the earlier spokespeople
Speaker 1: in a way that's not the correct term, but um,
Speaker 1: her writing really highlighted what we would now come to
Speaker 1: call intersectionality. In other words, she celebrated differences because her
Speaker 1: passion was for the liberation of oppressed people's and organizing
Speaker 1: across differences in race, gender, sexual orientation, class, age, and ability,
Speaker 1: and she found marginalization in categories like lesbian or black women.
Speaker 1: Lord actually, you know, knew she was different from an
Speaker 1: early age and was very sensitive. She actually communicated through poetry,
Speaker 1: and she says that if she didn't, you know, have
Speaker 1: a poem memorized to basically summarize how she felt, she
Speaker 1: would start making her own. So around twelve or three team.
Speaker 1: She started writing poetry, which launched her into a whole
Speaker 1: career in academia, and interestingly, her first poem was accepted
Speaker 1: into seventeen magazine. She actually saw art as a way
Speaker 1: to protest destructive social patterns. So from her position as
Speaker 1: a popular poet, she really kind of took the hammer
Speaker 1: to people who were, you know, racist, homophobic, just basically
Speaker 1: afraid of differences in society. She said that my sexuality
Speaker 1: is part and parcel of who I am, and my
Speaker 1: poetry comes from the intersection of me and my world.
Speaker 1: Jesse Helms, who's who was a white conservative senator. Jesse
Speaker 1: helms objection to my work is not about obscenity or
Speaker 1: even about sex. It is about revolution and change. Helms
Speaker 1: represents white patriarchal power, and he knows that my writing
Speaker 1: is aimed at his destruction and the destruction of every
Speaker 1: single thing he stands for. Yeah, I feel like Audrey
Speaker 1: Lord one of the bravest women. She clearly was not
Speaker 1: not afraid to speak her mind. And speaking of her sexuality,
Speaker 1: she did initially marry attorney Edwin Rawlins, and they had
Speaker 1: two kids together, and then they got divorced, and then
Speaker 1: she got together with who would become her twenty year partner,
Speaker 1: Francis Clayton, and a lot of her poetry does focus
Speaker 1: on um sexuality. She spoke very openly about um being
Speaker 1: a lesbian, but also her concept of being a lesbian,
Speaker 1: which did not just include you know, women who openly
Speaker 1: identified with being attracted to other women, but really all
Speaker 1: women in general. UM. But I feel like all of
Speaker 1: that roots though back to her passion for intersectionality. UM.
Speaker 1: Here's a quote from her nine eight three book, There
Speaker 1: Is No Hierarchy of Oppressions. She writes, I cannot afford
Speaker 1: the luxury fighting one form of oppression only. I cannot
Speaker 1: afford to believe that freedom from into lawrence is the
Speaker 1: right of only one particular group. And I cannot afford
Speaker 1: to choose between the fronts upon me which I must
Speaker 1: battle these forces of discrimination wherever they appear to destroy me.
Speaker 1: And when they appear to destroy me, it will not
Speaker 1: be long before they appear to destroy you. And I
Speaker 1: feel like, I don't know about you, Caroline, but I
Speaker 1: feel like intersectionality is something that only just now. I
Speaker 1: mean that she was writing that night three It's two
Speaker 1: thousand thirteen, and I feel like it's only something that
Speaker 1: even now is starting to kind of breakthrough to more
Speaker 1: mainstream conversations of taking all of these things into account,
Speaker 1: all the different types of discrimination that exists. So she
Speaker 1: was definitely a pioneer in that way of of of
Speaker 1: seeing the multi dimensional um forms of oppression. And she
Speaker 1: also received a number of accolades for her poetry. She
Speaker 1: was named New York State Poet Laureate actually in nine
Speaker 1: and she was still a poet Lauria when she died
Speaker 1: from cancer the following year in nineteen. Well, one woman
Speaker 1: that we've already mentioned earlier who is more of a
Speaker 1: contemporary writer is Bell Hooks, who was born Gloria Watkins.
Speaker 1: She actually adopted her pseudonym not only to honor her
Speaker 1: grandmother whose name she took, and her mother, but she
Speaker 1: felt that it established a separate voice from that of
Speaker 1: Gloria Watkins and put the focus on her writing. That's
Speaker 1: she felt the lower casing her name put more of
Speaker 1: the focus on her writing. She said that she was
Speaker 1: a quote suicidal depressed team when she began to resist
Speaker 1: male domination, to rebel against patriarchal thinking, and to oppose
Speaker 1: the strongest patriarchal voice in my life, my mother's voice.
Speaker 1: She asked her readers to imagine quote imagine living in
Speaker 1: a world where there is no domination, where females and
Speaker 1: males are not alike or even always equal, but where
Speaker 1: a vision of mutuality is the ethos shaping our interaction.
Speaker 1: She really looked forward to a day that feminism would
Speaker 1: let men and women be quote fully self actualized in
Speaker 1: order to establish a real community. Yeah, and a lot
Speaker 1: of um Hooks's scholarship has not only looked into feminism,
Speaker 1: but also applying that um I gendered scholarship to looking
Speaker 1: at pop culture and how UM men and women and
Speaker 1: how race and ability and a sexual orientation all of
Speaker 1: that are portrayed and consumed by the masses. She also
Speaker 1: has very much UM anti materialism. There was a New
Speaker 1: York Times article that I found which focused really just
Speaker 1: on the sparseness of her apartment. She was living in
Speaker 1: New York at the time. Right now, she is a
Speaker 1: Distinguished Professor in Residence and Appalachian Studies at Barria College
Speaker 1: in Kentucky. And like one of the reasons why people
Speaker 1: I love Bell Hooks, she's She's often cited UM in
Speaker 1: any kind of like feminist one oh one article you
Speaker 1: might read is because, for instance, from her feminist theory
Speaker 1: from Margin to Center. Uh, this little nugget she writes,
Speaker 1: a feminism is a struggle to in sexist oppression. Its
Speaker 1: aim is not to benefit solely any specific group of women,
Speaker 1: any particular race or class of women. It does not
Speaker 1: privilege women over men. It has the power to transform
Speaker 1: meaningfully all of our lives. And she also ties in
Speaker 1: a lot of intersectionality and and it is very insistent
Speaker 1: on us knowing what we're talking about when we're talking
Speaker 1: about feminism. Um. And some critics have said that Bell
Speaker 1: Hooks is too political. Other ads have said that she's
Speaker 1: not radical enough. And and maybe because of the notoriety
Speaker 1: that she's gotten and the backlash as well, she has
Speaker 1: kind of remained out of the public I a lot. Actually,
Speaker 1: the most recent thing that I read written by Bell
Speaker 1: Hooks was a review of Vistas the Southern Wild and
Speaker 1: spoiler alert. She did not like it. We also heard
Speaker 1: something recently from the sixth woman on our list, Alice Walker.
Speaker 1: She wrote the poem Democratic Womanism for the election, talking
Speaker 1: about regime change, but not the type of regime change
Speaker 1: that we would think of when a presidential election is
Speaker 1: taking place, she wrote, where women rise to take their
Speaker 1: place on mass at the helm of the Earth's frail
Speaker 1: and failing ship. She says in the poem, I am
Speaker 1: thinking of democratic and perhaps socialist womanism. For who else
Speaker 1: knows so deeply how to share but mothers and grandmother's,
Speaker 1: big sisters and aunts to love and adore, both female
Speaker 1: and male, not to mention those in between. So Alice Walker,
Speaker 1: for those who don't know her, is an author, poet,
Speaker 1: and activist, and she happens to be the first African
Speaker 1: American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize in fiction, and
Speaker 1: that was in nineteen eighty three for the color Purple.
Speaker 1: And she was the one, as we mentioned at the
Speaker 1: top of the podcast, who coined the term woman is
Speaker 1: in womanism in nineteen eighty three, and she derived it
Speaker 1: from the word woman ish, which is the opposite of
Speaker 1: girl ish. UM. And she defines it as a black
Speaker 1: feminist or feminist of color from the Black folk expression
Speaker 1: of mothers, you're acting a woman ish, usually referring to outrageous, audacious, courageous,
Speaker 1: or willful behavior. UM. And it's interesting too that Um.
Speaker 1: Rebecca Walker, her daughter who they've had kind of a
Speaker 1: publicly uh not hostile, but distant relationship. But her daughter
Speaker 1: Rebecca coined the term third wave feminist, and so, my
Speaker 1: goodness runs in the family, it does. She also defined
Speaker 1: womanist as a woman who loves women, whether sexually or
Speaker 1: non sexually, appreciates and prefers women's culture, emotional flexibility, and strength,
Speaker 1: and loves herself quote unquote regardless. And she said the
Speaker 1: womanist is too feminist as purple is slavender. So I
Speaker 1: guess she thought it was a more all encompassing, a
Speaker 1: stronger term. It seems like. Well, so we hope you
Speaker 1: enjoyed revisiting that episode, and we hope that it um
Speaker 1: added to the conversation, and we would love to hear
Speaker 1: from you. But before we get to any letters, there
Speaker 1: are some women of color feminists that we wanted to acknowledge. Yes,
Speaker 1: since we highlighted mostly historical figures, we did want to
Speaker 1: give a shout out to a number of women who
Speaker 1: are very active on Twitter and also on blogs as well,
Speaker 1: such as Roxanne Gay who writes a lot for Salon.
Speaker 1: You can follow her at Our Gay and also LaToya Peterson,
Speaker 1: whose blog Racial Isious is a must read. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: also have Anna Holmes who's the founder of Jezebel, and
Speaker 1: you can find her on Twitter at Anna Holmes. And
Speaker 1: we also have Adrian Kay and you can find her
Speaker 1: at native a Props. And then finally Lindsay You who
Speaker 1: writes at Filthy Freedom dot com and you can follow
Speaker 1: her as well at Lindsay You. And I realize these
Speaker 1: are just five women. I know that there are so
Speaker 1: many more, but we don't have time to just read
Speaker 1: a roster of them, so we highly encourage you to
Speaker 1: send us your suggestions. Let's share names, Let's help highlight
Speaker 1: and have more voices heard in this conversation about women
Speaker 1: and feminism and all of our diverse intersectional experiences. Mom
Speaker 1: Stuff at discovery dot com is where you can send
Speaker 1: your emails, hit us up on Facebook, and speaking of Twitter,
Speaker 1: you can follow us at Mom's Stuff podcast. And we
Speaker 1: got a couple of letters to share before we sign off.
Speaker 1: Jack Threads has quickly become the online shopping destination for dudes.
Speaker 1: And here's why. Everything on the site is up to
Speaker 1: eight percent off. That's right, and Jack Threads serves up
Speaker 1: killer contemporary and street apparel, accessories and gadgets. From brands
Speaker 1: like Converse, Penguin, and New Era. So you should head
Speaker 1: over to Jack threads dot com slid hash mom to
Speaker 1: skip that membership wait list and get instant access to
Speaker 1: all those deals. And one more time, that's Jack threads
Speaker 1: dot com slash mom. And now back to our letters.
Speaker 1: So we've got a couple of letters here to share
Speaker 1: from our episode on open relationships. We've gotten a lot
Speaker 1: of great feedback on that one, I gotta say. And
Speaker 1: this one is from Angela who was in a polyamorous
Speaker 1: relationship and wanted to write about some of the things
Speaker 1: that she has learned, and she also brought up this.
Speaker 1: I did want to mention that it has annoyed me
Speaker 1: frequently when listening to various podcasts on the subject that
Speaker 1: people point out jealousy only in reference to open relationships
Speaker 1: and polyamory. However, relationships around me are falling apart constantly
Speaker 1: because of jealousy, and usually it's monogamous relationships that do.
Speaker 1: You're going to meet jealousy in every relationship. It may
Speaker 1: prevent you from making friends, going to dinner with coworkers,
Speaker 1: even for playing a video game if the other person
Speaker 1: is jealous that they aren't able to play it or
Speaker 1: as jealous of your attention. Choosing to share is one
Speaker 1: way of avoiding jealousy. Nowadays, I avoid jealousy and boredom
Speaker 1: by being in a polly fidelity relationship. My boyfriend and
Speaker 1: I only will have sex with someone else if we
Speaker 1: ask first, and so I never ever have to wonder
Speaker 1: if he's quote unquote cheated, because why what do you
Speaker 1: want to? And I never feel trapped because I always
Speaker 1: have the option of finding a second partner myself. So
Speaker 1: how many outside partners have we been with collectively? Zero?
Speaker 1: I hope you guys are having an awesome week and
Speaker 1: keep up the fantastic work. And I have a letter
Speaker 1: here from Stella, who also mentions jealousy in open relationships.
Speaker 1: She says, when I first started dating my boyfriend, I
Speaker 1: was also dating another guy at the same time. Our
Speaker 1: first dates were within the same week. I like them
Speaker 1: both very much for different reasons, and I didn't want
Speaker 1: to have to choose one of them. Pitch the idea
Speaker 1: of having a polyamorous relationship in which I was the
Speaker 1: center of the love triangle. The other guy wasn't sure
Speaker 1: how comfortable he was, but he decided that I was
Speaker 1: worth it. The first few months of the relationships were fantastic.
Speaker 1: We split our time well and I treated them equally. Eventually, however,
Speaker 1: the guy who proposed the Polly idea in the first
Speaker 1: place started to become jealous and we had to end
Speaker 1: the relationship because he couldn't handle not being number one.
Speaker 1: And now my boyfriend of three years and I are
Speaker 1: going incredibly strong. We still identify as open, but pick
Speaker 1: and choose our partners. I've been casually dating a lovely
Speaker 1: woman for a year. However, my boyfriend has yet to
Speaker 1: find a person that he'd like to date who was
Speaker 1: also into Polly. So thank you, Stella, and thanks to
Speaker 1: everybody who has written in mom Stuff. Discovery dot com
Speaker 1: is already can send your emails, can follow us on
Speaker 1: Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast, find us on Facebook, and
Speaker 1: we're on Tumbler as well. Stuff Mom Never Told You
Speaker 1: dot tumbler dot com, and if you'd like to see us,
Speaker 1: we're on Instagram at stuff I'm Never told You. And finally,
Speaker 1: don't forget to check out our YouTube channel as to
Speaker 1: YouTube dot com slash stuff Mom Never Told You, and
Speaker 1: don't forget to subscribe or more on this and thousands
Speaker 1: of other topics. Is it how stuff works? Dot com