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Assignment 01 – Shaikhah Alhomaizi

In “Women, Race, and Class,” Angela Davis references many figures and events that help the reader understand the relationship between the history of women’s movements to the topics of gender, class and race. Davis provides many examples that show the reader time and time again, that race, gender, and class are linked and cannot be separated. One figure that I found to be a good example of this interrelation is Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who had an integral contribution in the women’s rights movement. Born and raised in a white middle-class family, she was frustrated with her lifestyle. Years later, after becoming a mother and a housewife, she attended the Anti-Slavery Convention in 1840 alongside her abolitionist husband. However, when she attended the convention, she was excluded from fully participating. For example, she wasn’t allowed to speak. Due to experiencing such sexism, she decided to help create a movement that would promote gender equality. Elizabeth helped organize the Seneca Falls Convention in 1840, a convention that focused on justice and equality for women. However, Davis pointed out a fact that was very hypocritical in the message of the convention. The Seneca Falls Convention excluded black women. In my opinion, these two conventions and Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s experience are put by Davis as perfect examples of what happens when we focus on gender and neglect race/class or focus on race and forget gender.

Race (or class) and gender are linked and we cannot separate them. The women who organized the Seneca Falls Convention assumed they were promoting equality for “women,” when they were in fact promoting equality for “White” women. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and her fellow organizers believed that they should respond to the sexism in the anti-slavery movement by focusing on gender, but that led to the exclusion of racial minorities. To truly fight for equality in an inclusive way that reflects people’s experience, we have to look at the intersection of race and gender. This reading led to reflect on my experience as a woman from a religious minority. As a Muslim woman, my experience is different from women of different races and ethnicities and so are my experiences with inequality. Muslim women face objectification and sexism like many women, but they also face Islamophobia due to their religion. Black women face sexism and racism. Davis shows us that race, gender, and class are related and therefore, any movement that aims to promote true equality must include all of them.