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Assignment 1

In chapter 3 of “Women, Race and Class” by Angela Y. Davis states that how it was hard for black women even to raise a voice. First of all, there was a convention which was held in London, and this convention was for women’s right. Davis points out that the convention was significant because it was a convention about women’s right even though slavery system still existed at this time. However, it did not contribute for American women’s rights because American female activists were excluded by majority vote. Few years later, convention was held at Seneca Falls in New York. It obviously was for rights for women in United States; however, no black activists were allowed to join the convention except for a male activist. Even though it was a convention for female in United States, it wasn’t for black women. There even was no mention about rights of coloured women. Most of middle class white women were opposed for giving rights to black women because unlike lower class white females, they had social distance to black people, so they still had strong racist view to them. Davis thinks that middle class white women who had some power lacked to think about black women’s situation that they have been used for housing labor as slaves; furthermore, they had the problem being as a female, exact same struggle as the white females had. Black women at that time had a struggle as being women such as violence by men, and as african american, they had been discriminated. However, there was a man, Frederick Douglass, who was capable of introducing the issue of women’s rights to the movement of liberation of black people. He had a strong passion of claiming that because of the unfortunate experience of his sister as a black women. The movement of white women looks like an advanced thought, but they only thought about their racial and sexual group.