Assignment
Submit your 250-300 word reflection paper. Respond to a minimum of two assigned texts (readings and/or films).
Assignment guidelines:
The goal of this assignment is to make sure that you are actively and critically engaging with the assigned texts. Rather than summarizing, this is a space for you to develop your own analysis of the material.
Questions it may be helpful to consider in writing your reflection:
• What are the main arguments? Do you find them convincing? Why or why not?
• What points of comparison can you identify among these texts, and how do they relate to one another?
• How do these texts relate to larger themes and topics of the course?
• What questions do these texts bring up for you?
Read posted reflections and respond to at least one of them (100-150 word comment)
Post:
The main arguments of both texts, White Women's Rights: The Racial Origins of Feminism in the United States by Louise Michele Newman and "A Heritage of Ableist Rhetoric in American Feminism from the Eugenics Period" in Feminist Disability Studies by Sharon Lamp and W. Carol Cleigh both are ones often overlooked. They are similar because both of the main arguments discuss the ways the feminist movement throughout the eighteen and nineteen hundreds segregated a section of females in order to better the part of the group that was more societally excepted. Even though the groups they shut off from their support were still women, they decided that apparently having two qualities that society saw as less than, in this case race and disability, was too detrimental to their cause and therefore excluded them from the movement.
To make matters worse, they both used the differing characteristics of the groups they shunned, racial differences and disability, to build their platform by using them to make arguments for white, "normal" equality. One of the biggest similarities between the two texts is that both arguments put focus on the similar qualities that the females and males have, like the argument that a white woman is equal to a white man because they both are white, and they made these arguments by segregating the quality (i.e. race) that makes them different. By doing this, they take the focus off of gender, and put the focus on the ideal quality they have in common.
I say "overlooked" in the first paragraph because I was never taught this in any former history or humanities class I have ever taken, and there was never any mention of the oppression of people in multiple minority groups by the feminist movement throughout my progression through public schools. Why do we refrain from teaching such a crucial side of the feminist movement throughout schooling? Clearly, the oppression of people in multiple minority groups was a continuously used tactic as the feminist movement continued to oppress people of other minorities in order to gain equality for those who were female, but also had the ideal qualities of the cultural times (i.e. white, Christian, rich, able-bodied, etc.). Why must we continue to shield ourselves from the mistakes of the past? If we are to continue to seek full equality, shouldn't we speak about these injustices throughout modern teachings so that we can learn from? Why would modern teachings not want to include this important part of history?
Readings:
1. Text Book: White Women's Rights: The Racial Origins of Feminism in the United States by Louise Michele Newman, 1st Edition.
Introduction: Woman's Rights, Race, and Imperialism.
Article: A Heritage of Ableist Rhetoric in American Feminism from the Eugenics Period by Sharon Lamp and W. Carol Cleigh.