Women, Race & Class

One of Davis’s most prominent themes is her consistent and repeated criticism of white middle-class women’s acceptance of racism and anti-working-class views. This is abundantly clear in her thorough historical overview and analysis of the women’s rights movement from its birth at Seneca Falls through the contemporary anti-rape and abortion rights movements. Although Davis does at some points criticize others for failing to incorporate race-consciousness—in Chapter 10, she explains that “one of the unfortunate legacies” of the Socialist Party was its lack of dedication to Black liberation (151)—the bulk of her critique centers on the relatively privileged women who have historically been at the center of feminism.

The key instances that exhibit this theme are: (1) the suffrage movement’s failure to include Black and working-class women through its embrace of racism and its unquestioning acceptance of capitalism; (2) the anti-rape movement reinforcing the Black rapist myth instead of recognizing its racist underpinnings and the need to challenge it to help Black women combat sexism; (3) the abortion rights/birth control movement’s failure to evaluate its history of racist and classist eugenics and sterilization abuse and the movement’s failure to understand the impact of poverty on working-class women.

This theme remains visible throughout the book as Davis highlights the shortcomings of feminist movements. Her initial discussion of the women’s rights movement’s origins within the anti-slavery effort hints at a potential alliance between Black people and white women. However, from there, Davis turns to the early limitations of the movement by noting the absence of Black and working-class women from key events and agendas. For example, Davis writes that the Seneca Falls Declaration, widely considered the foundational text of American first wave feminism, “all but ignored the predicament of white working-class women, as it ignored the condition of Black women in the South and North alike” (53-54)

By completing a full historical picture of the women’s rights movement and associated figures like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, Davis exposes a history that often goes untold. She reveals the flawed and problematic nature of the movement and gives life to the voices of marginalized Black and working-class women. Davis complements this analysis of “mainstream” feminism with a detailed account of the efforts and contributions of marginalized women to the suffrage movement and other struggles. For instance, Davis writes that working-class women in textile mills “​​had more than earned [them] the right to be lauded as pioneers of the women’s movement” (55) through their resistance against working conditions, as had the Black women who had been resisting their oppression in countless ways since the era of slavery (Davis particularly points out Black women’s efforts in combatting sexism in education). This has the effect of emphasizing the scale and gravity of the white and middle-class dominated movement’s failure to integrate or include other women, thereby shining further light on this theme.

In analyzing these shortcomings, Davis’s overall message seems to be one of hindsight and learning from our past, questionable history. She often indicates what she believes movement leaders should have done at the time, in some cases stating her opinion outright: “[A]bortion rights activists of the early 1970s should have examined the history of their movement” (215). In her concluding chapters, Davis brings this historical perspective to bear on ongoing issues related to sex, race, and class to strategize methods that can be used to effectively combat them.