Blog #10

Textbook: Chapter 7
1. During the time of women’s suffrage and reform, Jim Crow laws had been in effect in the Southern states and many blacks felt the impact of racism partly because the white people did not believe that the blacks would adapt to the new industrial society. Even though these prejudices were occurring, many African American women were for the idea of reform and had contributed to it as well. Some of these contributions included their effort to create kindergartens for children with mothers that were unable to take care of their children, since they were always working. Some popular African American women entrepreneurs, such as Sarah Breedlove, showed that they too were able to become successful, despite the disadvantage they had do to their race. The white women suffragist groups refused to help the black women with racism because they believed it would hurt the white women’s chances of rising up in society. Even though the black women did not receive help, they still had their willingness to receive their own political rights and were even more aggressive in their groups than the white women were in theirs.

2. The main differences among the feminist movement and the suffrage movement was that the suffragists focused more on the equality of women’s roles in the public life while the focus on the feminist movement was more on the equality of women’s private life. The suffragist usually looked for their political rights such as their right to vote. Feminisms brought upon a whole new idea of women’s liberty and equality in their own personal and individual life. These, more individual equalities, included ideas of how they would live their own lifestyle such as their own sexual life in which some lived with men even though they were not married, some lived alone in apartments and others were lesbians living together.

Source Interpretation
Textbook document
3. There were many definitions in the article that were for the idea of feminism. In a sense, all the definitions were the same because they were so similar. One of the definitions was that feminism would cause a lot of trouble but this trouble would eventually help the society to readjust to a new way of life that is ultimately better than the old way of life. Other definitions prove that feminism is there in order to give women their equality with men and to show that the two genders are “made of the same soul stuff (460).” The definitions all try to show that women are human beings just as men are and that these women, since they are human beings, deserve their own individuality.

4. As women practice their feminist beliefs in their own individual life, their feminism eventually leads them to receive economic independence. For example, since women are now individuals and do not have to follow the idea of working for their husbands in the home, they are now able to go out into the world and work in order to receive more opportunities economically and even politically. In the past, many women had a different attitude about divorce. The changing of times has influenced many of these women to have a different and more free perspective mainly because of feminism. Since these women are individuals and not property of men, they are able to work for themselves and have their own economic independence.

5. As seen in the first article, there are many different definitions that people could give for feminism even though they are similar in some aspect. Feminism is the individuality that women receive in order to make themselves personally equal to males, not only in public society but in the private life as well. This equality is usually in order to allow for women to have the same humanistic rights that males have had throughout history. These rights include the opportunity for women to make their own choices when dealing with situations that relate to their own private life and the liberty to live a life in which women are free of male dominance.