To not want to hear anything about the suffragettes

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How am I meant to support a movement that was disgustingly racist just because I benefit from it being a white female.

The feminist movement is still subtly racist with a lot of white feminists refusing to see white privilege.

The argument of being of its time doesn't wash. Racism is racism and I refuse to support it.

As a working class, unmarried woman, the movement was most definitely not interested in my emancipation

Really? What about the work of Annie Kenney? And the fact that as activists, the Pankhursts came out of a background of Manchester socialism?

white privilege is not altogether about people being racist

it is about acknowledging that there is white privilege

just because someone is not racist does not mean they do not enjoy (maybe that is the wrong word to use) white privilege and some will choose to totally ignore it, are unaware or claim it just does not exist

Women involved in the anti slavery movement began to realise how badly they were being treated and the women's suffrage movement was a spin off from their work against slavery

In the same way, the Women's Liberation movement of the 1970s emerged from the US Civil Rights movement (an anti-segregation movement) of the 1950s and 60s. A renowned black male leader had said things like "The best place for women in the civil rights movement is on their backs."

So, rape culture was prevalent in the black rights movement, but do we go around saying it was all terrible?

Yabu.

Feminism isn't racist. It's about treating everyone equally if understood properly.

We shouldn't set one form of prejudice against another and say one is more "valid" than the other.

Silly to say feminists aren't "acknowleging white privilege". Should black men be forbidden from pointing out racism because of " male privilege"? It certainly exists, and would explain why black women have a harder time than white women or black men.

White privilege most definitely exists
So does male privilege.
Class privilege may be worse than either, at least in the UK and USA.

A low income BME woman, or woc, suffers these 3 kinds of discrimation in varying combinations. Then if she is disabled or a carer, add another ..

I support all campaigns to reduce these injustices, but I don't expect a single group to prioritise them all equally.

Whoever said it shows the movement wasn't as inclusive as it makes out, that's what gets my goat about it.

enthusiasm I expect if I did the response would be the same. Whenever white privilege gets mentioned people come out all guns blazing.

Whilst white women may of had no rights I still don't think it compares to being a black woman after slavery. We speak up when we're being oppressed, shout about slut shaming and equal rights but we have never collectively made every woman equal like we made ourselves.

I really loved the whole movement but the unequal aspect of it has put me off. We shouldn't ever excuse racism there were plenty of people around back in the days that were not racist. Likening it the civil rights movement is very apt. The black women fought so hard in the civil rights movement but they were excluded and downgraded from the black men and then the feminist movement did the same.

brokenvase blogs.lse.ac.uk/diversity/2014/08/the-ethnic-penalty-a-more-sophisticated-form-of-discrimination/
<a class="break-all" href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/10572435/Intersectional-feminism.-What-the-hell-is-it-And-why-you-should-care.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/10572435/Intersectional-feminism.-What-the-hell-is-it-And-why-you-should-care.html
blackfeministsmanchester.wordpress.com/2013/01/07/racism-within-white-feminist-spaces/

This is a really good articlewww.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/racism-cannot-be-separated-from-feminism-9177177.html

I see what your saying Buffy I was just annoyed last night about everyone worshipping the suffragettes when they weren't all good.

So you are angry at the Civil Rights movement too ?

These muddled posts sound more like the angst of a white woman who feels she must criticise her own. Funny that more white men don't feel like that.

As a BME woman, I support campaigns for sexual and racial equality, but from long experience - I'm 59 - I'm not surprised that each group tends to concentrate on its core purpose, for maximum effect.

I don't like the way the civil rights movement pushed aside black women and I will criticise that. I'm also quite happy to join a new thread and talk all about that.

Maybe I am a confused white woman! I certainly don't feel proud of what my country and race has done to others. My two dc are mixed race I never understood what racism and white privilege was until that.

My best friend is black, the different ways we get treated in the same places even when we're together is awful.

I did have the thought this morning of why am I blaming the feminist movement is it the same problem women have in society of holding another women to account more then a man. I don't believe this is the case and feminism is about women being equal so that should include all women.

This is becuase Legally Black people were equal with white people, there was no reason to document colour, this stopped when slavery was abolished. You have This documented in the US becuase Black people were second class.

As a family historian, can I say how very true this is? I just can't get over the difference in UK and US records. US censuses right up to 1940 (most recent available) have a specific column for "Colour or Race", in addition to those for Citizenship, Mother Tongue, etc.

UK censuses vv occasionally include comments added by the enumerator eg. "Helen Smith, a black woman", but there's no column for it.

The UK comment is racist, with the individual treating blackness as something different and worth commenting on. But it's not institutional racism as in the US, where race HAD to be recorded on EVERYTHING: censuses, military registers for potential call-up, birth/marriage/death records...

Dealing with the US records is eye-opening. And sickening. Though as an historian I recognise there's value to be extracted, because it makes the historic racism visible and also prevents modern researchers importing their own assumption that, say, the people they're studying are all non-black.

Until 1911, the census in Britain doesn't even ask people what their Nationality is.

I should make it clear that when i say "Legally Black people were equal with white people", i'm in no way trying to imply the attitudes of thousands of citzens was not racist or did not exist, becuase it did. It's just in a legal context there was no divide for rights based on colour.

Yes indeedy, Jason.

No movement is all good. Movements are made up of individuals and everyone has flaws. Movements and individuals are products of their times.

Women were effectively enslaved to their fathers and husbands. The transatlantic slave trade doesn't own the word 'slave'. The women of the suffrage movement were criticised as unnatural, they were at risk of commitment to asylums, or confinement by their families and they still considered all of those risks (the risks of rebelling) to be better than being legally enslaved to fathers, brothers and husbands. FFS rape was considered a property crime!

Today the OP is able today to express her views and opinions freely, due in part to the work of the suffragettes. Give thanks where they are due.

Yes, this "slave" = black is bizarre. Slaves can be, and were, any colour. It may have had that connotation in the US with its history, but this film is British and deals with the British suffragette movement.

In the context of the suffragette movement a hundred + years ago it is clear what Pankhurst meant by slave. It was the lack of human rights that women had. A wealthy woman may have been perceived to have power but, legally, she had very little. Any power she had was what may have been granted to her by her father, husband and male dominated society.

The T shirt is simply saying that being a rebel is better than being a woman in the conditions they endured over a 100 years ago in the UK.

exactly grimble, thank you.
My children's great-grandparents were slaves and they have blue eyes and blonde hair.
That might take some people a while to work out.

Sorry if the thread has moved on since I wrote this post earlier and just realised it hadn't posted.

OP, regarding slavery - it's not solely a black issue.

There were thousands of white slaves, read this en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlegs.

Please don't try and tell me they had any privilege.

Also, if you really want to do something here and now, why not read up on modern slavery? There are many slaves in the Gulf countries, mostly women, from the Philippines, Thailand and India. Here's a start www.independent.co.uk/voices/.../the-dark-side-of-dubai-6234132.html Plenty more where that came from.

Or do you just want to talk about slavery in the context of skin colour rather than socio-economic terms?

Because one is an interesting if depressing debate and the other, well, it's racist isn't it?

US census still asks for race and ethnicity. There is nothing sinister in it. Doesn't the UK (or its individual countries) collect demographic information?

UK birth registration has never recorded that information, though. So one always has an official identity that doesn't specify race or ethnicity.

I really don't think you can compare a few thousand white slaves to up to 100million African slaves. Official history states 18 million slaves but using the almanac reference and others we can tell thats bullshit.

No one is comparing slaves Brand you have either misunderstood what people are telling you or deliberately misinterpreted.
People are telling you the word “slave” doesn’t mean Black.

Quite possibly one of the worst OPs I have come across on mn. And I hang my head in shame on your behalf.