Often black women were the sole breadwinner for a family devastated by slavery and discrimination. The 'new sexism' that some women playfully indulge in today, laughing with irony at the image of a white, cartoon femininity, is a luxury that black women on the 'front lines' of struggle cannot enjoy (Thomas 2010). As noted by white feminist historian Marilyn Frye: "As a white woman I have certain freedoms and liberties. When I use them, according to my white woman's judgment, to act on matters of racism, my enterprise reflects strangely on the matrix of options within which it is undertaken" (Frye 1983, p. 110).

The different experiences of black women and white women have often generated different perceived political interests between the two groups. For example, as noted by scholar Ellen DuBois in her book Woman Suffrage and Women's Rights, when black men but not black women won the right...
[ View Full Essay]