Please note-

*Please note- Your browser preferences must be set to 'allow 3rd party cookies' in order to comment in our diaries.

Sunday, September 5, 2010

The Non-Equality Equality Movements by Jo LeGall


There have been several civil rights movements in the United States starting with the simultaneous Black and Women's Suffrage movements for the rights of blacks and women to enter the voting sphere currently occupied only by white men. The Black Suffrage movement included some men of colour. From Hispanic, Asian, Middle Eastern and African descent, with the exclusion of Native American men, fell under the Black label due to the varied dark colours of skin pigmentation.
In the end, the black men in the Black Suffrage movement while agreeing that every man should be equal believed it did not apply to women of any race. Women of colour suddenly were left in limbo, not accepted within the Black Suffrage movement due to their gender and excluded from the Women's Suffrage movement due to their skin pigmentation.

Men of all colours believed in the current gender roles of the societal binary system which held that the man was the head of the woman and above her in all financial, familial and religious decisions leaving little need, they concurred, for Women's Suffrage as women already had freedom from decision making. The equality idea suddenly had restrictions of privilege. What were considered rights at the beginning of the equality battle were now viewed as special privileges that women wanted. What drew the men together, their eventual common ground, was the belief in the traditional man.

This theme carried out within the Women's Suffrage movement with traditional women who supported the traditional gender roles began campaigning against the Suffragists. They were called The Antis or the Anti-Suffragists. The term feminist was used to describe the militant woman who was aggressive in the fight to free women from the restrictions of the gender roles, never gave up regardless of arrest or persecution like one would believe the "fairer sex" the "weaker sex" were incapable of. A militant woman in the fight for Women's Equality. A Feminist. A woman with a "man's" attitude stepping into the masculine gender role. What many considered an "abomination".

There was no equality all around within the Women's Suffrage movement just as there is no equality all around within the LGBT movement as there will always be overly militant factions who prefer equality only for those who resemble them whether by race, class, religion, education, marital status, gender identity, gender expression and/or sexual orientation. Just as some gay people of colour are today excluded by, or in turn exclude, gays of another race, or trans sexual/gender and gender queer are excluded by, or exclude, those of matching sex and gender, so did the women from the late 1800s to 1900s.

It took women 72 years to get the right to vote but not full equality and while men of colour had won their right to vote 72 years earlier by breaking with the Women's Suffragists, they found that was all they won. The second civil rights movement began the fight to end the separate but equal stipulation to both Suffrage movements. Both people of colour and women faced bias through racism, classism and sexism with separate grade schools, colleges, and employment opportunities.





Elementary education was now compulsory since the abolishment of child labour in the 1930s where the children of the poorer classes were finally seen as more than products of their class and undeserving of the right to rise above their station. Colleges on the other hand were still reserved for the upper and middle classes. There were separate colleges for women and men and again for men and women of colour. Such as Howard University, Elmira Female College of NY, Barber-Scotia College, Morehouse College and Wesleyan College, to name a few. There was no true equality only levels of privilege.

At the same time women won the right to vote in 1920, a Eugenics policy of sterilizing certain mental patients, the poor classes of society and criminals was enacted under the guise of 'improving the human gene pool" but was initially focused on social class and intelligence. Racial segregation, marriage restrictions, segregation of the mentally ill, and compulsory sterilisation were all part of the Eugenics movement.

Nearly every state had eugenics laws on their books with California leading the way in compulsory sterilisations, which finally ended everywhere during the second Civil Rights era. Psychiatrists used the captive gay patients, the mentally ill, and the criminals, from prisons and mental institutions as guinea pigs for shock therapy, compulsory sterilisation, and libido-suppressing medication among others. As I said, there was no true equality for anyone just levels of privileges. The highest privileges going to those who were traditional men and women.

During second civil rights movement there were two groups fighting for equality. The Black civil rights movement fighting for equality of people of colour and the Gay Liberation movement. The first commercials against the "homosexual disease" were aired during the 1950s and the first steps to employment discrimination for gays were created when Republican President Eisenhower signed an executive order barring gays and lesbians from federal employment.



Marriage restrictions were already present due to the sodomy laws which not only made anal but also oral sex illegal. Many today still assume that all gay men exclusively perform anal sex and the sodomy laws should be reintroduced to prevent same-sex marriage.

Many of the LGBT community were also present in the Black civil rights movement and I dismiss any clamour to say different. You can be any race and gay, you can be any gender and gay, you can be any class and gay, and you can be any sex; gender normative or trans and gay. Baynard Rusting, the black gay man behind the organization of the march on Wasington DC with Dr. King Jr. was right there fighting for equality for all.

Again, there were tossed only privileges given to those who are traditional instead of full equality for all. Men of any race are paid higher than women of any sexual orientation. Men and women cannot be fired due to race, religion, gender granting job security. Gay, lesbian, asexual, bisexual, trans men and trans women have no employment security due to sexual orientation yet those who are considered traditional as in heterosexual and gender normative are protected.

We might say that all this should have been covered under the civil rights, gay liberation and women's rights movements but what really happened instead was not a granting for full rights but a protection of the privilege of those who are physically, psychologically and sexually traditional. First by the inclusion of traditional black men, then by the inclusion of traditional women and I am now watching the inclusion of traditional gays, lesbians and gender normative post-operative transsexuals only.

When the Republicans are the only ones starting to be inclusive to this new civil rights movement, it usually means another compromise on equality is on the way. After all, "radical" congressional Republicans backed Black Suffrage and they were also the first major political party to back Women's rights, even when they didn't fully agree on a personal level. The new civil rights movement is already splintering again with the decisions to wait until later for some groups of non-traditional men and women to achieve equality with the delay of passage of ENDA and repeal of DADT. The last few civil rights movements were more of a "let's toss them a few things that seem like full equality so they will vote for us" deal.

Why else would we be here again, still fighting the traditionalist men and women for the dignity to be ourselves? Fighting to retain reproductive control, sexual freedom, marriage equality, employment security which were battles that began in the US almost 200 years ago in the 1800s. Every attempt that is made is met with the fretful squeal of "traditionalists" against full inclusion of, what is now their privileges, so everyone can gain full equality; "Another attempt to destroy the traditional family!"

Let's not be deflected again. Support the American Equality Bill for full inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity to the Civil Rights Act (I hope gender expression is included): http://www.change.org/petitions/view/petition_for_full_equality_for_all_americans

1 comment:

  1. Great essay once again Jo, thanks so much for sharing it with us here.

    ReplyDelete