By Megan Kay, Staff Writer, Emerson College
It’s not every day that Laverne Cox shakes your hand and simultaneously compliments your outfit. But that was my day just a few weeks ago when Cox, a trans* actress on the hit show Orange is the New Black, came to visit Emerson College to speak during Transgender Awareness Week. I was mesmerized when I met her at a private reception and the amazement only grew during her actual speaking event. She spoke honestly about growing up in a single mother home in the Deep South, struggling to figure out why people called her a boy when she felt like a girl. Even though there were about a hundred people in the room, I felt like she was speaking directly to me.
“Alright, does anyone have any questions for me?” she asked with a swish of her fabulously long blonde hair and a bright smile.
I let a few people go before me, but I knew that I had a question in my mind I had to ask. Without really thinking, I raised my hand.
“First, do you consider yourself a feminist?”
“Yes,” she answered immediately with a smile. I couldn’t help but grin too.
“Second, how do you feel about the inclusion of race into the women’s rights movement? Throughout the decades it’s been critiqued as a movement for white women, and I was wondering how you feel about this.”
She paused for a moment before continuing. Cox was honest, admitting that the feminist movement has its faults because her struggle is different as a black woman than mine is as a white woman. She found however that “our oppression unites us.”
Those words hung with me long after Cox and her presence of strength and wonder had left Emerson. I recalled that just a few days ago during the drunken, constume-filled debauchery of “HalIoweekend” I had been ecstatic because dozens of girls, myself included, dressed up as Rosie the Riveter, an icon of the women’s rights movement. However, now with Laverne’s words fresh in my mind, I realized that all of the girls I seen in Rosie costumes had been white.
I couldn’t help but wonder, is feminism really only for white women? It’s true that historically, women of color have never quite felt at home in the movement. During the second wave of feminism in the 1960s and 1970s, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, a black feminist scholar, explains, “Feminism was perceived as white women’s work, not black women’s work, and it was perceived as something to stay away from because it wasn’t gonna help the African American community.”
Indeed, there was a divide between white women and African American women of the time, as white women of the middle and upper classes had luxuries like the ability to stay home and take care of the children and the house. Black women too found themselves in the home, but oftentimes as nannies and maids and cooks. Most black women could not afford to not work. White women and women of color simply found themselves in two different worlds.
However, as the civil rights movement picked up in the 1960s, white women, inspired by their black sisters, flocked to the south to participate in the fight against oppression. It was these interactions that propelled women forward into their own fight. As Gloria Steinem put it, “Just as there needed to be a racial liberation movement, there needed to be a women’s liberation movement.” Simply put, it’s uncertain if the second wave of feminism would have occurred without the inspiration from the African American community.
It’s an unfortunate truth that to this day, there is still inequality among both genders and races. In truth, it didn’t really hit me that women of color have unique battles in feminism separate from my battles until Laverne Cox opened up about her struggles. For example, even though the 50th Anniversary of the Equal Pay Act was just earlier this year, white women are still earning just 77 cents to every man’s dollar.
However, perhaps more importantly, a black woman earns just 69 cents to a man’s dollar and a Latina woman earns only 57 cents to a man’s dollar.
And here is the truth in this: feminism isn’t really about equality with men, at least not yet. How can we aim for equality with men when women aren’t even equal yet? In order to achieve the end goals of the women’s rights movement, women of all races must first come together to fight united.
Rosie the Riveter isn’t just a white woman. Rosie is so much more than that. Rosie is an African American woman and a Latina woman and an Asian woman. Rosie is tall and short, stick thin, and curvy. Rosie isn’t just a symbol, she is the movement. Rosie isn’t just a costume, she is the reason that all women must come together and stand for what they believe is right. Rosie is for all of us.
Megan Kay is a sophomore WLP major with a minor in Women's and Gender Studies. She is currently the media and communications intern for the Massachusetts branch of the National Organization for Women, which she is wicked ecstatic about. Her life goals include being half as cool as Leslie Knope and kicking half the ass that Buffy Summers did. You can find her on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
It’s not every day that Laverne Cox shakes your hand and simultaneously compliments your outfit. But that was my day just a few weeks ago when Cox, a trans* actress on the hit show Orange is the New Black, came to visit Emerson College to speak during Transgender Awareness Week. I was mesmerized when I met her at a private reception and the amazement only grew during her actual speaking event. She spoke honestly about growing up in a single mother home in the Deep South, struggling to figure out why people called her a boy when she felt like a girl. Even though there were about a hundred people in the room, I felt like she was speaking directly to me.
“Alright, does anyone have any questions for me?” she asked with a swish of her fabulously long blonde hair and a bright smile.
I let a few people go before me, but I knew that I had a question in my mind I had to ask. Without really thinking, I raised my hand.
“First, do you consider yourself a feminist?”
“Yes,” she answered immediately with a smile. I couldn’t help but grin too.
“Second, how do you feel about the inclusion of race into the women’s rights movement? Throughout the decades it’s been critiqued as a movement for white women, and I was wondering how you feel about this.”
She paused for a moment before continuing. Cox was honest, admitting that the feminist movement has its faults because her struggle is different as a black woman than mine is as a white woman. She found however that “our oppression unites us.”
Those words hung with me long after Cox and her presence of strength and wonder had left Emerson. I recalled that just a few days ago during the drunken, constume-filled debauchery of “HalIoweekend” I had been ecstatic because dozens of girls, myself included, dressed up as Rosie the Riveter, an icon of the women’s rights movement. However, now with Laverne’s words fresh in my mind, I realized that all of the girls I seen in Rosie costumes had been white.
I couldn’t help but wonder, is feminism really only for white women? It’s true that historically, women of color have never quite felt at home in the movement. During the second wave of feminism in the 1960s and 1970s, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, a black feminist scholar, explains, “Feminism was perceived as white women’s work, not black women’s work, and it was perceived as something to stay away from because it wasn’t gonna help the African American community.”
Indeed, there was a divide between white women and African American women of the time, as white women of the middle and upper classes had luxuries like the ability to stay home and take care of the children and the house. Black women too found themselves in the home, but oftentimes as nannies and maids and cooks. Most black women could not afford to not work. White women and women of color simply found themselves in two different worlds.
However, as the civil rights movement picked up in the 1960s, white women, inspired by their black sisters, flocked to the south to participate in the fight against oppression. It was these interactions that propelled women forward into their own fight. As Gloria Steinem put it, “Just as there needed to be a racial liberation movement, there needed to be a women’s liberation movement.” Simply put, it’s uncertain if the second wave of feminism would have occurred without the inspiration from the African American community.
It’s an unfortunate truth that to this day, there is still inequality among both genders and races. In truth, it didn’t really hit me that women of color have unique battles in feminism separate from my battles until Laverne Cox opened up about her struggles. For example, even though the 50th Anniversary of the Equal Pay Act was just earlier this year, white women are still earning just 77 cents to every man’s dollar.
However, perhaps more importantly, a black woman earns just 69 cents to a man’s dollar and a Latina woman earns only 57 cents to a man’s dollar.
And here is the truth in this: feminism isn’t really about equality with men, at least not yet. How can we aim for equality with men when women aren’t even equal yet? In order to achieve the end goals of the women’s rights movement, women of all races must first come together to fight united.
Rosie the Riveter isn’t just a white woman. Rosie is so much more than that. Rosie is an African American woman and a Latina woman and an Asian woman. Rosie is tall and short, stick thin, and curvy. Rosie isn’t just a symbol, she is the movement. Rosie isn’t just a costume, she is the reason that all women must come together and stand for what they believe is right. Rosie is for all of us.
Megan Kay is a sophomore WLP major with a minor in Women's and Gender Studies. She is currently the media and communications intern for the Massachusetts branch of the National Organization for Women, which she is wicked ecstatic about. Her life goals include being half as cool as Leslie Knope and kicking half the ass that Buffy Summers did. You can find her on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.