Voices of Three African American Women (Pt. 3): #MeToo, Identity, & Intersectionality

Jacqueline (Jackie) Woods, early-middle Baby Boomer (BB)

Eboni Zamani-Gallaher, middle Gen X-er (X)

Tangela Feemster, early Millennial (M)

In the recent inter-generational conversation on gender I had the privilege of facilitating, I asked for responses to the following:

As African American women, we may question whether or not the #MeToo Movement is an inclusive tag and a unifying movement for all women. When Time wrote an extensive piece on the women who had accused Harvey Weinstein of being a predator, they showed photos and gave names of 25 women, and none appeared to be women of color. As Issa Rae wrote in her book Misadventure of an Awkward Black Girl, “The universal gender classification ‘girl’ is white. That is the norm, and that is what is acceptable.”

So, I’m going to ask you to respond to this: It is widely believed that Sojourner Truth in an extemporaneous speech at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in 1851 declared, “Ain’t I a woman?” How far have Black women come from having to declare or ask a question about our womanhood? Have gender challenges gotten better through the generations, or are they just as difficult or harder now than those of the 20^th century and early 21^st century challenges?

Thinking specifically about the #MeToo Movement and the idea of Sojourner Truth’s supposedly having said, “Ain’t I a woman?” how do you see those challenges right now? Is it getting any better, or is it just different? Might we be able to take this possible moment as a way to broaden perspectives and discussion to include all women?

Takeaways

I want to thank Tangela in framing her response for first reminding us that the original #MeToo Movement was started about a decade ago by Tarana Burke, a Black woman seeking to give voice to young Black girls who were experiencing sexual violence. Looking at gender challenges through the lens of a #MeToo Movement now largely associated with White women and privilege, then, Jackie, Eboni, and Tangela spoke to different kinds of bright lines, including not only race, but class. There was a recognition of a hierarchy of challenges that Women of Color face, especially those who are not considered part of the professional class. Priorities for women of color include discrimination based on race and, until this is recognized, the #MeToo Movement in its current form may not speak to Women of Color, especially African American women who have struggles on top of struggles.

Eboni spoke to the conflicting role social media plays – at once creating a space in which Black women are besieged upon and find connectedness and a sense of belonging. This presents another space in which Black women must negotiate the idea of self, combating age-old tropes and stereotypes. Jackie added to this idea, noting her generation’s frustration that these stereotypical images that persist fail to offer a nuanced image of “Black women doing the kinds of things that the Sojourner Truths of the world have done.”

Full Transcript for #MeToo Section

Gwen (Traditional/Silent – T/S): As African American women, we may question whether or not the #MeToo Movement is an inclusive tag and a unifying movement for all women. So, when Time wrote an extensive piece on the women who had accused Harvey Weinstein of being a predator, they showed photos and gave names of 25 women, and none appeared to be women of color.

And, if you are familiar with Issa Rae, the creator of that HBO series, Insecure, she wrote in that book she wrote about the Misadventure of an Awkward Black Girl, she wrote that, “The universal gender classification “girl” [and we can say women] is white. That is the norm, and that is what is acceptable.”

So, I’m going to ask you to respond to this: It is widely believed that Sojourner Truth in an extemporaneous speech at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in 1851 declared, “Ain’t I a woman?” How far have Black women come from having to declare or ask a question about our womanhood? Have gender challenges gotten better through the generations, or are they just as difficult or harder now than those of the 20^th century and early 21^st century challenges?

And I know all of you have touched on that a little bit, but can you be very specific about that now, thinking about the #MeToo Movement and the idea of Sojourner Truth’s supposedly having said, “Ain’t I a woman?” So, is it getting any better, is it just different? So, how do you see those challenges right now?

Jackie (BB): I want to follow-up on what Eboni was just saying. I think it’s different based upon our generational activities and our generational role. I think, Gwen, when you and I were developing as professional Black women, a lot of the things we went through, we kept quiet. You didn’t have a social network to discuss those things with. You may have had one or two girlfriends that you shared some of the things that were happening, but you didn’t have a social network to share with. Nowadays, younger women have platforms or networks where they can discuss openly or ask questions openly – we didn’t even dare ask the question of one another or of ourselves. Whereas, they now have a different kind of opportunity to do that. I don’t think they’re any better …I think they’re different because they have the opportunity to articulate the challenges of being a Black professional woman in a more open space. Sometimes it’s accepted, and sometimes, it’s not, but at least the conversation is being held now, whereas, in our time – in the 50s, 60s, and early 70s – we were not having this kind of conversation.

Gwen (T/S): So, that’s the main difference, you’re saying – the challenges are similar but the ability to talk about them with other women makes a difference.

Jackie (BB): Absolutely.

Gwen (T/S): Tangela, what do you think?

Tangela (M): So, I always try to give credit where credit is due. The #MeToo Movement was started about a little over a decade ago by a Black woman. Her name is Tarana Burke. The movement was I won’t say hijacked, but co-opted by the majority, and that is why we are seeing the #MeToo Movement being primarily about women with white faces. Ms. Burke created the movement to give voice to young Black girls who were experiencing sexual violence. To that end, I definitely believe that the challenges between what Ms. Woods and her colleagues experienced and what I experience today are night and day differently – just from their stories, alone. That’s not to say that there aren’t still challenges… I think this is where the intersectionality comes in, right? There are certain subsets of women that have to deal with different things than even we professionals do. You have women working multiple jobs, trying to feed their children, and their challenges may be the same throughout the generations. I think the professional women have an additional platform, have louder voices – given both our education, our support role and the people that are supporting us – and I would just like to say there’s no “one-size-fits-all” for the challenge, no matter when it happened generationally. We just have to be mindful that even though we’re all at the table, that there may be many of our sisters that aren’t here yet.

Gwen (T/S): Thank you. Do you have thoughts, Eboni?

Eboni (X): There’s some dualities that we have, right? There’s a way in which social media presents an opportunity for Black women to be besieged on, and then there’s also ways in which social media, you know, illustrates its mixed blessing of it not being that, but being the venue to create that third space for connectedness, for a sense of belonging, for Black women being able to demonstrate nurturing and loving on one another in terms of our own well-being, you know, virtually. And, so, I think there’s a role that social media plays in how Black women kind of negotiate this idea of self and the extent to which we are engaging with it, particularly in very gendered, race-related ways. Right? So, how we see ourselves and how we use the medium in the way of the hashtags created, or the blogs that we’re doing, or this podcast, or just different venues by which, again, it can be a vehicle to contribute to our well-being and then, it, you know, can sometimes be a vehicle where we have to be very protective and think about how it could erode our self-esteem and our mental health and, you know, what kind of endorsement does it give in terms of perpetuating stereotypes that, again, with that trope and archetype of “the strong Black woman,” as if we can’t be vulnerable, that we can’t have certain expressions, so that it can be both liberating and confining, I think, when we think about what social media has brought and how we interact with it and are seen and presented through it.

Jackie (BB): We’re having a very intellectual conversation, but one of my frustrations is Reality TV as it relates to what happens in social media. Reality TV still projects Black women as being strong, but also being bossy and as being very outspoken and very showy in terms of physical presence and our mental presence, and so forth. And there are Black women that do that, and that’s alright, but there are also Black women who have very serious, intellectual conversations – like we’re trying to have – and we don’t see that portrayed as often, and that frustrates the heck out of me.  And I think all of us can be both those women sometimes, but, in our professional space, we choose to do a different type of thing, and it just…it irritates me to no end to see that the majority world still sees us as being the Sapphire Black women and they don’t necessarily see other Black women doing the kinds of things that the Sojourner Truths of the world have done, as well as the Sapphires of the world have done. We don’t see both sides, and that’s frustrating to my generation, in particular.