- In the early years of women's histories,
scholars took great pride in identifying
differences among women.
We pointed out how class and racial
and ethnic differences divided them.
Women preferred to live
in enclaves of women
like them, to work with
others of the same race
to pray at church with families
of similar ethnic backgrounds.
Those insights led us
to stop talking about
wo-man as though all
women shared similar goals
with regard to work, family
life and reproduction.
We began to understand
that even as vast numbers
of black and white women
or rich and poor women
did not share the idea
of separate spheres,
the idea itself played a role in how
the labor market took shape,
not only differentiating
women from men but differentiating
women from each other.
Women in some jobs counted
themselves respectable.
Women in other jobs
service or menial jobs,
struggled to maintain their dignity.
More recently scholars have turned away
from simple explanations
of identity to focus on
uncovering a complex of
overlapping or interacting
social identities.
Historians and sociologists
talk about this
as intersectionality,
a notion best developed
by the African-American
sociology Patricia Hill Collins.
They note that each element
or trait of a person
is inextricably linked
with other elements.
And that the hierarchy
with which these elements
relate to each other,
might differ over time,
even in the same person.
At any one moment in time, and depending
on the historical circumstance,
it might matter more
that one was rich or
poor, educated or not,
female or black, Jewish or
Catholic or any combination
of these.
Each of these identities provided a lens
that could inspire a
connection or an action.
To imagine how this could be, just place
one adjective in front of your identity.
Imagine yourself a black
woman or an immigrant male.
Or a transgender college graduate.
Now add another adjective and
see how your identity shifts
as you compile adjectives.
What if you were a
professional black woman,
would you have different
political interests
from the teenage mother black woman?
What if you were an
undocumented immigrant male,
would your interests
coincide with those of
the immigrant male architect or banker?
Almost every historical figure we know
has acted through different
hats at one time or another.
At the turn of the
century, Irish trade union
organizer Lenora O'Reilly
joined with Jewish seamstress
Pauline Newman and wealthy
Protestant Alva Belmont
to promote their common
interest in making wage work
more adaptable to family life.
Each complained about the
difficulty of getting along
with the other and yet each
set aside cultural identity
in the interest of a gendered struggle.
Nor is self identity
necessarily consistent
with the public view.
Ida B. Wells a well
educated African-American
newspaper publisher bought
a first class train ticket
on a train in Tennessee in 1900.
She imagined that her
class position entitled her
not to sit on a wooden bench in the unruly
third class compartment.
But the conductor who
insisted that she move
thought of merely as a
black person and obliterated
both her gender and her class identities.
Late poet Audre Lorde
explained her commitments
to multiple political causes
by identifying herself
as a black, lesbian poet,
mother and warrior woman
whenever she spoke.
Historians and others
have used the concept
of intersectionality to
explain the seemingly
contradictory actions of
individuals over time.
In moments of economic
stress, depression, war,
any one piece of identity or appearance
might become salient.
During wartime, mothers
who send their sons
off to fight acquire
the status of heroines
and win gold stars.
In peace time, the same mothers might be
excoriated for dependency
for being in need of support,
for being a drain on resources.
Gender under these circumstances
takes on a different form.
Materially, it may still
have the same qualities.
But the historian who
can perceive and measure
the salience of each
quality at any point in time
learns something about the motives
that lead people to act.
From the perspective of our modern world,
a world where the rules are changing,
where race intersects with gender identity
and class intersects with
both, it should be easy
to empathize with a complex
nature and influence
of gender identities.
Let's go back into the early 20th century
and take that empathy with us.
Let's put ourselves in the
shoes of African-Americans
fighting a Jim Crow culture
of segregation in the south
and embedded racial
prejudice everywhere else.
Of white and black educated
women desperate to speak
in an electorate from
which they're excluded.
Of immigrants to America
and migrants from rural
to urban areas within
America, where poverty
took their children and
stifled their lives.
If we do this, we can
more easily explain how
women with different
interests and identities
could sometimes achieve coalitions.
