Did you hear about the Jewish community in Florida. They are using religious freedom against the ban. They are suing the state government saying it is against their religious freedoms to have this ban. Which from what I know about Jewish religious law it totally is. I am so proud and hope that the Muslim community will follow.
I did! And some fascinating stuff about organizations of Jewish women helping with abortion access pre-Roe. This country at large needs reminding that "religious freedom" means freedom for more than just Christians.
@@SnappyDragon I mean, they never intended for "religion" to mean anything other than Christianity, tbh. It's obvious to see that it phased from "this is the only religion, right?" to "let's just keep saying 'religion' because it'll sound bad for PR if we just say 'Christianity'" seamlessly.
The colours used by the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) in the UK were actually Green, White and VIOLET - I know this seems picky of me to bring up, but they stood for something in particular - the first letters match to 'Give Women the Vote' as well as the colours having pre-established meanings Violet represents loyalty and dignity, white for purity, and green for hope. The suffragette movement here was not confined to the WSPU / Pankhursts. One of the Pankhurst daughters, Sylvia, had real issues with the classest nature of her mothers group so left and moved to the Eastend of London (a very working class area) and lived and worked with the women there. She was know to the women she worked with as 'our Sylvie' There was also the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (an organisation that is still running under the name of The Fawcett Society) which courted much less controversy because it restricted itself to legal actions. However did most of the practical leg work of research, briefings, legal cases. Both were pivotal The British movement had big problems with class, nationalism, and racism - the WSPU even suspended activities during the Great War/WW1 and many of its leaders switched to giving out white feathers to men who did not enlist (which is a pretty gruesome use of class privilege to guilt/pressure working class men into almost certain death) Much is made of the forced feedings and brutality that British suffragettes endured, and while this is true the upper class women were often spared the worst of it were as the working class suffragettes took the brunt of it. On a more fun not - The WSPU actually had an all female body guard unit with martial arts training - that's well worth a look!
Thank you for adding this! Being American I don't have as much context about the UK movement. I wish I'd come across the acrostic meaning while researching for this video, it would have been really useful to hone in on how switching to gold in the US didn't change the acrostic and what that says about its symbolism.
@@hi-ve1cw Its a debatable issue given the difference in numbers of the 2 classes . Personally I don't think arguing about who had it worst in the trenches is particularly pertinent. The fact that there are so many villages across the country where no-one came home paired with the actions of upper-class suffragettes using both their class privileges and their very specific gender roles to pressure young men into signing up is a horrific way to behave, and the cost was unarguably much too high and never paid by the suffragette the question.
The green/gold, white, and violet also played on the acrostic for Give Women the Vote - G for either green or gold, W for white, and V for violet. This sort of acrostic play had become popular during the Georgian period in jewelry. For example, there are extant brooches and such containing a bar of ruby, emerald, garnet, amethyst, ruby, and diamond to spell REGARD.
I briefly* went to an all-girls boarding school that was founded in 1911 and the school colors were very specifically purple and yellow to reflect the women's suffrage colors...graduates wore white dresses for commencement. It's so strange to think about how even a century+ later these sorts of things are still showing up in our modern world. *I only attended a year there; it was not a good fit for a number of reasons.
That is *exactly* the sort of thing I made this video to get people thinking about! Especially when we see those colors also popping up on webpages about the centennial of the 19th amendment.
I attended an all-girls Catholic high school and wore a white floor-length dress for graduation - imagine a stage with 500 of us. THAT WAS THE FIRST DRESS I MADE !!! I checked the images for their 2022 ceremony; the graduates still wear white. You make a very good point that the tradition may have begun with the suffragettes.
Ah white dresses, lovely…at least that will match the white feathers the suffragettes were handing out to 13 year old boys during WW1…. Good old equality 🤡🤡s
for a second i thought you went to my school, but we also had purple and yellow colors and wore white dresses at graduation... but my school was founded in 1900.
V, hearing you speak up and speak out about this was something I didnt know how much I needed to hear. I do indeed plan to have a lovely Juneteenth, thank you.
I think my personal favorite protest fashion, if you can call it that, is the afro. It always will be. A radical and incredibly loud way of expressing blackness, especially black femininity.
I have been researching clothing protest of athletes dressing in more covering attire to protest sexualizing in sports. Also the topless protests for topless equality. That's how this video is relevant and interesting to me.
I haven't heard about the topless protests - but there must be lots of men who would go to offer their - um - support! In the old days they would have grinned at the suffragette rallying cry : 'Up with skirts! Down with pants!'
The trouble in the U.k. was working class women (which black people largely fell into at that time) didnt have the time or oppertunity to participate in protests. It was mainly middle class women who took part. If an unsympathetic employer discovered you were a suffragette you could simply be dismissed from employment. Middle class women could do as they pleased.
I'd love to read more about this, if you have any references? I had read that the UK movement, while largely led by upper- and middle-class women, tried to be accessible to working women who did a lot of the messier legwork and took a lot of the harsher consequences for it.
@@SnappyDragon on the contrary. Their whole aim was to get arrested to cause as much trouble as possible,and they frequently used assumed names and disguises so that their aristocratic backgrounds wouldnt cause the judges to be lenient in sentencing. And of course these were the women who starved themselves and were subjected to force feeding. A good source of information is a book titled The Militant Suffragettes. I dont have the author's name to hand but if I can find my copy I will let you know.
To be honest, it's still the same now. Ask any minimum/hourly wage worker if they could really afford to take one or a few days off to travel to DC for a march or even local marches. Travel/lodging/food costs alone are killers. That's not even taking into consideration the risk of losing your job if you work for a more conservative company. The bosses can always find something with your work to give cause for firing. It's only retaliation if you can prove it to the labor board.
@@SnappyDragon In Germany, the feminist movement was split into the workers movement and the middle class women´s movement. The worker´s movement (Social Democrats, socialists, unions, social workers and sometimes charity ladies) and the middle class women´s movement. They rarely cooperated. The working class acted on the assumption that in order to liberate women, capitalism has to be overthrown first. Only a socialist society would allow all women to be free.This idea was explained in the book "Die Frau und der Sozialismus" by August Bebel. Famous representatives were Rosa Luxemburg and Clara Zetkin. The other wing (Die erste Bürgerliche Frauenbewegung) wanted direct action right away, and not wait for their freedom to come "after the revolution".
As someone raised in Kansas, the golden sunflower thing is fascinating and also very on brand. For a state that prides itself so much for being a Free State during the Civil War that there is a mural of John Brown standing on the corpse of a confederate soldier in the state capital, casual racism is practically a way of life (especially in the rural parts like where I’m from).
Yeah. As someone also born/raised/currently resides in kansas, it’s shocking how long i went before understanding why John Brown has that mural. I’m glad it’s as iconic as it was bc i feel like people would like to forget any and all rebellions, no matter their end goal.
I've grown up in England, and can remember a lot of casual racism in the 60s and 70s. A popular TV program , 'Till Death Us do Part.', featured a family where the 'Man of the House', Alf Garnett was very racist. There were complaints about his bad language - offending words being 'bloody, bleedin' or Godamn ', rather than ;'N*g nogs or other racist terms. Ideas of white supremacy pre-dated the days when the majority of Britons would be likely to meet a black person. Up to the 20th Century, pale skin, especially for women was considered beautiful. It was a sign of wealth of not having to toil in the fields. In the old age black was not counted fair, Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name; (William Shakespeare - Sonnet 127) The use of 'fair' for beautiful might be falling out of use - but not fair for just - therefore unfair as the opposite could be dark? Other discriminatory language - 'right means correct as well as a position - and the preposterous idea that some children use their 'wrong' hand for writing.
“Until we are all of us free, we are none of us free.” If only more people remember that. There's so much exclusion still, even in the present days. If community excludes anyone, it's not community anymore. :(
I’m a huge fan of the barets and leather jackets of the black Panther party! Not only did they provide for their community while championing black caused, but the goth in me just loves the aesthetic
There are entire forests of books and miles of film about the extremely complex role of women in the Black Panther Party. How women were treated by the male leadership while the women did the heavy community lifting comes right out of the patriarchy playbook. There is a lot of material, including a lot on the idea and image of women as revolutionaries.
ugh, while I did not know this I am utterly unsurprised. *sigh* far too many people only care about their own rights and privileges and not the humanity of others. I agree one hundred percent that if a person's feminism isn't intersectional it's BS.
@@SnappyDragon oh, amen!! terfs are the worst. some of the dearest, sweetest, gentlest, most lovely people i know are trans women. and they're scared for their lives right now. mama doctor jones said it best: trans men are men, trans women are women, and trans people are people.
God forbid an oppressed group focus on themselves instead of putting themselves on the back burner in order to nanny the entire world. Do you also criticize Black people for caring about anti-black racism or Jews for being focused on antisemitism? Or do you only expect women to sacrifice their interests in order to do physical, emotional, and activist labor for everyone else?
Canada has "the famous five" who challenged the court that women were "persons" under the law. They are just as problematic, racists, bigots and into eugenics. Especially now with the residential school issues and unmarked graves of the native children...... in the thousands. Oh and native women and men didn't get the vote until the 60s. Because native peoples weren't Canadian citizens.... History is difficult. The cannon fodder in the fight for equality is the ones with the most power, money and education. This happened in the 60s too. And in the 80s with LGBTQ rights. They get in and change the laws then the next group moves in. In politics you go with what will win. My mother, my grandfather were both into politics. My mother was more pragmatic than my grandfather. She joined the canadian liberal party and worked for them because she said she wanted to influence the winners even though her personal leanings were much farther left. Basically politics is dirty.
A note on privilege. I worked on the ERA in 2016. Too many white men and more than a few white women, including some in our own families, told us we were asking for too much. Some black women were very pointed that we weren’t doing enough. We won and I still went home and sobbed *in private* because being ground down on all sides left me wondering how to do this kind of work surrounded by hostile people on all sides. Maybe ironically, as a group, black male legislators were the only ones not telling us we were wrong. I would have died a madwoman after doing that over and over and losing for 60 years like Anthony did. Alice Paul also flawed, who was Uber-focused on getting that constitutional amendment came to a movement already more than 50 years old. I don’t cosplay history, but I am a student of the suffrage movement. It involved thousands of women across more than 70 very tumultuous years doing things both big and small. There are stories about Ida B Wells as a suffragist that can only be found in the Chicago Defender. She was right there with the white suffragists, but the white papers ignored her. I am sure there are many other stories that have been lost to history. Like in almost all things, we can and do need to do better than the past, but remember they are imperfect people, with all the flaw and foibles of humanity and their own cultural limitations, not statues. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson got to own actual human beings and are on our money, have holidays and states named after the and statue honoring them? Women like Susan B Anthony weren’t perfect but still light years ahead of where her society was in general. We spend far more ink talking about how Alice Paul and Susan B Anthony were racist-classists than criticizing the men running a country who *owned other human beings* Again, I think suffragette cosplay is for amateurs, but I feel like these kind of takes include some internalized misogyny when we hold only historical women to today’s standards.
kinda of an random innuendo, but I love that in Anne with an E they make VERY CLEAR that the suffragetes were racists, classist and down right cruel, like, sure their work was important but they were still really bigoted
As though this video wasn't perfect (and important) enough on its own, the description containing the line: "My pearls, which I bought specifically for moments that require pearl-clutching, ..." made the rest of my day, week, and month. Thank you :D
You have taught me a lot, thank you. I took a class last semester about the civil rights movement and I found out why a majority of people do not know about these things. The individual states have the right to decide how much to teach to its students. Most states do not teach even 10% of the recommended material.
Oh, it gets worse. There are only a small number of textbook publishers. Writing and publishing textbooks is resource intensive. They want to be able to sell the most number of their textbooks that they can. California buys the most textbooks, followed by Texas. In Texas, all textbooks must be approved by a board of political appointees. Not only do the textbook companies self edit for Texas preferences, the political Texas board routinely requests and gets large changes to the textbooks that are then sold to the rest of the country. So black kids in the Bronx may well be be being taught from a book revised at the request of right wing Texas appointees.
Interesting details about the reasons behind those garments holding the symbolic significance that they did. Makes perfect sense. It's certainly not the last time that respectability was used as a tool to gain more acceptance and rights. In the early aughts when marriage equality was still being proposed and fought for, a lot of more marginal people (drag queens, gogo boys, trans folks, etc.) were cast as being "those weirdos, whom we are totally not like" in a lot of discourse. A ton of trans and drag-adjacent queers were essentially told to sit down and shut up so as not to "ruin it for the rest of us". Luckily after about a decade of that apparently being enough, the next generation has come in and reinvigorated the movement!
See, it's interesting, because we are kind of seeing that again in the fight for trans rights (which maybe isn't surprising, given how many transphobic talking points are just recycled arguments against gay rights). Sadly there is still this idea floating around that if you don't match the model image of a trans person, then you're undermining the movement; and, of course, that model trans person is white, thin, and can afford a medical transition that aims to replicate a cis person's physiology as closely as possible. Still, your comment gives me hope that we'll eventually move past that too, thank you!
One of the documentaries about Stonewall mentioned the way the Mattachine Society required their activists to dress in a professional, respectable fashion, just like the Civil Rights movement so they would be taken more seriously.
I forgot to mention that I really like this video. I think we need to be aware of how organisations (and people) were flawed and bring attention to it is brilliant. I also think we need to be careful not to just fall into the trap of thinking the past was bad and we're fine now. The truth is all the same issues are still rife in society and therefore in any organisation, so we need to stay aware of this and always try and do better. - this video is a great way of helping us do that I think.
Totally had to screenshot the ending when you had your quote about the folks about town thinking you’re weird; I’ll likely print it off to add to my mug that says “When the going gets weird, the weird go pro!” That being said, these concepts are what we need today to completely round out how we view the world around us. I’m a member of the NSDAR (National Society Daughters of the American Revolution) and whip I am proud of much of what we do, as well as my lineage that connects me to a Dutch-American Ensign who fought for a cause he believed in, I and many like me are not blind to the problematic history our organization has covered through the years. What I’ve learned is this; you cannot change the past, but you can let it redirect your present away from a never-ending cycle. We are in constant change, and while some practices remain the same, the younger generations are taking steps toward inclusivity within the whole. It’s a bumpy road, but with content like yours to watch along the way, it’s definitely a worth-while journey!
There was a person lying in the sun listening to their headphones about 15 feet away-- bless them for not being to annoyed with us showing up with a camera and weird clothes 🤣
I made a necklace with a faux daguerreotype pendant with a photo of Stella Boulton and Fanny Park (two trans fems who were acquitted in one of the most famous anti-sodomy cases in the 19th century.) It’s on some purple lace and it’s probably more “history-bound” than historical jewelry, but I wore it to pride this year and am very proud of how it came out.
I graduated form a public university, Texas Woman’s University. We had several semester’s on Women’s history. It was all covered. My favorite part of those classes were when we looked at more than just the white women. The best was the Women’s rights rally where Sojourner Truth stood up and gave her, “Ain’t i a Woman.” Speech. You covered this well. Thanks.
Did you also discuss how her speech was variously altered in publication? To me that's perhaps one of the most blatant attempts to rewrite events to fit a particular narrative.
I appreciate your stand and your sharing of well researched facts. Wish more felt the same about not wanting to elevate some at the expense of others, especially since I've experienced this with Medicaid expansion which cut DME and more for disabled/elderly who can't work to fund expansion for the working poor. We all should have been lifted up together. With every social issue we should insist all be lifted up and reject the idea that lifting up only some is 'progress'
Fun fact, in the UK the suffrage colours were purple, white and green, which is now the genderqueer flag. I just love the symbolism of that. I believe it's unintentional but it definitely feels like the kind of progression I want to see.
@@matildas3177 In addition to what Cadi Leigh says - Violet was specified at the time in part because it started with the letter V, the colours were a symbolic way of spelling out 'Give Women the Vote'. This is why in the UK those colours were used to make / decorate other items such as the jewellery that SnappyDragon mentions in the video. Women were able to still give their message at events where they could not speak or where 'being political' was not possible under Victorian social codes. Also just because it is listed a synonym does not mean they have identical meanings - violet is a very specific hue of purple, to artists and Victorians this was significant
Unfortunately those colors have also been appropriated by so called "gender critical" anti trans "feminists", I've mostly seen it on Twitter. Not that they should ceded. But something to look out for if you see someone presenting themselves as. a feminist on social media ( esp.British) using it.
I always had the sensation that the ''suffragette as a feminist icon'' idea was, to put it mildly, a very stale idea to uphold when we have much more radical thinkers and activists to look up to, who were contemporary to the suffragettes or even lived before that time period. The real background is even worse than I thought, though (disappointing but not unexpected). The video explains it perfectly, though, it IS a very powerful 'brand' also in line with our own idealization of the Edwardian period (how many times I've seen people on the internet saying they have no interest in middle/working class historical fashions because ''it's ugly and boring''?). I think this whole topic is a very interesting study in ''vintage style, not vintage values'', and especially complicated since it was a ''look'' directly used to empower a specific political agenda. Great video!
Yeah, there were lots of women activists around that time doing much cooler things than the mainstream Suffragettes, and some did work with Suffragette orgs at times because it helped get things done. There's someone whose name I don't remember who used to protest in her wheelchair and found it a very effective aid for militant action!
My favourite feminist icon dress is my purple overall from the eighties. In those days, they were very popular amoung women of the second wave feminism in Germany. (die zweite Frauenbewegung) Comfy, pretty, cheap, longlasting, they allowed us to do anything anywhere. Except peeing was more complicated, but what the hell. Many were self diyed, so they offered an outlet for our creativity as well. It had many pockets, so you would not need a handbag. This left our hands free to tackle anything. The front was adorned with campaign stickers and handcrafted brooches. It was a loose fit, so our waistline did not matter. Lila Latzhose forever!
Does anyone remember Mrs. Banks in the film “Mary Poppins”? She proudly sang: “ We’re merely soldiers in petticoats! Dauntless crusaders for women’s votes!” Unfortunately, she came off as a bit of a scatterbrain in the movie. (and because she was from the upper middle class, she had the leisure time to participate in her Suffragette pursuits).
As a Cady (not a direct descendent but I am working on how I'm actually related to Elizabeth Cady Stanton).... yeah... the racism and classicism is painful but has to be acknowledged as a core part of the women's suffrage movement.
I personally think it’s smart to take inspiration from the fashion history of a movement. It reminds people that this is a generational fight, and that all the rights we enjoy today were won through the sweat and blood of those who came before us. I also think it is important to be educated on the shortcomings of past movements so that we can do better than our foremothers.
I'm a long time watcher, mid-to- long term subscriber and this video got me to join your Patreon. I should say that I come from a place where universal suffrage has been a thing since before we were an independent country, and as a political science nerd (and future Master's degree holder), the complexity of voting rights in the US is both fascinating and frustrating from my outsider's perspective.
Laundry had indeed gotten a *little* less dangerous than in medieval times, but was still a lot of work for sure! Although the flip side is that white cotton/linen clothes *could* be laundered a lot more easily than bright colors, wool, or silk that didn't do well with heavy washing.
There was a website catered to female geeks I used to frequent. The website and the community spoke big about feminist ideals. The more time I spent there, the clearer it was they didn't consider the likes of me to be a woman. A huge chunk of their "real woman" ideal depended on white woman fragility vs. male lout. Fragility outside this scope, like my spoonie existence, was unacceptable.
Thank you for making this video! I found out about the suffragette movement's racism fairly recently, but this was definitely eye-opening, if saddening. As a woc it's heartbreaking to find out how the suggragette movement treated Black people and other people of colour.
In the UK (I'm not sure if it's the same elsewhere), the Suffragists and Suffragettes were different- Suffragists campaigned peacefully with logical arguments and pamphlets (we bring up your children and run your house, we are intelligent, shouldn't we therefore have the vote?). Suffragettes chose to deliberately act out to try to force the issue (we can cause a lot of trouble despite being female so give us the vote). I've not heard the argument about the name "suffragette" being diminutive before
V, I am so proud of you for using your voice in this way. It is honestly amazing and you inspire!!! Let's break down the glass mirror of what history was.
Chiming in just past the intro to add citizens residing in US territories, like the oldest colony in the world Puerto Rico, still cannot vote in US presidential elections. Puertorriqueñes may get a cultural parade in NY every second Sunday in June but the island’s self-determination and egality continues to be ignored by the US. Thank you for highlighting the complex history of the US Suffrage movement. Oh! My favorite protest accessory is in my profile pic, the timeless pot & spoon. “PROMESA es Pobreza.” Now back to enjoy the rest of your video!
Yes and yes. As I understand it started as a reliable, affordable, and accessible percussive instrument. It’s also symbolic of the ‘Pueblo’ working class rising up to protest against the exploitative elite. Calderos also provide better impromptu protection against non-lethal projectiles than most other household items. Music has always been integral to Puerto Rican resistance movements. Back in 2019, we took our pots and pans out to the streets, including a half-a-million strong highway shutdown protest, to try and oust our island’s governor and after 12 days finally succeeded. I @@SnappyDragon and found a few along with glimpses of others with their protest pots - here you go: Vice News: twitter.com/vicenews/status/1154388005567848449?s=21&t=z5L0MdgGROFS0RcX7rM3UA Reuters: twitter.com/reuters/status/1154433629688389635?s=21&t=U3x7c_QzQgSx5OfvIJbl5A Announcement Night: twitter.com/marga_pabon/status/1153824333095030784?s=21&t=z5L0MdgGROFS0RcX7rM3UA PR Diaspora NY: twitter.com/tainaasili/status/1153673547593736193?s=21&t=U3x7c_QzQgSx5OfvIJbl5A NY GC Takeover: twitter.com/balunband/status/1153470526087737344?s=21&t=z5L0MdgGROFS0RcX7rM3UA Hope this gives you a glimpse of my preferred protest tool. Oh! I was trying to find the video that the profile pic references (a person beating a pot in the rain as riot police and military-type vehicles pass) but no luck, but I’ll try and reply here when I do.
This is an eye opener. Thank you. I'm learning so much from your channel. It's shocking how little we were actually taught about the social context of any political movement in school. We essentially learned events and dates.
My favorite protest fashion accessory? The pussyhat. It’s more recent than historical, but it still counts, right? lol I also need to find my dissent pin… RBG was more flawed than is usually credited, but I find the pin to be nicely subtle for wearing to work. And the hypocrisy of the early feminist & suffragette movement needs to be talked about more!
I've heard a lot of the same complaints against the pussy hat as were mentioned in this video: not all pussies are pink, and not all women have pussies.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg (not “RBG;” RBG is a persona we made up for T shirts) looked at the world in a specific and very legal way. Like every other “Great” she had things that were her priority. We went seriously AWOL when we tried to project an idealized version of a person who espoused all things to all people in a mutually acceptable way across a 60 year time period. The work Bader Ginsburg did on the equal protection clause was groundbreaking - of course white women benefited more, because the people on the top and middle almost always benefit more from incremental advances. It sucks, but you have to keep pushing to pull the next group along. The person who does the first isn’t usually the one who does the second but someone still has to wedge the door to start. This is how civil rights campaigns work. Bader Ginsburg laid the foundations. She made it very clear that much work remained to be done. She might have blazed a path, but someone else has to continue to widen it. In an unfortunate precedent, Thurgood Marshall *retired* and was replaced by Clarence Thomas. Nobody is talking about how we wouldn’t have Clarence Thomas if he could have held off 6 more months to retire. Even in this, we hold women to an impossible standard.
I think the worst part about the Suffragette movement being idolised is that Susan B. Anthony, and other women in that time, are credited in school textbooks and curriculum that they were big supporters of the Black suffrage movement and they were banded together in the fight, rather than what history tells us and what you're covering here. Granted I got my schooling from Florida, but the teacher I had at the time was from Ireland, so I don't think she had a bias.
Great video. The best example I can recall of weaponizing 'respectability' to help others... I also can't find anymore. Briefly, back around 2010-2012, there was a guy who kept appearing in protest photos. He was an aggressively "ordinary, respectable" guy - middle-aged, bald, white, wearing a buttondown and walking his bike. He looked like any average middle-class commuter - but he kept getting in between protesters and the police, recognizing that because of his nonthreatening, respectable appearance, it would look REALLY BAD in photos if he were hurt (say, by tear gas). By pointedly getting in the way, he was protecting everyone nearby, and he appeared in a ton of photos because he just kept doing it - and because of social tropes, he was probably more effective in that role than most people would be.
absolutely fascinating topic I wouldn’t have ever even thought to learn about otherwise. I appreciate how in depth you go into the social context and symbolism of clothes. In general how much you talk about social justice intersection to clothes is so refreshing. Your channel is a gem
Very nicely put To answer your question, the political fashion statement I remember comes from recent history: the safety pin. A side note/hopefully polite inquiry: Unfortunately, I am not always great at implication or innuendo, or, sadly, the application of information just given. Was the answer to the implied quiz about gold provided in the fleeting link, immediately before it was given?
I put reference names (not links, TH-cam won't let me include those) to papers and blog posts and such in the corner when I talk about specific info. You can always pause the video to look up the title of something!
I'm not a patron, so I don't know if this is on the annotated bibliography or not, but Antoinette M. Burton's "The White Woman's Burden: British Feminists and the "Indian Woman," 1865-1915" (in Western Women and Imperialism: Complicity and Resistance, edited by Nupur Chaudhuri and Margaret Strobel) gives a really fascinating analysis of British feminism, its (often explicit) colonial underpinnings, and the way gender roles were weaponized. Essentially, women deserve the vote because who better than them to safeguard the colonial social order? Highly recommend. It's a great reminder to why non-intersectional feminism is its own kind of tyranny-by buying in, you're campaigning for the right to oppress.
LOVE this recommendation! I'm excited to read it; I kept coming across sources saying "oh the UK suffragettes were racism-free!" when that was certainly not the case.
@@SnappyDragon It's an interesting read! From what I remember, a main point of the article is that British feminists constructed and used the idea of an "Indian Woman" and her plight to argue that the colonial state was failing said Indian women, so the solution was to give British women more power in colonial government (thus, suffrage). I don't remember how in-depth it went into bigoted attitudes, but my primary impression was that the movement was detached from any real Indian women's rights activists, though I remember some remarks on their theme of "why should not-white men get the vote before good white women?"
Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for putting this information out there (again, some more) ! The deeper stories behind the movement and its symbols is not discussed enough. Fav pat symbol that comes first to mind is the Safety Pin from the British Punk movement (yes, more than just music or fashion).
Thanks for talking about the complicated and often ugly history of the suffragist movement in the US. When I started reading about it a few years ago, I was struck by how easily women were divided against each other: some white suffragists were convinced that they should exclude women of color (and others) who had fought for the vote from the "mainstream" movement. Meanwhile, wealthier women who lived lives of comfort that were unimaginable to almost everyone else (what we would deem the 1% today) were convinced that the best way to retain the privileges afforded to them was to keep all women disenfranchised. Instead of helping and supporting each other, they tried to keep each other down. How so many women became so convinced that power, privilege, and the right to vote were a zero-sum game baffles me. Then again, perhaps things haven't changed all that much, have they? Sigh.
I think what it came down to for the Southern white suffragettes (and probably a lot of white feminists today, though it's more covert) is wanting more power within an oppressive system rather than actually wanting to end oppression.
Historical icons have a context. When our time is past, we will need to be understood in our own context aswell. Future generations will call out our own fallings, and we certainly have 'em. We cant see them now, sure, because they seem normal and acceptable stuff to us in this very moment. So yeah, of course we have to do better, but we can take what inspired us, without ignoring what was clearly wrong, but without trying to evaluate the past by current standards. We are humans, we will always fuck up. We will also endure and grow better with every generation. That's us.
Another excellent lesson about and from history! It’s often scary how much modern day society reflects history. With this being an ugly example, I didn’t know about. Thanks V!
Thaky V, I admit that wasn't entirely clear to me. I kind of expected they ignored women of color, but actively pushing them out and down is even worse. :(
Thank you for this. My mom said that she was going to a Democratic women's fundraiser where women were encouraged to wear white in honor of you-know-who. I sent her this video because we are descended from immigrants that suffragettes loathed.
I've been a feminist since the late 1960s, and for awhile -- around the 1990s especially, I think -- I was worried that feminism might disappear. It was partly because so many younger women thought "feminist" meant something like "ugly, self-loathing man-hater", and partly because it seemed to be assumed that women are equal now, so feminism is no longer necessary. I'm so glad to find that that worry was largely unfounded and there are still many people like you who care deeply about not only women's rights but the rights of other disadvantaged groups too. Another point about the suffragists, BTW, is that they had one and only one cause: suffrage for (white) women. Once that was achieved, their movement no longer had any reason to exist.
I remember a lot of those attitudes from when I was a kid in the 90s! And, the versions of "feminism" I was raised around were both very white and very backwards, lots of shaming women for "girly" things. I think growing up around that is *why* I have the attitudes I do today.
I feel you can't separate the masculinization of the Bloomer suit from the fact that it was blatantly inspired by the contemporary dress of women in the Middle East and North Africa (also the complexities of our historic and traditional dress being seen as backwards and strange when we do it by many white feminists, while being lauded as progressive when white women take the exact same idea for themselves)
There are few people I've heard speak on this topic that have managed to balance the complexity of these past narratives with modern intersectional feminism, it's such a well produced piece of work. I'm very glad to have found your channel. It's sort of horribly historically appropriate in this context to see the 'gender critical' brigade trying to co-opt Suffragette colours as a symbol of their TERF-status. Which reminds me, the section you did on stores selling Suffragette coloured items completely reminded me of modern rainbow capitalism vibes.
@@SnappyDragon oh, thank you. I suspect (based on no research whatsoever) that there would have been home produced Suffragette items and sympathetic shops selling things and then department stores selling them to coin in on the movement with just enough plausible deniability. I recall a mention of shops on Oxford Street (big shopping street in London, England) having women's fashions with Suffragette colours in evidence but I've no idea where the reference is from.
@@ragnkja actually that is true of many main roads in England since they are hundreds of years old, many started in the Roman era (thousands of years old) and were originally. "the road to London. " the road to Oxford" 🤓
I can't speak for V, but it feels to me like Atwood kind of took the historical experiences of Black, Native & other women & centered educated/middle class white women's fears of being treated like breeding stock.
I understand a lot of the points you were making about this movement and them very valid. However I think there might be flaw in how your interoperating it. This mainly coming from your idea that they should have used their position to help other causes that presented them with no benefit and could have been even detrimental to thier primarily goal of securing themselves the vote alongside other rights. Their entire strategy revolving around making thier desired change in society not appear extremely radical to wider society. So pushing simultaneously for other ,at the time, radical movements would have broken this narrative potentally leaving them with nothing. It's one thing to help others without benefiting when your in a secure position but an entirely different thing when you have everything you've worked for to loose. Much like on an airplane, put your own oxygen mask on first the you can help others. As it's better for one to survive than to have all die.
I am so glad I found your channel. History is so nuanced and lots of people like to look at it with a black and white perspective while it's actually a shade of grey. While I am very thankful that my right to vote wouldn't happen if it weren't for the suffragettes, it is also important to state that "votes for women" were only given to white women and black women weren't given that right until 1964. I am much more interested in celebrating and learning from the black women in the suffragette movement such as Ida B Wells and Sojourner Truth than seeing Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B Anthony being lauded as "heroes for women" even though they were only for white women or in their sugar-coated words, "respectable women"
I hate this, but not because I think you're wrong, but because I looked up to these women. Nothing worse than finding out your heroes did despicable things. I don't have words for how heavy this makes my heart.
It's hard to find any historical movement without issues and it seems a pity to throw away an effective tool like the white suffragette dress. What would you think of a suffragette outfit updated with colored sashes or accessories referencing modern African-American/LGBTQ/trans movements?
I'm white, so I think it's not up to me if BIPOC want to reclaim some of this symbolism. It also carries very different messaging when it's used in that context! But the vast majority of historical costumers I've seen wearing Suffragette costumes are also white, which isn't a great look.
I can easily look back onto the Black Panther Party or the branches of Act Up ran by non-white women and see no fault But I think the real question is, why do you think protesting is a fashion show?
This was brilliant! I started doing research about this topic as it relates to Canadian history and found many of the same conclusions (obviously). So interesting and well done!
Such a good reminder of how narrative building and some nasty compromises (or straight up alliances) built up so many of our movements. We still see this all the time today.
I agree that in retrospect, the way the 19th Amendment was passed looks really bad, and had the intended bad results. But I wonder if voting rights would ever have been expanded at all past white men, if your proposed alliance of all the unenfranchised took up the cause at that time. After all, it was all white male legislatures at that time who had to agree to give women the vote. There were no other people in legislatures who were female or Black who could have voted for it. Power is never just given up. We had people shot in the past few years trying to demonstrate for the end of police violence. After Obama got elected, many of us looked optimistically forward to an ever-expanding age of progress and social inclusion. Now I realize my old age will be just one never-ending fight to hang onto the rights granted in the 20th Century. Any woman or person of color who supports these fascists is my enemy, as well as men who do so. It disturbs me so much to see the opportunists who take up Republicanism as a way to power, against the interests of the people who resemble them. They all deserve the Herman Cain Award.
Prior to the 15th amendment bust-up there were a lot of people working for both abolition and women's rights. This is instructive because I think we see this so much on the left now. People from marginalized groups who are fighting for their lives, just tearing strips off each other. The people in power are the ones that benefit from this discord.
Come for the great anesthetics, stay for the exceptional social commentary. I'm really glad this topic has a video, I don't remember ever really hearing anything covering these problems (though I knew quite a few historical "feminists" were pretty terrible people).
Holy ****.😳 You just confirmed and verbalized those nagging thoughts I've carried with me for decades. You are one intelligent UPPITY woman. TAKE A BOW 💐🌷🌹🌺🏅🏅🏅
I wish there was a super thumbs up. I mean, I have a handful of TH-camrs I thumbs up on faith right away (you included), and then almost invariably I want to thumbs it up because of the things you say and I find I already have!
So hey I know I'm eight months late and also this is literally the first video I've watched so I'm a total outsider here, but I thought you (collective) might want to know that as someone with some pretty serious audio processing issues that I'm four and a half minutes in, and even with the wonderful, appropriately punctuated CC (THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THAT! IT'S SO IMPORTANT!) I'm having a lot of trouble following what our host is saying because of the background music. It's at a level where it's really blending with her voice, and the higher bell-like tones in particular are terribly distracting. The censoring bleep is also pretty painfully loud and really doesn't need to be. I wouldn't normally say anything and this should NOT be taken in any fashion as a dig at the video itself, just to be clear here. There's just a vibe that this is the kind of user experience feedback you'd be interested to hear, so I thought I'd share. This is an excellent watch (and yes, I kept watching past the four minute mark, ha) and I really appreciate the clear and unambiguous way you laid out the information. Absolutely mashed the subscribe button.
On the topic of manipulating narratives for progressive ends, I feel like the notion of 'no ethical propaganda under supremacy' - it becomes necessary for survival until the system itself becomes less predatory and manipulative. Propaganda that maintains/expands the present power system could be considered comparable to "punching down" in comedy, propaganda that seeks to protect against being crushed by that system is "punching up" by comparison
This is super interesting to think about! The suffragettes were basically doing something that's become standard for a lot of organizations; creating a memorable set of symbols and stories that people would associate with their cause. I don't think that's an inherently good or evil strategy, because it totally depends on what you use it for.
@@SnappyDragon I agree - they didn't create the system that paid more attention to "white women tears", the problem lies in their choice not to unify but to exclude and to advance a narrow cause by throwing potential allies under the bus
In both of the German early Feminist movements (socialist, and bourgois), prominent Jewish Women activists were leading the Charge from the beginning. The "Jüdischer Frauenbund" (Jewish Women´s organization) was founded in 1904, shortly after the protestant and catholic women´s organizations. All women´s organizations soon joined in the "Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine" (Association of German Women´s Organizations) . The JFB (Jewish Women´s organization) became a member of the BDF "Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine" ( Association of German Women´s Organizations) in 1907. The BDF was very influential and counted over a million members. It was active until they were dissolved by the Nazis in 1933. I don´t claim Jewish women would never encounter antisemitism before WW I, but not enough to harm their position or their effect on society. But in the years before WWI, Germany was a different country. It was way less antisemitic than it became later. It was one of the countries that Jews would seek refuge in, not one they sought refuge from. That´s one of the reasons German jews fought so patrioticly for their country in WW I and took such a long time to realize the growing danger from the Nazis. A total flip of acceptance in society within just 2 decades. (Reminded me of the break of social norms by Trump, when he kidnapped refugee children and put them in cages. Nobody would ever have expected the US to commit such crimes. It was a shock.) The brutal murder of Rosa Luxemburg in 1919 had already been forshadowed by mysogynistic and antisemitic threats to her life. One of her last texts mentions the terrible consequences she expected to unfold if she and her comrades could not defeat the nationalist and military elite. She predicted that the next catastrophe would soon follow, if Germany could not get rid of this powerful militaristic group, because of their cruel disrespect of human life. And so it did.
Fantastic video! Can I just express gratitude for the community you've created? Like, I have to rewatch the video because I got squirreled away in the comments in the best way possible.
Your videos are always so well researched, informative and concise. Thank you for that. I wonder if it would be more effective to be inviting toward people who aren't already persuaded to agree with you rather than to ask them to leave. Just wondering if that's a consideration you made before posting.
I like to shoo people back to their own pages if they want to complain-- makes less work cleaning up the comments section and keeps it a nice place for my viewers.
New viewer here and this is the first video I watched! Great job! I do have a question though: does this mean that when making historical costumes we should avoid pieces like lingerie dresses because of how they were used at the time by those who only championed their own causes? (Meaning racist, classist white women) Because like you acknowledged, white/light colored clothing, especially lingerie dresses, was popular for everyone, including black women and other women of color. Lingerie dresses have always been one of my favorite pieces because of their frilly, fluffy aesthetic but this video educated me on the history of the dress I wasn’t aware of. I haven’t made any yet but I don’t want to create/wear something that had horrible racist, classist, phobic connotations. Sorry for the long comment, and I love your content!
Context here is going to be your best friend. White dresses were indeed popular for everyone, but in some settings or outfits or actions they might take on additional layers of meaning (like when worn with the Suffragette sash). Kind of like how mid-19thC fashion was everyone's fashion, but becomes disrespectful when worn for fun at a plantation.
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Did you hear about the Jewish community in Florida. They are using religious freedom against the ban. They are suing the state government saying it is against their religious freedoms to have this ban. Which from what I know about Jewish religious law it totally is. I am so proud and hope that the Muslim community will follow.
I did! And some fascinating stuff about organizations of Jewish women helping with abortion access pre-Roe. This country at large needs reminding that "religious freedom" means freedom for more than just Christians.
innocent question from the UK. what are you referring to as "the ban"?
@@rosiehoy4736 the leaked supreme justice decision to reverse Roe vs Wade would essentially ban aportion in the USA if it went ahead.
@@rosiehoy4736 against abortion.
@@SnappyDragon I mean, they never intended for "religion" to mean anything other than Christianity, tbh. It's obvious to see that it phased from "this is the only religion, right?" to "let's just keep saying 'religion' because it'll sound bad for PR if we just say 'Christianity'" seamlessly.
The colours used by the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) in the UK were actually Green, White and VIOLET - I know this seems picky of me to bring up, but they stood for something in particular - the first letters match to 'Give Women the Vote' as well as the colours having pre-established meanings Violet represents loyalty and dignity, white for purity, and green for hope.
The suffragette movement here was not confined to the WSPU / Pankhursts. One of the Pankhurst daughters, Sylvia, had real issues with the classest nature of her mothers group so left and moved to the Eastend of London (a very working class area) and lived and worked with the women there. She was know to the women she worked with as 'our Sylvie' There was also the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (an organisation that is still running under the name of The Fawcett Society) which courted much less controversy because it restricted itself to legal actions. However did most of the practical leg work of research, briefings, legal cases. Both were pivotal
The British movement had big problems with class, nationalism, and racism - the WSPU even suspended activities during the Great War/WW1 and many of its leaders switched to giving out white feathers to men who did not enlist (which is a pretty gruesome use of class privilege to guilt/pressure working class men into almost certain death)
Much is made of the forced feedings and brutality that British suffragettes endured, and while this is true the upper class women were often spared the worst of it were as the working class suffragettes took the brunt of it.
On a more fun not - The WSPU actually had an all female body guard unit with martial arts training - that's well worth a look!
Thank you for adding this! Being American I don't have as much context about the UK movement. I wish I'd come across the acrostic meaning while researching for this video, it would have been really useful to hone in on how switching to gold in the US didn't change the acrostic and what that says about its symbolism.
Omg more about this female body guard unit please 😍
@@hi-ve1cw Its a debatable issue given the difference in numbers of the 2 classes . Personally I don't think arguing about who had it worst in the trenches is particularly pertinent. The fact that there are so many villages across the country where no-one came home paired with the actions of upper-class suffragettes using both their class privileges and their very specific gender roles to pressure young men into signing up is a horrific way to behave, and the cost was unarguably much too high and never paid by the suffragette the question.
The green/gold, white, and violet also played on the acrostic for Give Women the Vote - G for either green or gold, W for white, and V for violet. This sort of acrostic play had become popular during the Georgian period in jewelry. For example, there are extant brooches and such containing a bar of ruby, emerald, garnet, amethyst, ruby, and diamond to spell REGARD.
thanks for the extra context, that's really cool!
That's so cool! Now I sort of want a brooch that spells out "fuck"
@@bettievw Fluorite, Unakite, Carnelian, Kornerupine
I briefly* went to an all-girls boarding school that was founded in 1911 and the school colors were very specifically purple and yellow to reflect the women's suffrage colors...graduates wore white dresses for commencement. It's so strange to think about how even a century+ later these sorts of things are still showing up in our modern world.
*I only attended a year there; it was not a good fit for a number of reasons.
That is *exactly* the sort of thing I made this video to get people thinking about! Especially when we see those colors also popping up on webpages about the centennial of the 19th amendment.
I attended an all-girls Catholic high school and wore a white floor-length dress for graduation - imagine a stage with 500 of us. THAT WAS THE FIRST DRESS I MADE !!! I checked the images for their 2022 ceremony; the graduates still wear white. You make a very good point that the tradition may have begun with the suffragettes.
Ah white dresses, lovely…at least that will match the white feathers the suffragettes were handing out to 13 year old boys during WW1…. Good old equality 🤡🤡s
for a second i thought you went to my school, but we also had purple and yellow colors and wore white dresses at graduation... but my school was founded in 1900.
@@BelleChanson0717 St Paul’s Girls’ School (London)?
V, hearing you speak up and speak out about this was something I didnt know how much I needed to hear. I do indeed plan to have a lovely Juneteenth, thank you.
Aww, thank you so much!
I think my personal favorite protest fashion, if you can call it that, is the afro. It always will be. A radical and incredibly loud way of expressing blackness, especially black femininity.
Hear hear!
I have been researching clothing protest of athletes dressing in more covering attire to protest sexualizing in sports. Also the topless protests for topless equality. That's how this video is relevant and interesting to me.
Oh goodness, the sports thing! The uniform requirements are so absurd.
And also butch women. The whole butch issue has some interesting parallels to the suffragists.
I haven't heard about the topless protests - but there must be lots of men who would go to offer their - um - support! In the old days they would have grinned at the suffragette rallying cry : 'Up with skirts! Down with pants!'
The trouble in the U.k. was working class women (which black people largely fell into at that time) didnt have the time or oppertunity to participate in protests. It was mainly middle class women who took part. If an unsympathetic employer discovered you were a suffragette you could simply be dismissed from employment. Middle class women could do as they pleased.
I'd love to read more about this, if you have any references? I had read that the UK movement, while largely led by upper- and middle-class women, tried to be accessible to working women who did a lot of the messier legwork and took a lot of the harsher consequences for it.
@@SnappyDragon on the contrary. Their whole aim was to get arrested to cause as much trouble as possible,and they frequently used assumed names and disguises so that their aristocratic backgrounds wouldnt cause the judges to be lenient in sentencing. And of course these were the women who starved themselves and were subjected to force feeding. A good source of information is a book titled The Militant Suffragettes. I dont have the author's name to hand but if I can find my copy I will let you know.
Antonia Raeburn
To be honest, it's still the same now. Ask any minimum/hourly wage worker if they could really afford to take one or a few days off to travel to DC for a march or even local marches. Travel/lodging/food costs alone are killers. That's not even taking into consideration the risk of losing your job if you work for a more conservative company. The bosses can always find something with your work to give cause for firing. It's only retaliation if you can prove it to the labor board.
@@SnappyDragon In Germany, the feminist movement was split into the workers movement and the middle class women´s movement. The worker´s movement (Social Democrats, socialists, unions, social workers and sometimes charity ladies) and the middle class women´s movement. They rarely cooperated. The working class acted on the assumption that in order to liberate women, capitalism has to be overthrown first. Only a socialist society would allow all women to be free.This idea was explained in the book "Die Frau und der Sozialismus" by August Bebel. Famous representatives were Rosa Luxemburg and Clara Zetkin.
The other wing (Die erste Bürgerliche Frauenbewegung) wanted direct action right away, and not wait for their freedom to come "after the revolution".
As someone raised in Kansas, the golden sunflower thing is fascinating and also very on brand. For a state that prides itself so much for being a Free State during the Civil War that there is a mural of John Brown standing on the corpse of a confederate soldier in the state capital, casual racism is practically a way of life (especially in the rural parts like where I’m from).
Yeah. As someone also born/raised/currently resides in kansas, it’s shocking how long i went before understanding why John Brown has that mural. I’m glad it’s as iconic as it was bc i feel like people would like to forget any and all rebellions, no matter their end goal.
I've grown up in England, and can remember a lot of casual racism in the 60s and 70s. A popular TV program , 'Till Death Us do Part.', featured a family where the 'Man of the House', Alf Garnett was very racist. There were complaints about his bad language - offending words being 'bloody, bleedin' or Godamn ', rather than ;'N*g nogs or other racist terms. Ideas of white supremacy pre-dated the days when the majority of Britons would be likely to meet a black person. Up to the 20th Century, pale skin, especially for women was considered beautiful. It was a sign of wealth of not having to toil in the fields.
In the old age black was not counted fair,
Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name; (William Shakespeare - Sonnet 127) The use of 'fair' for beautiful might be falling out of use - but not fair for just - therefore unfair as the opposite could be dark? Other discriminatory language - 'right means correct as well as a position - and the preposterous idea that some children use their 'wrong' hand for writing.
Here for fashion. I stayed for the social awareness and i love you for your determination to educate. ❤️Thank you😊
“Until we are all of us free, we are none of us free.” If only more people remember that. There's so much exclusion still, even in the present days. If community excludes anyone, it's not community anymore. :(
I’m a huge fan of the barets and leather jackets of the black Panther party!
Not only did they provide for their community while championing black caused, but the goth in me just loves the aesthetic
I love that look so much! So powerful.
There are entire forests of books and miles of film about the extremely complex role of women in the Black Panther Party. How women were treated by the male leadership while the women did the heavy community lifting comes right out of the patriarchy playbook. There is a lot of material, including a lot on the idea and image of women as revolutionaries.
ugh, while I did not know this I am utterly unsurprised. *sigh* far too many people only care about their own rights and privileges and not the humanity of others.
I agree one hundred percent that if a person's feminism isn't intersectional it's BS.
Yup!
And TERFs are no feminists either!
hear hear! No TERFs on my turf.
Don't forget those who are committed and compassionate. ❤️🌹
@@SnappyDragon oh, amen!! terfs are the worst. some of the dearest, sweetest, gentlest, most lovely people i know are trans women. and they're scared for their lives right now. mama doctor jones said it best: trans men are men, trans women are women, and trans people are people.
God forbid an oppressed group focus on themselves instead of putting themselves on the back burner in order to nanny the entire world.
Do you also criticize Black people for caring about anti-black racism or Jews for being focused on antisemitism? Or do you only expect women to sacrifice their interests in order to do physical, emotional, and activist labor for everyone else?
Canada has "the famous five" who challenged the court that women were "persons" under the law. They are just as problematic, racists, bigots and into eugenics. Especially now with the residential school issues and unmarked graves of the native children...... in the thousands. Oh and native women and men didn't get the vote until the 60s. Because native peoples weren't Canadian citizens....
History is difficult. The cannon fodder in the fight for equality is the ones with the most power, money and education. This happened in the 60s too. And in the 80s with LGBTQ rights. They get in and change the laws then the next group moves in. In politics you go with what will win. My mother, my grandfather were both into politics. My mother was more pragmatic than my grandfather. She joined the canadian liberal party and worked for them because she said she wanted to influence the winners even though her personal leanings were much farther left.
Basically politics is dirty.
A note on privilege. I worked on the ERA in 2016. Too many white men and more than a few white women, including some in our own families, told us we were asking for too much. Some black women were very pointed that we weren’t doing enough. We won and I still went home and sobbed *in private* because being ground down on all sides left me wondering how to do this kind of work surrounded by hostile people on all sides. Maybe ironically, as a group, black male legislators were the only ones not telling us we were wrong. I would have died a madwoman after doing that over and over and losing for 60 years like Anthony did. Alice Paul also flawed, who was Uber-focused on getting that constitutional amendment came to a movement already more than 50 years old.
I don’t cosplay history, but I am a student of the suffrage movement. It involved thousands of women across more than 70 very tumultuous years doing things both big and small. There are stories about Ida B Wells as a suffragist that can only be found in the Chicago Defender. She was right there with the white suffragists, but the white papers ignored her. I am sure there are many other stories that have been lost to history. Like in almost all things, we can and do need to do better than the past, but remember they are imperfect people, with all the flaw and foibles of humanity and their own cultural limitations, not statues.
George Washington and Thomas Jefferson got to own actual human beings and are on our money, have holidays and states named after the and statue honoring them? Women like Susan B Anthony weren’t perfect but still light years ahead of where her society was in general. We spend far more ink talking about how Alice Paul and Susan B Anthony were racist-classists than criticizing the men running a country who *owned other human beings*
Again, I think suffragette cosplay is for amateurs, but I feel like these kind of takes include some internalized misogyny when we hold only historical women to today’s standards.
kinda of an random innuendo, but I love that in Anne with an E they make VERY CLEAR that the suffragetes were racists, classist and down right cruel, like, sure their work was important but they were still really bigoted
I *really* enjoy that show :D
@@SnappyDragon is freaking amazing
As though this video wasn't perfect (and important) enough on its own, the description containing the line: "My pearls, which I bought specifically for moments that require pearl-clutching, ..." made the rest of my day, week, and month. Thank you :D
A friend suggested it months ago and I think it shall be a regular feature of the channel from now on :D
@@SnappyDragon love that!
You have taught me a lot, thank you. I took a class last semester about the civil rights movement and I found out why a majority of people do not know about these things. The individual states have the right to decide how much to teach to its students. Most states do not teach even 10% of the recommended material.
Aww, thank you! If you're learning more from me than from a civil rights class, that really does say a lot about the quality of our education system.
Oh, it gets worse. There are only a small number of textbook publishers. Writing and publishing textbooks is resource intensive. They want to be able to sell the most number of their textbooks that they can. California buys the most textbooks, followed by Texas. In Texas, all textbooks must be approved by a board of political appointees. Not only do the textbook companies self edit for Texas preferences, the political Texas board routinely requests and gets large changes to the textbooks that are then sold to the rest of the country. So black kids in the Bronx may well be be being taught from a book revised at the request of right wing Texas appointees.
Interesting details about the reasons behind those garments holding the symbolic significance that they did. Makes perfect sense.
It's certainly not the last time that respectability was used as a tool to gain more acceptance and rights. In the early aughts when marriage equality was still being proposed and fought for, a lot of more marginal people (drag queens, gogo boys, trans folks, etc.) were cast as being "those weirdos, whom we are totally not like" in a lot of discourse. A ton of trans and drag-adjacent queers were essentially told to sit down and shut up so as not to "ruin it for the rest of us". Luckily after about a decade of that apparently being enough, the next generation has come in and reinvigorated the movement!
Respectability politics strikes again 😵
See, it's interesting, because we are kind of seeing that again in the fight for trans rights (which maybe isn't surprising, given how many transphobic talking points are just recycled arguments against gay rights). Sadly there is still this idea floating around that if you don't match the model image of a trans person, then you're undermining the movement; and, of course, that model trans person is white, thin, and can afford a medical transition that aims to replicate a cis person's physiology as closely as possible. Still, your comment gives me hope that we'll eventually move past that too, thank you!
One of the documentaries about Stonewall mentioned the way the Mattachine Society required their activists to dress in a professional, respectable fashion, just like the Civil Rights movement so they would be taken more seriously.
I forgot to mention that I really like this video. I think we need to be aware of how organisations (and people) were flawed and bring attention to it is brilliant. I also think we need to be careful not to just fall into the trap of thinking the past was bad and we're fine now. The truth is all the same issues are still rife in society and therefore in any organisation, so we need to stay aware of this and always try and do better. - this video is a great way of helping us do that I think.
Exactly! The whole point of studying the past is to understand how it connects to the present and future.
THIS.
👏👏👏
Totally had to screenshot the ending when you had your quote about the folks about town thinking you’re weird; I’ll likely print it off to add to my mug that says “When the going gets weird, the weird go pro!”
That being said, these concepts are what we need today to completely round out how we view the world around us. I’m a member of the NSDAR (National Society Daughters of the American Revolution) and whip I am proud of much of what we do, as well as my lineage that connects me to a Dutch-American Ensign who fought for a cause he believed in, I and many like me are not blind to the problematic history our organization has covered through the years. What I’ve learned is this; you cannot change the past, but you can let it redirect your present away from a never-ending cycle. We are in constant change, and while some practices remain the same, the younger generations are taking steps toward inclusivity within the whole. It’s a bumpy road, but with content like yours to watch along the way, it’s definitely a worth-while journey!
There was a person lying in the sun listening to their headphones about 15 feet away-- bless them for not being to annoyed with us showing up with a camera and weird clothes 🤣
@@SnappyDragon if they’re anything like me, they were enjoying the show!
I made a necklace with a faux daguerreotype pendant with a photo of Stella Boulton and Fanny Park (two trans fems who were acquitted in one of the most famous anti-sodomy cases in the 19th century.) It’s on some purple lace and it’s probably more “history-bound” than historical jewelry, but I wore it to pride this year and am very proud of how it came out.
I graduated form a public university, Texas Woman’s University.
We had several semester’s on Women’s history.
It was all covered.
My favorite part of those classes were when we looked at more than just the white women.
The best was the Women’s rights rally where Sojourner Truth stood up and gave her, “Ain’t i a Woman.” Speech.
You covered this well. Thanks.
Did you also discuss how her speech was variously altered in publication? To me that's perhaps one of the most blatant attempts to rewrite events to fit a particular narrative.
I've seen the original text vs. the altered version and WOW was that one loaded transcription!
Yes. It was altered. We studied both.
I appreciate your stand and your sharing of well researched facts. Wish more felt the same about not wanting to elevate some at the expense of others, especially since I've experienced this with Medicaid expansion which cut DME and more for disabled/elderly who can't work to fund expansion for the working poor. We all should have been lifted up together. With every social issue we should insist all be lifted up and reject the idea that lifting up only some is 'progress'
We should certainly reject the idea that progress can be made by pushing some down in order to lift others up.
Right you are! What you described isn't progress, it's just another way to divide and conquer.
"My feminism will be intersectional, or my feminism will be bull..." *chef's kiss* I love how you use your platform.
Fun fact, in the UK the suffrage colours were purple, white and green, which is now the genderqueer flag.
I just love the symbolism of that. I believe it's unintentional but it definitely feels like the kind of progression I want to see.
It was violet not purple :)
@@kittling5427 violet is a shade of purple, and it also doubles as a synonym for purple :)
@@matildas3177 But as we are discussing History it is a recorded fact the the colour was described as Violet and that had a unique meaning at the time
@@matildas3177 In addition to what Cadi Leigh says - Violet was specified at the time in part because it started with the letter V, the colours were a symbolic way of spelling out 'Give Women the Vote'. This is why in the UK those colours were used to make / decorate other items such as the jewellery that SnappyDragon mentions in the video. Women were able to still give their message at events where they could not speak or where 'being political' was not possible under Victorian social codes.
Also just because it is listed a synonym does not mean they have identical meanings - violet is a very specific hue of purple, to artists and Victorians this was significant
Unfortunately those colors have also been appropriated by so called "gender critical" anti trans "feminists", I've mostly seen it on Twitter. Not that they should ceded. But something to look out for if you see someone presenting themselves as. a feminist on social media ( esp.British) using it.
I always had the sensation that the ''suffragette as a feminist icon'' idea was, to put it mildly, a very stale idea to uphold when we have much more radical thinkers and activists to look up to, who were contemporary to the suffragettes or even lived before that time period. The real background is even worse than I thought, though (disappointing but not unexpected).
The video explains it perfectly, though, it IS a very powerful 'brand' also in line with our own idealization of the Edwardian period (how many times I've seen people on the internet saying they have no interest in middle/working class historical fashions because ''it's ugly and boring''?). I think this whole topic is a very interesting study in ''vintage style, not vintage values'', and especially complicated since it was a ''look'' directly used to empower a specific political agenda. Great video!
Yeah, there were lots of women activists around that time doing much cooler things than the mainstream Suffragettes, and some did work with Suffragette orgs at times because it helped get things done. There's someone whose name I don't remember who used to protest in her wheelchair and found it a very effective aid for militant action!
@@SnappyDragon I think Rosa May Billinghurst is who you are thinking of!
My favourite feminist icon dress is my purple overall from the eighties. In those days, they were very popular amoung women of the second wave feminism in Germany. (die zweite Frauenbewegung) Comfy, pretty, cheap, longlasting, they allowed us to do anything anywhere. Except peeing was more complicated, but what the hell. Many were self diyed, so they offered an outlet for our creativity as well. It had many pockets, so you would not need a handbag. This left our hands free to tackle anything. The front was adorned with campaign stickers and handcrafted brooches. It was a loose fit, so our waistline did not matter. Lila Latzhose forever!
Love it!
Does anyone remember Mrs. Banks in the film “Mary Poppins”? She proudly sang: “ We’re merely soldiers in petticoats! Dauntless crusaders for women’s votes!” Unfortunately, she came off as a bit of a scatterbrain in the movie. (and because she was from the upper middle class, she had the leisure time to participate in her Suffragette pursuits).
I mean, considering the moral of that film was that she needed to give up protesting and focus on being a mother . . .
Exactly!
As a Cady (not a direct descendent but I am working on how I'm actually related to Elizabeth Cady Stanton).... yeah... the racism and classicism is painful but has to be acknowledged as a core part of the women's suffrage movement.
I personally think it’s smart to take inspiration from the fashion history of a movement. It reminds people that this is a generational fight, and that all the rights we enjoy today were won through the sweat and blood of those who came before us. I also think it is important to be educated on the shortcomings of past movements so that we can do better than our foremothers.
I'm a long time watcher, mid-to- long term subscriber and this video got me to join your Patreon.
I should say that I come from a place where universal suffrage has been a thing since before we were an independent country, and as a political science nerd (and future Master's degree holder), the complexity of voting rights in the US is both fascinating and frustrating from my outsider's perspective.
Welcome to the Patreon! There's a large pile of research notes awaiting you 💚
Also, with the work involved in laundering them, it relied on class exploitation too. So many awkward intersections at work
Laundry had indeed gotten a *little* less dangerous than in medieval times, but was still a lot of work for sure! Although the flip side is that white cotton/linen clothes *could* be laundered a lot more easily than bright colors, wool, or silk that didn't do well with heavy washing.
And the ironing and starching ....
There was a website catered to female geeks I used to frequent. The website and the community spoke big about feminist ideals. The more time I spent there, the clearer it was they didn't consider the likes of me to be a woman. A huge chunk of their "real woman" ideal depended on white woman fragility vs. male lout. Fragility outside this scope, like my spoonie existence, was unacceptable.
How disappointing of them!
Thank you for making this video! I found out about the suffragette movement's racism fairly recently, but this was definitely eye-opening, if saddening. As a woc it's heartbreaking to find out how the suggragette movement treated Black people and other people of colour.
In the UK (I'm not sure if it's the same elsewhere), the Suffragists and Suffragettes were different- Suffragists campaigned peacefully with logical arguments and pamphlets (we bring up your children and run your house, we are intelligent, shouldn't we therefore have the vote?). Suffragettes chose to deliberately act out to try to force the issue (we can cause a lot of trouble despite being female so give us the vote). I've not heard the argument about the name "suffragette" being diminutive before
@@rachelboughen6317 "suffragette" was meant to be derogatory/dismissive but they chose to wear it with pride.
Yessss!! This video was absolutely everything I hoped it would be, and I’m SO pumped for your video with Ora 💙💙💙
Thank you! I'm super excited, we've had a ton of fun planning it.
You had me at, “Annotated bibliography.” ❤️
I so value your content and your commitment to social justice.
I hope it lives up to your standards 😅 My bibliographies are so informal I call them "works *sighted"* on purpose.
V, I am so proud of you for using your voice in this way. It is honestly amazing and you inspire!!! Let's break down the glass mirror of what history was.
Thank you so much for talking about this! It's something that's bothered me for a while i.e. since I became aware of. All the more relevant now.
Chiming in just past the intro to add citizens residing in US territories, like the oldest colony in the world Puerto Rico, still cannot vote in US presidential elections.
Puertorriqueñes may get a cultural parade in NY every second Sunday in June but the island’s self-determination and egality continues to be ignored by the US.
Thank you for highlighting the complex history of the US Suffrage movement. Oh! My favorite protest accessory is in my profile pic, the timeless pot & spoon.
“PROMESA es Pobreza.”
Now back to enjoy the rest of your video!
Oooh, tell me more about the pot and spoon? If there's a story there beyond "good for making noise and improvised self-defense"
Yes and yes. As I understand it started as a reliable, affordable, and accessible percussive instrument. It’s also symbolic of the ‘Pueblo’ working class rising up to protest against the exploitative elite. Calderos also provide better impromptu protection against non-lethal projectiles than most other household items. Music has always been integral to Puerto Rican resistance movements.
Back in 2019, we took our pots and pans out to the streets, including a half-a-million strong highway shutdown protest, to try and oust our island’s governor and after 12 days finally succeeded.
I @@SnappyDragon and found a few along with glimpses of others with their protest pots - here you go:
Vice News: twitter.com/vicenews/status/1154388005567848449?s=21&t=z5L0MdgGROFS0RcX7rM3UA
Reuters: twitter.com/reuters/status/1154433629688389635?s=21&t=U3x7c_QzQgSx5OfvIJbl5A
Announcement Night: twitter.com/marga_pabon/status/1153824333095030784?s=21&t=z5L0MdgGROFS0RcX7rM3UA
PR Diaspora NY: twitter.com/tainaasili/status/1153673547593736193?s=21&t=U3x7c_QzQgSx5OfvIJbl5A
NY GC Takeover: twitter.com/balunband/status/1153470526087737344?s=21&t=z5L0MdgGROFS0RcX7rM3UA
Hope this gives you a glimpse of my preferred protest tool. Oh! I was trying to find the video that the profile pic references (a person beating a pot in the rain as riot police and military-type vehicles pass) but no luck, but I’ll try and reply here when I do.
This might be my new favorite YT channel. History is so complex and it's fun learning about the details that often escape the education system
This is an eye opener. Thank you. I'm learning so much from your channel. It's shocking how little we were actually taught about the social context of any political movement in school. We essentially learned events and dates.
'Social Justice Costumer', lol.
Well, I'm here for it. I like learning about history - the good, the bad and the ugly.
Look, there was a minute where the name "social justice CosTube" was being thrown around like it was an insult 🤣
My favorite protest fashion accessory? The pussyhat. It’s more recent than historical, but it still counts, right? lol I also need to find my dissent pin… RBG was more flawed than is usually credited, but I find the pin to be nicely subtle for wearing to work.
And the hypocrisy of the early feminist & suffragette movement needs to be talked about more!
Totally counts! I know there was a lot of discussion around its symbolism too, so perfect example.
Recent history is still history!
I've heard a lot of the same complaints against the pussy hat as were mentioned in this video: not all pussies are pink, and not all women have pussies.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg (not “RBG;” RBG is a persona we made up for T shirts) looked at the world in a specific and very legal way. Like every other “Great” she had things that were her priority. We went seriously AWOL when we tried to project an idealized version of a person who espoused all things to all people in a mutually acceptable way across a 60 year time period. The work Bader Ginsburg did on the equal protection clause was groundbreaking - of course white women benefited more, because the people on the top and middle almost always benefit more from incremental advances. It sucks, but you have to keep pushing to pull the next group along. The person who does the first isn’t usually the one who does the second but someone still has to wedge the door to start. This is how civil rights campaigns work.
Bader Ginsburg laid the foundations. She made it very clear that much work remained to be done. She might have blazed a path, but someone else has to continue to widen it. In an unfortunate precedent, Thurgood Marshall *retired* and was replaced by Clarence Thomas. Nobody is talking about how we wouldn’t have Clarence Thomas if he could have held off 6 more months to retire. Even in this, we hold women to an impossible standard.
My hitting the like button coincided with your warning that you were gonna ruin some faves. You are the best.
Always happy to ruin some faves that need ruining 😘
I think the worst part about the Suffragette movement being idolised is that Susan B. Anthony, and other women in that time, are credited in school textbooks and curriculum that they were big supporters of the Black suffrage movement and they were banded together in the fight, rather than what history tells us and what you're covering here. Granted I got my schooling from Florida, but the teacher I had at the time was from Ireland, so I don't think she had a bias.
Loved what you said . You always make fashion history interesting and fun. Thanks for sharing this with us. Big hugs from your pal in Oklahoma.
"fluffy Edwardian bust improvers and all" 😂 Great video--walking a fine line seeing the strategy but calling out the failure. 👏🏽
I didn't make those bust improvers to not use them 😃
Great video.
The best example I can recall of weaponizing 'respectability' to help others... I also can't find anymore. Briefly, back around 2010-2012, there was a guy who kept appearing in protest photos. He was an aggressively "ordinary, respectable" guy - middle-aged, bald, white, wearing a buttondown and walking his bike. He looked like any average middle-class commuter - but he kept getting in between protesters and the police, recognizing that because of his nonthreatening, respectable appearance, it would look REALLY BAD in photos if he were hurt (say, by tear gas). By pointedly getting in the way, he was protecting everyone nearby, and he appeared in a ton of photos because he just kept doing it - and because of social tropes, he was probably more effective in that role than most people would be.
I do love this strategy! Great example of someone using their privilege to protect others who have less.
absolutely fascinating topic I wouldn’t have ever even thought to learn about otherwise. I appreciate how in depth you go into the social context and symbolism of clothes. In general how much you talk about social justice intersection to clothes is so refreshing. Your channel is a gem
Very nicely put
To answer your question, the political fashion statement I remember comes from recent history: the safety pin.
A side note/hopefully polite inquiry:
Unfortunately, I am not always great at implication or innuendo, or, sadly, the application of information just given. Was the answer to the implied quiz about gold provided in the fleeting link, immediately before it was given?
I put reference names (not links, TH-cam won't let me include those) to papers and blog posts and such in the corner when I talk about specific info. You can always pause the video to look up the title of something!
@@SnappyDragon thank you. Good idea. That makes more sense, now.
I'm not a patron, so I don't know if this is on the annotated bibliography or not, but Antoinette M. Burton's "The White Woman's Burden: British Feminists and the "Indian Woman," 1865-1915" (in Western Women and Imperialism: Complicity and Resistance, edited by Nupur Chaudhuri and Margaret Strobel) gives a really fascinating analysis of British feminism, its (often explicit) colonial underpinnings, and the way gender roles were weaponized. Essentially, women deserve the vote because who better than them to safeguard the colonial social order? Highly recommend. It's a great reminder to why non-intersectional feminism is its own kind of tyranny-by buying in, you're campaigning for the right to oppress.
LOVE this recommendation! I'm excited to read it; I kept coming across sources saying "oh the UK suffragettes were racism-free!" when that was certainly not the case.
@@SnappyDragon It's an interesting read! From what I remember, a main point of the article is that British feminists constructed and used the idea of an "Indian Woman" and her plight to argue that the colonial state was failing said Indian women, so the solution was to give British women more power in colonial government (thus, suffrage). I don't remember how in-depth it went into bigoted attitudes, but my primary impression was that the movement was detached from any real Indian women's rights activists, though I remember some remarks on their theme of "why should not-white men get the vote before good white women?"
Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for putting this information out there (again, some more) ! The deeper stories behind the movement and its symbols is not discussed enough.
Fav pat symbol that comes first to mind is the Safety Pin from the British Punk movement (yes, more than just music or fashion).
Fav PAST symbol....
Thanks for talking about the complicated and often ugly history of the suffragist movement in the US. When I started reading about it a few years ago, I was struck by how easily women were divided against each other: some white suffragists were convinced that they should exclude women of color (and others) who had fought for the vote from the "mainstream" movement. Meanwhile, wealthier women who lived lives of comfort that were unimaginable to almost everyone else (what we would deem the 1% today) were convinced that the best way to retain the privileges afforded to them was to keep all women disenfranchised. Instead of helping and supporting each other, they tried to keep each other down. How so many women became so convinced that power, privilege, and the right to vote were a zero-sum game baffles me. Then again, perhaps things haven't changed all that much, have they? Sigh.
@Ana Kreyszig they are still the same. WOC say white feminists are just as racist as white men.
@@mnkwazi Sad, isn't it?
@@anakreyszig303 It is we still live in a caste system.
I think what it came down to for the Southern white suffragettes (and probably a lot of white feminists today, though it's more covert) is wanting more power within an oppressive system rather than actually wanting to end oppression.
Historical icons have a context. When our time is past, we will need to be understood in our own context aswell. Future generations will call out our own fallings, and we certainly have 'em. We cant see them now, sure, because they seem normal and acceptable stuff to us in this very moment. So yeah, of course we have to do better, but we can take what inspired us, without ignoring what was clearly wrong, but without trying to evaluate the past by current standards. We are humans, we will always fuck up. We will also endure and grow better with every generation. That's us.
Sojourner Truth said, "Aint' I a woman?" in answer to this video's central question. Great stuff thank you!!!
Another excellent lesson about and from history! It’s often scary how much modern day society reflects history. With this being an ugly example, I didn’t know about. Thanks V!
Thaky V, I admit that wasn't entirely clear to me. I kind of expected they ignored women of color, but actively pushing them out and down is even worse. :(
Thank you for this. My mom said that she was going to a Democratic women's fundraiser where women were encouraged to wear white in honor of you-know-who. I sent her this video because we are descended from immigrants that suffragettes loathed.
I've been a feminist since the late 1960s, and for awhile -- around the 1990s especially, I think -- I was worried that feminism might disappear. It was partly because so many younger women thought "feminist" meant something like "ugly, self-loathing man-hater", and partly because it seemed to be assumed that women are equal now, so feminism is no longer necessary. I'm so glad to find that that worry was largely unfounded and there are still many people like you who care deeply about not only women's rights but the rights of other disadvantaged groups too.
Another point about the suffragists, BTW, is that they had one and only one cause: suffrage for (white) women. Once that was achieved, their movement no longer had any reason to exist.
I remember a lot of those attitudes from when I was a kid in the 90s! And, the versions of "feminism" I was raised around were both very white and very backwards, lots of shaming women for "girly" things. I think growing up around that is *why* I have the attitudes I do today.
I feel you can't separate the masculinization of the Bloomer suit from the fact that it was blatantly inspired by the contemporary dress of women in the Middle East and North Africa (also the complexities of our historic and traditional dress being seen as backwards and strange when we do it by many white feminists, while being lauded as progressive when white women take the exact same idea for themselves)
VERY true!
Oh wow...I'm seeing Clue Clucks Clang robes looking at those photos now. Damn D:
There are few people I've heard speak on this topic that have managed to balance the complexity of these past narratives with modern intersectional feminism, it's such a well produced piece of work. I'm very glad to have found your channel.
It's sort of horribly historically appropriate in this context to see the 'gender critical' brigade trying to co-opt Suffragette colours as a symbol of their TERF-status.
Which reminds me, the section you did on stores selling Suffragette coloured items completely reminded me of modern rainbow capitalism vibes.
Such a good connection to rainbow capitalism, thank you!
@@SnappyDragon oh, thank you. I suspect (based on no research whatsoever) that there would have been home produced Suffragette items and sympathetic shops selling things and then department stores selling them to coin in on the movement with just enough plausible deniability.
I recall a mention of shops on Oxford Street (big shopping street in London, England) having women's fashions with Suffragette colours in evidence but I've no idea where the reference is from.
@@OldManFerdiad
Fun fact about Oxford Street: if you follow it far enough, you actually end up in Oxford, and on that end it’s called London Road.
@@ragnkja actually that is true of many main roads in England since they are hundreds of years old, many started in the Roman era (thousands of years old) and were originally. "the road to London. " the road to Oxford" 🤓
Opinions on Handmaids as protest iconography?
I can't speak for V, but it feels to me like Atwood kind of took the historical experiences of Black, Native & other women & centered educated/middle class white women's fears of being treated like breeding stock.
@@minngael sounds about like Atwood. Unfortunately.
I understand a lot of the points you were making about this movement and them very valid. However I think there might be flaw in how your interoperating it. This mainly coming from your idea that they should have used their position to help other causes that presented them with no benefit and could have been even detrimental to thier primarily goal of securing themselves the vote alongside other rights.
Their entire strategy revolving around making thier desired change in society not appear extremely radical to wider society. So pushing simultaneously for other ,at the time, radical movements would have broken this narrative potentally leaving them with nothing. It's one thing to help others without benefiting when your in a secure position but an entirely different thing when you have everything you've worked for to loose. Much like on an airplane, put your own oxygen mask on first the you can help others. As it's better for one to survive than to have all die.
I am so glad I found your channel. History is so nuanced and lots of people like to look at it with a black and white perspective while it's actually a shade of grey. While I am very thankful that my right to vote wouldn't happen if it weren't for the suffragettes, it is also important to state that "votes for women" were only given to white women and black women weren't given that right until 1964. I am much more interested in celebrating and learning from the black women in the suffragette movement such as Ida B Wells and Sojourner Truth than seeing Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B Anthony being lauded as "heroes for women" even though they were only for white women or in their sugar-coated words, "respectable women"
I hate this, but not because I think you're wrong, but because I looked up to these women. Nothing worse than finding out your heroes did despicable things. I don't have words for how heavy this makes my heart.
Good news, there are lots of other women activists of that period who are worth looking up to!
What a sad commentary on our past and our educational system that we were NOT taught any of this. Thank you for sharing this information. ❤️❤️
I am looking forward to your part 2/collab video!
Wow, this video is so needed and desired.
Thank you 💚 it's one of those ideas where I was really surprised someone hadn't already gotten there.
This is honest and awesome! As a blk woman trying to explain this gets me called racist as a Texan your awesome.
I am in fact here for EXACTLY that kind of commentary, so Hi. I just subscribed! :-D
First video of yours that I have seen, this is just great analysis! Subscribed and sharing
Thank you! Fantastic!! Looking forward to the next one!
Me too :D
It's hard to find any historical movement without issues and it seems a pity to throw away an effective tool like the white suffragette dress. What would you think of a suffragette outfit updated with colored sashes or accessories referencing modern African-American/LGBTQ/trans movements?
I'm white, so I think it's not up to me if BIPOC want to reclaim some of this symbolism. It also carries very different messaging when it's used in that context! But the vast majority of historical costumers I've seen wearing Suffragette costumes are also white, which isn't a great look.
I can easily look back onto the Black Panther Party or the branches of Act Up ran by non-white women and see no fault
But I think the real question is, why do you think protesting is a fashion show?
Just have to say it’s videos like this that keep me watching!
This was brilliant! I started doing research about this topic as it relates to Canadian history and found many of the same conclusions (obviously). So interesting and well done!
Thank you V for this critical eye, it's something we all need to hear.
Such a good reminder of how narrative building and some nasty compromises (or straight up alliances) built up so many of our movements. We still see this all the time today.
So true! Same problems, different century.
This was so neat and informative. The school system completely failed this information.
Even though I knew most of this, I still learned a couple things in this video, and I super appreciate you and your work.
Oh, great pun! I love it.
V, your skits are always so indescribably perfect.
thank you! apparently they're the one tried-and-true way to get people to watch the rest of the video 🤣
I agree that in retrospect, the way the 19th Amendment was passed looks really bad, and had the intended bad results. But I wonder if voting rights would ever have been expanded at all past white men, if your proposed alliance of all the unenfranchised took up the cause at that time. After all, it was all white male legislatures at that time who had to agree to give women the vote. There were no other people in legislatures who were female or Black who could have voted for it. Power is never just given up. We had people shot in the past few years trying to demonstrate for the end of police violence. After Obama got elected, many of us looked optimistically forward to an ever-expanding age of progress and social inclusion. Now I realize my old age will be just one never-ending fight to hang onto the rights granted in the 20th Century. Any woman or person of color who supports these fascists is my enemy, as well as men who do so. It disturbs me so much to see the opportunists who take up Republicanism as a way to power, against the interests of the people who resemble them. They all deserve the Herman Cain Award.
Prior to the 15th amendment bust-up there were a lot of people working for both abolition and women's rights. This is instructive because I think we see this so much on the left now. People from marginalized groups who are fighting for their lives, just tearing strips off each other. The people in power are the ones that benefit from this discord.
Interesting. Where are you getting your information from?
Sources are given as annotations in the top corner of the video, and my full bibliography is on Patreon 😊
@@SnappyDragon That wasn't very helpful. Of those resources I could find only one was an original source document.
Come for the great anesthetics, stay for the exceptional social commentary. I'm really glad this topic has a video, I don't remember ever really hearing anything covering these problems (though I knew quite a few historical "feminists" were pretty terrible people).
Muahaha, goal accomplished! Lure people in with pretty dresses and then make them think about how to improve the world.
Holy ****.😳 You just confirmed and verbalized those nagging thoughts I've carried with me for decades. You are one intelligent UPPITY woman. TAKE A BOW 💐🌷🌹🌺🏅🏅🏅
Noisy Jewess reporting for duty 😃
I wish there was a super thumbs up. I mean, I have a handful of TH-camrs I thumbs up on faith right away (you included), and then almost invariably I want to thumbs it up because of the things you say and I find I already have!
aww, thank you 💚 we call the "super thumbs up" button "share"!
So hey I know I'm eight months late and also this is literally the first video I've watched so I'm a total outsider here, but I thought you (collective) might want to know that as someone with some pretty serious audio processing issues that I'm four and a half minutes in, and even with the wonderful, appropriately punctuated CC (THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THAT! IT'S SO IMPORTANT!) I'm having a lot of trouble following what our host is saying because of the background music. It's at a level where it's really blending with her voice, and the higher bell-like tones in particular are terribly distracting. The censoring bleep is also pretty painfully loud and really doesn't need to be. I wouldn't normally say anything and this should NOT be taken in any fashion as a dig at the video itself, just to be clear here. There's just a vibe that this is the kind of user experience feedback you'd be interested to hear, so I thought I'd share. This is an excellent watch (and yes, I kept watching past the four minute mark, ha) and I really appreciate the clear and unambiguous way you laid out the information. Absolutely mashed the subscribe button.
On the topic of manipulating narratives for progressive ends, I feel like the notion of 'no ethical propaganda under supremacy' - it becomes necessary for survival until the system itself becomes less predatory and manipulative. Propaganda that maintains/expands the present power system could be considered comparable to "punching down" in comedy, propaganda that seeks to protect against being crushed by that system is "punching up" by comparison
This is super interesting to think about! The suffragettes were basically doing something that's become standard for a lot of organizations; creating a memorable set of symbols and stories that people would associate with their cause. I don't think that's an inherently good or evil strategy, because it totally depends on what you use it for.
@@SnappyDragon I agree - they didn't create the system that paid more attention to "white women tears", the problem lies in their choice not to unify but to exclude and to advance a narrow cause by throwing potential allies under the bus
Or the omnibus, as the case may be
Maybe a charabanc
In both of the German early Feminist movements (socialist, and bourgois), prominent Jewish Women activists were leading the Charge from the beginning. The "Jüdischer Frauenbund" (Jewish Women´s organization) was founded in 1904, shortly after the protestant and catholic women´s organizations. All women´s organizations soon joined in the "Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine" (Association of German Women´s Organizations) . The JFB (Jewish Women´s organization) became a member of the BDF "Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine" ( Association of German Women´s Organizations) in 1907. The BDF was very influential and counted over a million members. It was active until they were dissolved by the Nazis in 1933.
I don´t claim Jewish women would never encounter antisemitism before WW I, but not enough to harm their position or their effect on society.
But in the years before WWI, Germany was a different country. It was way less antisemitic than it became later. It was one of the countries that Jews would seek refuge in, not one they sought refuge from. That´s one of the reasons German jews fought so patrioticly for their country in WW I and took such a long time to realize the growing danger from the Nazis. A total flip of acceptance in society within just 2 decades. (Reminded me of the break of social norms by Trump, when he kidnapped refugee children and put them in cages. Nobody would ever have expected the US to commit such crimes. It was a shock.)
The brutal murder of Rosa Luxemburg in 1919 had already been forshadowed by mysogynistic and antisemitic threats to her life. One of her last texts mentions the terrible consequences she expected to unfold if she and her comrades could not defeat the nationalist and military elite. She predicted that the next catastrophe would soon follow, if Germany could not get rid of this powerful militaristic group, because of their cruel disrespect of human life. And so it did.
❤️ and thank you… again!
Fantastic video!
Can I just express gratitude for the community you've created? Like, I have to rewatch the video because I got squirreled away in the comments in the best way possible.
Aww, thank you!
Your videos are always so well researched, informative and concise. Thank you for that.
I wonder if it would be more effective to be inviting toward people who aren't already persuaded to agree with you rather than to ask them to leave. Just wondering if that's a consideration you made before posting.
I like to shoo people back to their own pages if they want to complain-- makes less work cleaning up the comments section and keeps it a nice place for my viewers.
Hear hear, 1000%. All of what you said. All of it.
I just love your channel. You are so good at this. Thank you.
Late to this but loved it. Thanks for the history dive!
oh I am absolutely ready to send this link to my gender studies professor, she's very big on Learning More About Everything
oh goodness way to awaken my impostor syndrome! I hope she likes it 😊
New viewer here and this is the first video I watched! Great job! I do have a question though: does this mean that when making historical costumes we should avoid pieces like lingerie dresses because of how they were used at the time by those who only championed their own causes? (Meaning racist, classist white women) Because like you acknowledged, white/light colored clothing, especially lingerie dresses, was popular for everyone, including black women and other women of color. Lingerie dresses have always been one of my favorite pieces because of their frilly, fluffy aesthetic but this video educated me on the history of the dress I wasn’t aware of. I haven’t made any yet but I don’t want to create/wear something that had horrible racist, classist, phobic connotations. Sorry for the long comment, and I love your content!
Context here is going to be your best friend. White dresses were indeed popular for everyone, but in some settings or outfits or actions they might take on additional layers of meaning (like when worn with the Suffragette sash). Kind of like how mid-19thC fashion was everyone's fashion, but becomes disrespectful when worn for fun at a plantation.