The two video clips provided a good summary of the women’s movement but also addressed how they split from the civil rights movement. I liked how it laid a groundwork in which to understand the other two articles because I was a little confused about the intersection of civil rights movements and women’s movements. Another thing I took from the video was that the women’s movement was not quite as noble, grand, and revolutionary as I was originally taught (which seems to be a common theme of this class). Maybe this is my incorrect interpretation but it seemed liked the women’s movement was successful because A) it was really just white women and B) it exploited race to say that if black men could vote, why couldn’t white women because socially they should be above black people, emphasizing already ingrained racism.
In the first article by Virginia Schein, I was bothered by her justification that women lead differently because they have a stronger “natural ability to nurture,” because I think it embodies a large flaw in our society surrounding gender. I do not think it is a bad thing to be nurturing, (and speaking from an evolutionary perspective, women did tend to need to be more nurturing to help their children survive), but I do object to the generalization of an entire gender. Every women and man and non-binary human being is their own set of characteristics and qualities. When we say women or men are XYZ, it traps people within that box, which I think it unfair.
I think it’s important that we don’t forget how after the women’s rights movements and civil rights movements diverged the leaders of the women’s rights movement perpetuated racist stereotypes to get what they wanted. While their end goal was obviously a good thing that needed to happen, this to me shows that the ends don’t always justify the means. It may have taken longer, but there had to have been a way to get women the right to vote that didn’t reinforce the extremely harmful and incorrect racial beliefs of the time.
I understand and agree with you when you state that it is bad to generalize a whole gender. However, I think that Schein was trying to make women look like good leaders and not put them down.