Humanities Honors Program

Abstract:  White womanhood as a social ontological category has evolved as racial and gender power dynamics have evolved throughout US history. I build on research about White womanhood’s relationship to racism in feminist and antifeminist movements to discuss the use of racism as a strategy to navigate racial and gender power dynamics. I first evaluated Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Catharine Beecher. These women were contemporaries on opposite sides of the suffrage movement. Stanton was a prominent feminist leader in favor of women’s suffrage, and Beecher was a prominent antifeminist leader opposed to women’s suffrage. Both White women utilized segregationist racist statements to make their ideas more receptive to the White men in power over the US government. I then evaluated Betty Friedan and Phyllis Schlafly. Friedan and Schlafly were contemporaries on opposite sides of the second-wave feminist movement. Friedan helped launch the movement, and Schlafly worked to dismantle the movement. Both White women utilized segregationist racism to assert power in the racial epistemology of the seventies. Overall, I identify that all of the White women studied, even being on opposite sides of the movement, utilized segregationist racism to navigate their time period’s racial and gender power dynamics. All of the White women studied recognized they held a distinct position in the gender power dynamics of their time and utilized their Whiteness to overcome their gendered situations. As White womanhood continues to evolve, whether this trend will continue will point to the growth of antiracism or racism within feminist and antifeminist movements.