Race or gender?

Shirley Chisholm was not a woman who played by the rules.  This was true in a lot of ways, but one paradox that she created is related to a topic she mentions frequently: gender and racial equality.  Ms. Chisholm states in her autobiography that she was subjected to more oppression because of her sex than because of her race (Chisholm 32).  She contradicts herself in several parts of her books, most notably when she says that her initial choice of a career in education was made mostly because very few other options existed for black women (Chisholm 45).  This is a curious inconsistency, and it goes against so much of what womanism and much of women’s studies courses teach.  I would like to explore some possible reasons for why she would have felt this way.  

Ms. Chisholm was born in New York to parents who were immigrants from the Caribbean Islands.  She was sent to live with her grandmother in Barbados when she was a young child and remained there for 7 years.  During this time, almost all of the children and adults that she saw were black (Chisholm 14).  She enjoyed her time there, and when she returned to the United States her father instilled in her a sense of pride in her race (Chisholm 18).  Is it possible that having so many healthy, happy, loving role models who were black in her early life made it hard for her to see oppression that was caused by race?  Perhaps it was attributed more to gender because she felt so much pride in her race that it was hard for her to believe it to be a cause of oppression.

      

            Another plausible explanation would be the lack of support that she received from black men, white men, and white women.  She was told to stay home and care for her husband, and her intentions were questioned.  Many black men felt she was taking over territory that had rightfully been earned by them, and many white people felt that a black women or any woman had no place in politics (Chisholm 52).  She was also accused of dividing the black vote by running against a black man in a primary election (Chisholm 60).  Since commentary of this nature was coming from both men and women of all races, it would be reasonable for her to have assumed that it was being caused more from them being upset about her gender than upset about her race.

            We will obviously never have true insight into all of Ms. Chisholm’s rationale, but we do have a wealth of information that tells us that she used her struggles as a platform to fight for the rights of others who she felt were not having their voices heard.  Some historians believe that as a legislator, Ms. Chisholm was largely ineffective because she represented people that were not cared about, and she was unable to build networks the way that white men were able to (Ellis and Smith 103).  Even considering this, her impact cannot be overestimated when one considers all of the barriers that she was able to break through.

Works Cited                                  

Chisholm, Shirley. Unbought & Unbossed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970. Print. 

Ellis, Catherine, and Stephen Drury Smith, ed. Say It Loud! Great Speeches on Civil Rights and African American Identity. New York, NY: The New Press, 2010. 101-111. Print.