This White Space

by Stacy Reynolds

Picture this:

It’s a sunny afternoon in May, 2020. I’m all locked up in my house with nowhere to be. You know, that quarantine life. I’m thinking about how we (Talking To Crows) made a feature film--our first feature film--and I’m really thinking about it, reveling in it. I’m reflecting on all the long days, the money spent, the sweat sweated, the tears teared: four years of hard work resulting in this cozy, 71 minute movie. Our movie. Ella Higginson’s movie.  So what do I do? 

Obviously, I google it. 

First hit: Just Like The Men’s IMDB profile. Sick.

Second hit: Just Like The Men - The Movie (our website). So sick.

Third hit: “Just Like The Men New York Tribune, 1 March 1913. Cartoon emphasizing racism amongst suffragists. Despite being in common cause, racism caused ...”  Shit.

I click on it immediately to discover this:

Yep. “Votes for WHITE women.” 

I appreciate these unexpected moments of gut-punch reality; they bring me back to a state of active understanding. They demand a pause to take stock and truly examine the reality of the truth. They’re the moments that present a choice: ignore what’s real, or hold it. 

So, we’re going to hold it. 

What’s real is this: If we’re going to celebrate the centennial of women’s suffrage, we need to understand that this movement was not for all women. This was a historical moment for White women’s advancement at the expense of Black women: a fact I was about to better understand on that sunny May day.

Just Like The Men was written by Ella Higginson in 1913 (the same year of this cartoon’s release, btw), and is a terrific glimpse into women’s entrance into politics, particularly in our area. What it leaves out, however, was a problem--how do we hold this story AND talk about everyone’s access to voting rights? We decided that a straight adaptation of the film made the most sense, and that the platform it created for us to talk about voting rights in America was our opportunity to create a dialogue about the history of voting in our country. But damn, we didn’t do enough research. 

We live in the same place--literally, the same freaking ground--that inspired Just Like The Men over 100 years ago. Not much has changed; it is still a very white space. In our experience, engaging with White women about the suffrage movement is typically a joyous conversation. It’s a celebratory topic and one that White women are PUMPED to talk about. As our community is white, we are too often lulled into its whiteness, into the comfort that it creates for us as White women. 

The centennial of women’s suffrage (which is this year, by the way), is the centennial of White women’s suffrage. A movement canonized by White women as a—if not the—foundational pillar of equality for “all.”  We see the movement immortalized in big budget films like Suffragette and Iron Jawed Angels. Hell, even Mary Poppins. And we can’t change what happened. What we can change is how we remember the past, how those truths shape our actions today, and our understanding of equality in America. 

The reality is that in order for White women to break down the door of the white supremist patriarchy, they had to use their own white supremacy to do so, betraying Black suffragists in order to gain their right to vote. It was a political move. It was racist move. It was a move that completely invalidated the work of these Black suffragists who were organized, active, and truly fought for equality for all (including Black men). In taking on Just Like The Men, we understood that when society said “women’s suffrage” it was really just talking about “White women’s suffrage.” What we didn’t know is how much Black women contributed to the movement. Black suffragists were fundamental political activists in the quest for equal rights for all. These are the women we should be studying in school and immortalizing in big budget films. 

Here’s another piece that we don’t talk about: the women’s rights movement began as an inclusive movement--Black and White women working together. It wasn’t until the 15th amendment that White women, including the revered Susan B. Anthony, betrayed the principles of feminism--of the entire movement--by changing the agenda to exclude women of color, affronted that Black men would receive the right to vote before White women. Alice Paul, another suffrage hero, reinforced white supremacy when she asked Black suffragist organizations to march in the back of a suffrage parade in 1913 (here’s that date again--Ella would have begun writing Just Like The Men, just to put that screenplay in historical context). This is the legacy of women’s suffrage that we are celebrating this year. And this film is inherently a product of a system that sees Blackness as less than. Further disturbing, it is a system that understood the injustice done to people of color (abolitionists and women’s suffrage were closely intertwined in the early nineteenth century), and yet, the 19th amendment became another stunningly clear example of systematic racism. White women were able to acknowledge the injustice done to people of color, and yet, they condoned white supremacy when it was to their constitutional advantage.

This is my legacy as a White woman, specifically one that can trace back her lineage to early American settlers. I am the daughter of the oppressors, and I continue to oppress my fellow American citizens by claiming myself a feminist without doing the work to understand the actions, activism, and the principals of these Black suffragists leading up to, and long after, the ratification of the 19th amendment. These women should have been my heroes, my role models for true feminism. These women did not sacrifice “equality for all” when it became politically difficult. These women, who stood up for Black men and continued to make their rights part of their agenda even after the 15th amendment, are the true pioneers of first-wave feminism. To call this centennial “White” women’s suffrage is a fine first step, but without furthering our understanding of the truth of what the movement looked like only reinforces inherent racism.

Our film, our sweet, first film, is a restoration of two Pacific Northwest women infiltrating politics, AND, it is a classic example of how the stories we tell become our understanding of the world. Do not mistake us: Ella Higginson was an incredible contributor to American Literature. She ranks among one of my top personal heroes, and if she were alive today, I know she would be leaning into these difficult conversations. Just Like The Men is a monumental discovery and a true turning point for our Talking To Crows. This is the work: we have to hold it all.

I am a White American: the advancement of my ancestors came at the cost of Black American’s basic rights. Until we (all you beautiful white people reading this) internalize this reality, until we tell the truth of our ancestors, we cannot call ourselves feminists; we cannot claim to live in the land of the free because we do not. And as much as BIPOC have tried to make it so, whiteness has thwarted those attempts for freedom at every turn. It’s on us.

White women, this is our legacy. This legacy must inform our work, our conversations, and our understanding of the world.  We continue to hurt people of color by not looking our past dead in the eye; we are supporting oppression if we don’t do the work to understand what the movement meant for ALL women. As White women, we need to internalize this uncomfortable truth. We need to examine how this white-washing of history has infected our language and shaped our identity as women. Sure, this legacy blows, to put it mildly, but acknowledging it is the turning point: it gives us a choice. Do we ignore what’s real? Or do we hold it?

We hold it. We must hold it.