World History: Feminism

Campaigners for suffrage in India in the early-twentieth century

Throughout World History we have seen how women have played an important role in shaping the world in which we live - ranging from Cleopatra of Egypt to the Rhani of Jhansi. Also, as we have looked at the nineteenth century, especially the second half, we have seen it as a century of 'isms' - imperialism, industrialism, capitalism, liberalism, socialism, nationalism. Today we are looking at the last great 'ism' - feminism. Across the world in the 1800s women continued long histories of campaigning and resistance in order to challenge inequality in society. Quite often, in Western scholarship feminism has often been looked at through the lens of middle-class white women in Europe and North America, however, various forms of feminism emerged throughout the world. Today we will look mainly at what is known as 'first-wave feminism' which emerged in the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.

Early Feminists

Mary Wollstonecroft

When we say 'early feminists' we have to limit ourselves somewhat as women have been breaking gender barriers and norms, and challenging patriarchy as long as there have been gender barriers, norms, and patriarchy. These have ranged from fictitious examples, like that of Hua Mulan in sixth century China who dressed as a man to fight on behalf of her father, to real life examples, like Joan of Arc (c.1412-1431) who led French soldiers into battle against the English in the Hundred Years' War. Many states across history have further been led by women: some of Ancient Egypt's most famous rulers (including Cleopatra and Nefertiti) were women; archaeologists have argued that ancient Crete may have been a matriarchal society; Catherine of Aragon defeated the Scottish when her husband, Henry VIII of England, was fighting in France; and until 1818 the Kingdom of Kanday (in modern Sri Lanka) regularly saw men becoming members of the women's family, not the other way around. Women, furthermore, could exercise great influence at times in the home in rural, or poorer urban, households as more hands were needed to survive on a day to day basis. In England until the coming of the Industrial Revolution could earn their own wages through textile weaving at the home; peasant Chinese women could avoid the practice of footbinding; and in the mid-sixteenth century case of Martin Guerre in France a man claimed to be Martin come back from war, and his wife Bertrande claimed him to be real until a court case revealed it to be false. Wealthier women could subtly influence events, and we have repeatedly seen this throughout World History: Lucrezia Borgia held great sway over the politics of her husband and father; harems in the Islamic world were used by women as a way to influence the patriarchal household head and educate themselves; women were influential in the rule of Shaka Zulu; and Cao Xueqin in Dream of the Red Chamber shows how important women were in organising household life and affairs in Qing China.

If we have to pick a rough origin of modern feminism we have to look to the end of the eighteenth century and the start of the nineteenth century - depends where you stand. Social, intellectual, and political ruptures opened the door for the questioning of patriarchal society. Among some of the prominent early writings were from liberal writers such as John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham who debated the idea that through female emancipation men could be emancipated as part of the Enlightenment. Opposition press depicted Mill hysterical and wearing a dress to delegitimise his views. Famous poet Percy Shelley in 1817 wrote 'Can man be free if woman be a slave?', and in 1808 utopian socialist Charles Fourier wrote 'The extension of women's privileges is the general principle for all social progress'. In 1837 it was Fourier who would coin the term 'feminism'. This was not limited solely to Europe - domestic and external challenges in the Confucian order in China allowed Li Ruzhen to write Flowers in the Mirror (1825) where men visit a world where men are forced into seclusion and their feet being bound. However, the most articulate early feminists were women, and in Europe the twin ruptures of the Enlightenment and French Revolution created an opening. Many came from France, most famously that of Olympe de Gouges' Declaration of the Rights of Women (1791) which criticised male French revolutionaries for ignoring the plight of French women. Gouges disliked how women remained unemancipated when the Jacobins offered the vote to all men. Thanks to her criticisms, and her involvement with the Girondins, she was guillotined. The most influential feminist, meanwhile, was likely Mary Wollstonecroft. Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) used Enlightenment thought to argue for better treatment of women, and her writings would set the stage for later feminists ranging from Simone de Beauvoir to Margaret Atwood. Kumari Jayawardena has argued that one of the major reasons why Indian reformer Raja Rammohan Roy started advocating so strongly for women's rights was due to the writings of Wollstonecroft. Interesting sidenote, her daughter Mary would marry Percy Shelley and write one of history's greatest novels, and what is seen as the first sci-fi novel - Frankenstein (1818). A man curiously also wrote another key feminist text. Henrik Ibsen's play A Doll's House (1879) features a young woman Nora challenging patriarchy, and when her husband refuses to understand her plight she leaves.

Women and Society

Across patriarchal societies women had varying roles, and perceptions about their role. In the capitalist world, first Europe and North America but later Japan, there was the ideas of 'separate spheres'. This was a notion that society was split into two spheres: the public, one of work, politics, and war; and the domestic, of the family, domesticity, and children. Men were seen as belonging in the public sphere whereas women were perceived as belonging in the domestic sphere where they were dominant. However, in practice this was very different from how it was perceived. In factories women and children made up a sizeable percentage of the workforce, and in rural areas women worked many of the same roles as men. Middle and upper-class women could potentially work, but this was rationalised as being an extension of the domestic sphere. E. Patricia Tsurumi has highlighted how young women in Japan were encouraged to work in textile factories before moving on to marriage, and nursing was perceived as the ideal occupation of women. During the American Civil War the American Red Cross regularly hired women, and in the Crimean War Florence Nightingale's nursing station revolutionised medicine and drastically increased the rate of survival for wounded soldiers. However, the Caribbean nurse Mary Seacole has largely been overlooked, despite going straight to the frontline to treat soldiers, has she was seen as overstepping the race and sex line. As the commercial sector increased, and education became more widely available, women in capitalist states were allowed to enter white-collar work, (like receptionists), and primary school teachers.

Women worldwide were often perceived in contradictory and hypocritical terms. The Christian world often depicted women in a 'Madonna-whore' complex - women were both virgins and mothers raising a new generation, but also weak, seductresses undermining society just as Eve undermined Adam. Upon the discovery of anaesthesia in the late-1800s men argued that women should not use it during child birth as the pain they experienced was punishment thanks to Original Sin. Mexico even created a national identity about women being traitorous whores in the form of La Malinche - an abused and raped indigenous woman trying to survive during the Spanish conquest was recast after 1821 to be a traitor to Mexico who seduced and sided with Hernan Cortes. Confucianism in Japan and China similarly offered a way to limit women's activity as it required female subservience to men. Greater Learnings for Women by Kaibara Ekken (1631-1741) in Japan argued that women were too emotional and weak, so had to be controlled by men. Colonial women had to face oppression from both indigenous patriarchy and colonial patriarchy. The colonial mindset was, in the words of Gayatri Spivak, 'white men saving brown women from brown men', so while colonial regimes tried to challenge misogyny in colonised cultures - such as female circumcision in Kenya or sati (widow burning) in India - they imposed a new form of misogyny based on capitalist domesticity. Often, colonial and indigenous forms of patriarchy combined. Diana Jeater has discussed how single women in colonial Nigeria managed to participate in capitalist society by living alone in cities working white-collar jobs, but British officials worked with local leaders to force these women back into rural areas where they could be dominated by men. Feminists had these institutional challenges to face. 

Women's Activity

Seneca Falls Convention

First-wave feminism is often just perceived as the campaign for suffrage, and the work of many feminists included this. However, the campaign for suffrage often worked alongside other reformist campaigns, and built on them. Abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass once stated that 'When the true history of the antislavery cause shall be written women will occupy a large space in its pages'. Feminists in the United States often campaigned for abolition alongside women's rights. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott tried to travel to London for the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention but were barred thanks to their sex. In 1848 they would host the Seneca Falls Conference, also attended by Douglass, issuing the Declaration of Sentiments becoming the hallmark of American feminism. Stanton argued that suffrage would make women 'free as man is free' and famously added 'women' to Thomas Jefferson's words in the Declaration of Independence. Stanton and Mott were not the only anti-slavery activists involved in feminism. Emmeline Pankhurst would grow up reading Uncle Tom's Cabin, and became political thanks to the anti-slavery rallies in Britain. However, the most famous feminist and abolitionist was by far Susan B. Anthony. Born to a Massachusetts family in 1820 Anthony became political thanks to her Quaker family becoming involved in the temperance movement. She would become a key figure in both movements taking part in the Underground Railroad, denounced Abraham Lincoln when he considered shipping freed slaves to Liberia, and made overt attempts to show the flaws of patriarchy by trying to vote dressed as a man. It should be noted, however, that most of these women were white and middle-class. Former slave, abolitionist and feminist Sojourner Truth was subjected to dehumanising criticism as accusations were hurled at her that she was not a woman.

A WCTU cartoon

Abolition was not the only cause which women built on. Temperance, anti-colonialism, birth control, and poor relief were all good examples of movements which women channelled their activism. More often than not these issues affected women. For example, temperance movements, especially the US based Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), framed temperance as a way to protect women - families were victimised thanks to abuse and poverty caused by excess drink. A key reason why suffrage was passed so early in New Zealand and Australia was thanks to the temperance movement, although in Australia it was also part of an attempt to deny aboriginal and Asian communities the vote. Margaret Sanger became a big advocate for birth control from 1912 after seeing the destructive consequences of back-street abortions while as a nurse. Sanger linked access to safe abortions and contraception as a way for women to become emancipated - tied to childbirth women were set back and possibly put in danger. However, both the temperance and birth-control movements highlight one of the key criticisms of first-wave feminism - they were overwhelmingly white and middle-class. Temperance was a key issue for poor women, but the focus on temperance meant that campaigns for welfare reforms were often sidelined - it is quite telling that temperance was implemented before women were granted the right to vote in the US. Furthermore, although birth control would protect millions of lives the early movement was deeply tied to white supremacy and eugenics. Sanger herself was a supporter of eugenics seeing it as a way to build a healthier society. Although not a white supremacist, her own privilege as a white woman meant that she never questioned her allies, which by the Second World War included members of the Ku Klux Klan. Access to birth control was seen as superseding the lives of non-white communities.

In the colonised world feminists had to face the double burden of challenging colonial rule and indigenous misogyny. In particular, 'modernising' or colonial states focused on women's education seeing it as a way to bring their states into the 'modern world'. The Tanzimat reforms in the Ottoman Empire saw the first schools for girls opening, or had foreign powers open schools, however, foreign schools were often initially limited to Christians. Reformist movements in India similarly stressed the education of women, but it was initially tied to European domesticity - it was an idea that women had to be educated to become more intelligent wives. The drive for education was shared by all faiths. Syed Ahmad Khan in Tahzibul-Akhlaq wrote that only when women were brought up to the same level as men could Muslim Indians become free, and called for the abolition of polygamy seeing it as an impossibility to ensure equality between wives. Women themselves aided in this - Amina Tyabji started a school for Muslim women in 1895. As early as the 1880s, Indian women began graduating from Indian universities with the first two graduating from Calcutta University in 1883. Women were also important in direct anti-colonial action. As we saw last time, women led peasant revolts against French rule in Vietnam, and directly attacked British soldiers in Cairo during the 1919 Egyptian Revolution. Indian women after 1900 were especially involved in direct action - 17 year old Roopati Jain made bombs for revolutionaries and Kalpana Dutt was deported for taking part in the Chittahong Armoury Raid in 1930. 

Opposition to Women's Movements

Opposition to activity were largely from conservative sections of society - women participating in campaigns were seen as breaking established social norms which had to be opposed. Despite being allowed to attend university in the UK women could not graduate, and the first women to study medicine at Edinburgh University were jeered out of the lecture hall. In some states women's activities were seen as especially dangerous - as Japan after 1868 tried to paint itself as a 'family state' where the emperor acted as the father, women challenging society was seen as an attack on the nation itself. With the staggering popularity of the Freedom and People's Rights Movement, which campaigned for full male suffrage, an increasingly conservative Japanese government became fearful; especially as within the movement labour and women's rights cropped up. In 1894 the Safety Preservation Law was passed which banned women from congregating in groups or attending political meetings to effectively destroy the feminist movement. Women persisted anyway in different forms, mainly through the press. In Britain feminists found a strange ally in the form of the Conservative Party and an enemy with the Liberal Party. Both parties had women's branches, the Primrose League for the Conservatives and Women's Liberal Federation for the Liberals, and their stance on suffrage was purely political pragmatism. The parties knew that only property owning women would get the vote which influenced their views - Liberals feared expanding the Conservative voting base seen as propertied women were more conservative, while the Conservatives wanted to expand it for this reason. It was a strange paradox - Liberal leadership opposed suffrage but rank-and-file members supported it, while with the Conservatives it was the opposite. A similar issue happened in France. Due to the Catholic Church's influence in women's education radicals feared emancipating women in case it allowed a backdoor for the Church's return to influence. 

Campaigns for Suffrage

Sarojini Naidu in 1946

Worldwide suffrage was seen as the main way to bring equality. Some areas it was won with little effort - like in California, Australia, and New Zealand. Although, in Australia and New Zealand it was framed as a way to 'uplift' the indigenous peoples. Suffrage campaigns largely followed the same playbook - initially peaceful pressure groups adopting increasingly radical tactics. Inspired by Indian National Congress feminist Sarojini Naidu the Women's Franchise Union was formed in Sri Lanka in 1927 (succeeding in getting middle-class women the vote in 1931); the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies was formed in the UK in the 1890s; and in 1911 five women founded Bluestocking to advocate women's rights in Japan. These campaigns were initially based upon petitioning and small protests, but there were instances of more direct action. In the 1910s New York a 'bohemian' feminism emerged debating feminist ideals and were willing to break the law - Sanger and other feminists sent contraception and information about it in the mail breaking US law. These movements did see some victories - several Western US states gave women the vote, and propertied women were granted the vote for council elections in the UK. However, women became frustrated that rights to vote and divorce were slow coming so more direct feminist groups emerged. In Sri Lanka the Women's Franchise Union joined the trade unions to directly campaign for labouring women's rights, and Emmeline Pankhurst in the UK co-founded the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1903. Pankhurst was frustrated at suffragist campaigns as they were easily sidelined, so with her daughters decided to adopt more direct action. Calling themselves suffragettes they stormed parliament, through bricks through the windows of politicians, set fire to gardens (including Winston Churchill's), blew up post boxes, and chained themselves to the gates outside Westminster. The WSPU quickly spread outside of London and even the UK - Indian feminists protested in solidarity with their British sisters. 

The suffragettes knew how to get headlines. Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters, Christabel, Adela and Sylvia, caused a crisis for their hunger strikes which other suffragettes soon adopted. The dramatic force-feeding of them caused a national outcry causing the passing of the so-called 'Cat and Mouse Act' in 1913. Suffragettes on strike would be released until they gained enough weight, and then they would be re-arrested. Suffragettes used this to their advantage by campaigning while they gained weight and publicly evading arrest. Some campaigns ended in tragedy. During the 1913 Epsom Derby socialist WSPU member Emily Davidson was ran over by the king's horse and tragically killed - it is still widely debated whether she intended to die or not but most historians now believe that she intended to stop the horse. Davidson was turned into a martyr and thousands attended her public funeral. Enfranchisement in other states encouraged suffragettes elsewhere - Alice Paul of the American Women's Suffrage Association in 1913 started publishing The Suffragist where she turned anti-suffrage arguments on their head. Most famously was her parody of a document which argued why women shouldn't vote based on emotions and instability - she said that men were prone to violence and fighting in wars was evidence of them being prone to emotional outbursts.

Socialists and Feminism

Clara Zetkin, Rosa Luxemburg, and Alexandra Kollontai

As we have already seen, it was socialist Charles Fourier who coined the term feminism, and many other socialists were critical of patriarchy. For example, Friedrich Engels in The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884) argued that thanks to capitalism women became property to men, and he famously refused to marry his partners Mary and Lizzie Burns seeing marriage as a way to control women. However, socialist men were infamous for ignoring the plight of women, placing class above gender oppression, or being outright misogynistic. A good example of this was how women were barred from the First International for a year, and even then only one, Harriet Law, managed to attend. Women instead started combining socialism and feminism to fight for their rights. In colonised regions women often played a key role in the fight for women's and worker's rights - it took just two years for a women's branch of the Chinese Communist Party to be founded in 1923 under Xiang Jingyu, and Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya in India became a key figure in the Congress Socialist Party in the 1930s. Women were further crucial in trade unions - the IWW was founded by several women (including Emma Goldman and Lucy Parsons), Elena Caffarena founded a women's union in Chile which campaigned for women's rights in the workplace, and Alexandra Kollontai when in exile helped found the feminist movement in Scandinavia. Under the Bolsheviks Kollontai became the first female minister of government, and pressed for greater women's rights. Furthermore, the Socialist Party of Germany (SPD), had several key women members - most notably Rosa Luxemburg and Clara Zatkin. Luxemburg went as far as to denounce the women's suffrage movement as a bourgeoisie movement ignoring the plight of working women. Anarchist Noe Ito in Japan would combine feminism and socialism in the pages of Bluestocking becoming one of Japan's most foremost leftist figures - so much so that in the 1920s the state used a devastating earthquake as an excuse to arrest and assassinate her with many other leftists. Ida Field Chew in the UK managed to create a women-workers alliance with the Labour party, but this quickly broke down after the First World War. Sylvia Pankhurst became a communist and anti-war activist while her mother became a member of the Conservative party - even telling her that she wished that Sylvia would just go to Australia. While Emmeline was happy that only propertied women got the vote, and supporting the First World War, Sylvia bitterly disagreed. Sylvia would become a major writer for left communism, and would even trade public critical letters with Lenin.

World War One and Feminism

When war broke out the feminist movement saw a rupture. More radical feminists, including Sylvia Pankhurst and Rosa Luxemburg, wanted to adopt a policy of opposing the war seeing it as an imperialist war that would hurt women even more. With men fighting and dying overseas, feminists styled this as devastating the family as the primary breadwinner was lost. This was especially the case in Japan where feminists had been making this argument since the Sino-Japanese War of 1895. However, most feminists supported the war effort and encouraged other feminists to support the war. Women began filling in the roles that men had vacated, or they served as nurses and clerical workers - 22,000 women from the US went to Europe to serve in this way. Scottish doctor Elsie Inglis was barred from serving as a doctor in France so she organised fourteen women teams to go by themselves to do so anyway, in 1915 she did this again in Serbia. Back at home women worked in factories, on the buses, and on the farms. Emmeline Pankhurst herself did manual work, and encouraged women to do the same. Most famously, the WSPU encouraged women to give men not at war white feathers to publicly shame them into enlisting - this did cause some controversy when they gave white feathers to injured men. However, women's presence in manual work offered undeniable proof that women were just as capable as men, so several states granted them the vote after the war. Another big part of this was a fear of an inevitable resurgence of women's activity if votes weren't awarded after the war. However, women lacked the vote in many countries - it took until after World War Two for French and Japanese women to get the vote - and equality in education and marriage took even longer to achieve. For example, divorce was only made legal in Ireland in 1995.

Conclusion

First-wave feminism began a process that continues to this day for equal rights between men and women. Second, third, and fourth wave feminisms would build on the actions of the first-wave feminists in order to expand on women's issues to include issues not expressed by the first-wave - employment, reproduction rights, sexuality, trans rights, sexual violence. The pitfalls of first-wave feminism, such as it being largely middle-class, would impact later feminist movements and is still an issue today. However, by looking at why these issues emerged, and by trying to move out fro Europe and North America, we can possibly use first-wave feminism to find the answers. Since the rise of second-wave feminism anti-feminists have claimed that they supported the first-wave, but by looking at first-wave feminism, and how women struggled for rights, we can better challenge these narratives.

Thank you for reading. The sources I have used are as follows:

-Karen Offen, (ed.), Globalizing Feminism, 1789-1945, (New York, NY: 2010)

-Martin Pugh, The March of the Women: A Revisionist Analysis of the Campaign for Women's Suffrage, 1866-1914, (Oxford: 2000)

-Sara Hunter Graham, Woman Suffrage and the New Democracy, (Yale, CT: 1996)

-Bonnie Smith, (ed.), Women's History in Global Perspective, (Chicago, IL: 2004)

-Geneviere Fraisse and Michelle Perrot, (eds.), A History of Women in the West: Vol. IV. Emerging Feminism from Revolution to World War, Trans. Arthur Goldhammer, (Cambridge, MA: 1993)

-Renate Bridenthal, Claudia Koonz, and Susan Stuard, (eds.), Becoming Visible: Women in European History, (Lawrencville, NJ: 1987)

-Kumari Kayawardena, Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World, (London: 1986)

-Eric Foner, Give Me Liberty! An American History, Fourth Edition, (New York, NY: 2014)

-Atsuko Fukuda, 'Japan's Literary Feminists: The "Seito" Group', Trans. Pauline Reich, Signs, 2:1, (1976), 280-291

-Mary Wollstonecroft, A Vindication of the Rights of Women, (1791)

-Rosa Luxemburg,  "Rosa Luxemburg: Women's Suffrage and Class Struggle (1912)". Marxists.org. Retrieved 22 February 2018.

-E. Patricia Tsurumi, "Problem Consciousness and Modern Japanese History: Female

Textile Workers of Meiji and Taisho", Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, 18:4, (1986)

-Alexandra Kollontai, The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman, marxists.org, 2001

Thank you for reading and I hope you found this interesting. For other World History posts please see our list here. Our next World History posts will look at the Meiji Revolution in Japan. For future blog updates please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby.

World History: Nationalism

Germania, the symbol of German nationalism

Through many of our recent World History posts, we have a list down below, the topic of nationalism has crept up repeatedly. Nationalism has evolved and changed over the years, and differs greatly where you like at it - German nationalism in 1870 will look very different from Indian nationalism in 1900. In this post today we're looking at the forms of nationalism which emerged in the 1800s until the early-1900s; during this period states in Europe, the Americas, and Asia began a drive to forge the idea of a nation state. Today we will look at these varieties, and how they evolved from largely minority pressure groups to widespread movements. 

Imagined Communities

One of the most influential works on the evolution of nationalism and the forging of 'nations' is Imagined Communities (1982) by Benedict Anderson. Of course, Anderson's theory does fall into universalising nationalism across the world, and when we look at nationalism and decolonisation in the future we will definitely see this with African nationalism. The basis of Anderson's theory is that nations - a state encompassing of a people sharing the same identity - are 'imagined communities'. Practically, nothing connects a labourer in Calais to an artist in Paris, but they can feel connected thanks to the idea of a nation - this connection is imaginary forming an imaginary community. Anderson explains the nation with three terms: limited, sovereign, and community. There are issues with this, different regions experienced different and evolving versions of nationalism which didn't fit into Anderson's model. Anderson argues that the nation is limited as 'no nation imagines itself as coterminus with mankind'; sovereign as it is not divinely-ordained and controlled by an absolute monarch claiming divine rule; and community, the perception that it is a horizontal comradeship, 'not so much to kill, as willingly to die for such limited imaginings'. In particular, selective readings of history, national anthems, statues, military conscription, and shared language are often used to forge this imagined community. Anderson writes that we imagine the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier without issue, but we have difficulty imaging the 'Tomb of the Liberal' or 'Tomb of the Marxist'. 

The Rise of Nationalism

Forms of nationalism have existed for centuries before the 1800s, Eric Hobsbawm described this as 'proto-nationalism'. Many of them were based on religious identity, for example the Russian tsars tried to portray Russia as 'Holy Russia' where the 'Russky' became interchangeable with 'krestianin-christianin' (peasant-Christian). Even earlier the Jewish Revolt against Roman rule began thanks to Roman persecution of Jews. The Jews of Palestine, based on their religious identity, saw themselves as a community against an alternate community trying to destroy their way of life. Furthermore, several states had what can be described as a 'homogeneous population' leading to some form of national identity. It should be noted that none of these cases were truly homogeneous, even in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries so-called 'homogeneous nations' are not in fact that homogeneous. The ancient Greeks used 'barbaroi' to describe non-Greek speakers and China regularly referred to non-Han peoples as barbarians. As we saw when we looked at racism, Ming China had the book Luochong Lu which tried to catalogue 'naked creatures'; in reality this othered non-Han peoples. Japanese were described as 'dwarf bandits', and Huns as having different 'breeds'. In Europe the French Revolution inspired the rise of modern nationalism across Europe. With the emphasis on rationality and the guillotining of the French monarch French nationalism took two forms. The first, was that the French borders were wrong being based on arbitrary and irrational lines drawn by dynastic negotiations. They argued, instead, that the French borders should be 'natural' being based on mountains and rivers. At the same time, French nationalism could be inclusive. Enlightenment ideas of universal liberty made many French Revolutionaries to open nationhood to people previously not viewed as French. If you could speak French then you became French, but, on the other hand, the French state (even to this day) instituted rigid French linguistic uniformity. Dialects were discouraged in favour of the French spoke in Paris. 

One of the major reasons why nationalism emerged was the othering of different communities. The French Revolution spread across Europe, and later Napoleon continued the revolutionary trend. While supporters of the revolution implemented the reforms of the revolutionaries, opponents became solidified in their opposition to French occupation. Napoleon planted his family members and close allies on the thrones of various European states which inflamed local elites, and local peoples became enraged by heavy-handed rule and forced conscription. After Napoleon's defeat local elites reversed reforms based on opposition to the French; a good example was the rise in antisemitism in Germany after Napoleon's defeat. French Revolutionaries had emancipated Jews, so Jewish emancipation became associated with the foreign French. Elsewhere, conflict and the other influenced the rise of nationalism. Misrule by British and Spanish Empires in the Americas led to their respective revolutions, and in Spanish America the fear of the subaltern influenced their revolutionary movements. Although Simon Bolivar had admiration for the Haitian Revolution it made others fearful, and elites became nationalists to oppose a possible subaltern revolutionary movement. This is seen in Mexico. The initial War of Independence was led by indigenous and mestizo communities, when they were crushed, and Spanish misrule continued, creole elites became nationalists.

From Elite to Mass Movements

Women in the swadeshi movement

Nationalist movements largely did not emerge as mass movements - instead it took years to develop. Miroslav Hroch identified three stages of the nationalist movement. These stages are far from universal, but they are useful to imagine the development of nationalism. The first, an elite movement looking at cultural and linguistic revival emerges. Elites begin thinking, what makes us different? Educated elites have easier access to histories and languages, as well as the ability to communicate with other intellectuals, and begin attempts to revive their culture. During the 1848 Revolutions Czech nationalists gathered in a Prague theatre, and leading Czech nationalist Frantisek Palacky joked that 'Gentlemen, if the roof collapsed on us now Czech nationalism would be destroyed'. The second, a minority starts to agitate for cultural revival and national emancipation. These were wide and varied in nature. In 1893 the Gaelic League in Ireland directly tied Irish independence, or Home Rule, to Gaelic restoration, and in 1886 the Can Vuong in Vietnam was made of scholars campaigning for restoration of Vietnamese traditions and the monarchy. The rise of readily available print media greatly influenced the development of nationalist movements - despite press censorship hundreds to thousands of nationalist papers were published. Italian nationalist Count Cavour after 1848 published Il Risorgimento to campaign for Italian independence, unification, and economic reforms. Finally, elite movements give way to mass movements which are the ones who bring about independence. The example of India is a good example of this. The Indian National Congress, formed 1885, quickly grew from an elite movement to one of the largest movements in history thanks to the swadeshi movement after 1918. A British officer reporting on the Egyptian Revolution in 1919 said 'Street boys, lower-class natives and seed vendors chanted songs in colloquial Egyptian which insulted British officials and called for the British to leave.' 

Forging a Nation

Disbanded Waverley by J. Pettie (1893)

As we have already mentioned, several ideas and imagery are used to help forge the idea of national communities. Thanks to the rise of capitalist press and media these images could be widely distributed so two individuals on the other side of a state could view themselves as being part of a nation. A key part of this is language. Post-revolutionary France tried to enforce a strict form of the language to silence regional, or possibly separatist, languages in Normandy, Brittany, and Corsica. For 'nationalities without nations' language revival became a way to unite disparate peoples. The Irish Gaelic League was a good example - Irish nationalists united around learning their language which had been ruthlessly suppressed by the British state. Romanticism of individuals and histories was integral to nationalism. Scottish revivalism, not full nationalism, relied on the romanticism of the Highlands and Jacobites - kilts, Gallic, and tartan had been previously banned and limited to the Highland Scots. In the late-eighteenth century and early-nineteenth century Scottish writers reinvented these images to be universal to all of Scotland. Walter Scott is a good example whose novels like Waverley (1814) and Rob Roy (1817) romanticised the Scottish past to turn it to a point of pride. In the 1880s and 1890s Japan romanticised the samurai as noble warriors honouring bushido as a way for Japan to find a unified past, despite the fact that the samurai for two hundred years were bureaucrats and had been demonised just twenty years prior. Figures, both alive and dead, became integral to national identity. Uniting several South American countries was Simon Bolivar, who helped lead them to independence, and after his death his image was used to unite Latin Americans. Despite his dream of a united Gran Colombia territorial nationalism broke the state apart and Bolivar became despised, but with his death and the uncertainty of the future the several states banded together over his image. While still living Giuseppe Garibaldi became the romantic image for Italy. A key figure in the 1848 Revolutions, a dashing fighter in Latin America, a romantic marriage with Brazilian revolutionary Anita Garibaldi, and a humble image of being a farmer he was perfect to unite Italian nationalists. His landing in Sicily in 1860 to begin the fight to unite Italy had become central to Italian nationalism despite the fact that he would only land when he was sure that the expedition had little chance of failure. 

Women were integral to nationalism, despite being subjected to intense misogyny. It is in the nineteenth-century that ideas of the 'Motherland' came into being, and Spain and Latin America started using patria. This means 'homeland' but is a feminine word. The nation was seen as birthing the people, so patriots were seen as honouring the mother. This was not the case everywhere - Germany specifically used 'Fatherland' and Japan made the emperor as the fatherly figurehead of the nation. Furthermore, women became the symbols of nations - quite ironic considering many nations barred women basic rights. Germany was represented by Germania, Britain by Britannia, France had Marianne, and India had Mother India. On the other hand, Mexico used women in a negative way to build national identity. When Hernan Cortes invaded Mexico in the 1520s he used an indigenous woman called Malintzin, (she was also called Malinche, Dona Marina and Marina), as his negotiator, translator, and sexual slave. After independence in the 1820s Mexican intellectuals portrayed Malintzin as the betrayer of the nation and a sexual seducer; this image lasts to this day although since the 1960s feminists have tried to challenge this view. This was done as Mexico tried to romanticise the pre-Conquest Aztec Empire - the Aztecs, in this narrative, only fell because of betrayal from a wilful woman. Finally, women were involved deeply in nationalist movements. We have already mentioned Anita Garibaldi, but there were many others. By looking at history from below we can see the importance of women. British officials in 1919 reported how Egyptian women were at the forefront of the anti-British protests, and several women were leaders in the anti-French resistance in Vietnam. Two peasant women, Co Bac and Co Giang, even led peasant resistance in 1873.

German and Italian Unification

Giuseppe Garibaldi

We're going to quickly look over some various forms of nationalism as a case study. Germany and Italy largely represent 'nationalism from above' or uniting historical regions. Italian and German nationalism had long been divided, and had been dominated by foreign powers. Germany was divided between two major power blocks - Prussia in the north and Habsburg Austria in the south. Meanwhile, Italian states were subjected to division by other European states - most notably the Spanish, French, and Austrians. Nationalist movements had largely been limited to elites, albeit progressive elites like Giuseppe Mazzini who founded the Young Italy movement in 1841. The Revolutions of 1848 sparked the first attempts to unify the two nations, but both failed. The Frankfurt Assembly collapsed over the issue of non-Germans (Palacky famously rejected the Czech invitation to the Assembly), and other whether to include Austria in a future Germany (Grossdeutschland) or not (Kleindeutschland). The Italians, including Mazzini's and Garibaldi's attempts to form the Roman Republic, were soon crushed by conservative monarchs and the Austrians. From 1848 nationalism became a firmly elite and top-down movement. Mazzini's attempts to foster uprisings were collapsed and the German National League reached only 25,000 members. Instead local conservative leaders began using nationalism to disrupt popular movements. Prussia used an economic quasi-union called the Zollverein to attempt to unite the economies of the various German states, and Count Cavour, the Piedmontese prime minister, began a series of reforms making it the strongest of the Italian states. When Austria became isolated following the Crimean War Cavour sought an alliance with Napoleon III of France to oust the Austrians. When Garibaldi led his anti-Bourbon revolt in Sicily Cavour managed to secure control over him to prevent mass movements when nationalists started flocking to Garibaldi. In 1861 enough of Italy was under Piedmontese control that the King of Italy was declared, and when Austria and France were defeated by the Prussians over the 1860s they used it to seize control the rest of the peninsular. Otto von Bismarck became Prussian chancellor in 1862 and he started building up the Prussian army to dominate Central Europe. Nationalists debated which state German unification should happen under - Protestant Prussia or Catholic Austria. Through a series of wars Bismarck defeated the Austrians and French crowning the Prussian king as the German Emperor in 1870.

Nationalism did not end with unification in 1861 and 1870. Italy remained deeply divided on regional lines with Venice, Sicily, Sardinia, and the south remaining culturally different to the north. The south in particular remained poor and distant from the centre of power in the north, and the veneration of Mazzini, Cavour, and Garibaldi we see in the north does not exist in the south. This was similar in Germany. The newly founded empire was dominated by Prussia, and Catholic regions remained disgruntled over unification. Bavaria disliked Prussian political domination as well as Protestant domination over the largely Catholic region. This was made worse by Bismarck's Kulturkampf. Some parts nationalist policy, some parts over power the Kulturkampf aimed to limit the power of the Catholic Church in the German state. Bismarck was keen to make Germany a Protestant power, so the power of the Church had to be curbed - enraging the Bavarians. Furthermore, with the Kulturkampf Bismarck whipped up antisemitism to build German nationalism. As racial thinking made Judaism a race Jews were seen as aliens polluting Germany. Jews, Roma, and Poles were seen as infecting the German nation, and would therefore be seen as potential subversives. 

Zionism

Theodor Herzl

This is a curious form of nationalism as it was a nationalism among a diaspora. Religious Zionism had existed for centuries, but political Zionism is a much more recent identity - in contemporary Israel there is a sect of Zionists who oppose Israel for being made by secular forces and not the divine. Modern Zionism has been seen as originating with Theodor Herzl whose pamphlet Der Judenstaat is seen as popularising Zionism. Herzl was inspired by the rise of antisemitism in Central Europe, and the Jewish Enlightenment reinvigorating Jewish culture. The premise of Zionism was that Jews had to build their own state in Palestine, they had to recreate the old state of Israel. Initially, Zionism was not widely received among Jews. For one, Herzl only managed to communicate with Jews in Western and Central Europe - Jews in Eastern Europe, the Americas, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Palestine were largely disinterested at this moment in time. There were also the issues of the Jewish community being a diaspora. Unlike the Indian or Irish diaspora who had recent contacts with the 'homeland', the Jewish community had not been united for almost two thousand years creating a very diverse community. In Western and Central Europe Jews spoke national languages and only spoke Hebrew in prayer - Prague's Jews spoke German, and sometimes Czech, day to day. In Eastern Europe Yiddish was more widely spoken. Especially in Germany and France, to Herzl's anger, most Jews disliked the idea of Zionism as they saw themselves as citizens of the nations they lived in. There was also a major issue - people, including Jews, already lived there. What made Zionism a popular movement was the Dreyfus Affair, which we discussed when we looked at racism. As Dreyfus was an Alsatian Jew he was seen as the perfect scapegoat, and a natural traitor. France, thanks to the legacy of the French Revolution, had been seen as a country safe for Jews, but the Dreyfus Affair shattered this view. A view emerged that Jews needed their own state to be safe from persecution.

Indian Nationalism

Elphinstone College

We will look in greater detail at Indian independence movements when we look at decolonisation, but we will make a start here. In order to better run their administration the British started opening educational institutions, like Elphinstone College, to raise a new generation of administrators. By doing so it exposed elite Indians to liberal and nationalist writings from across the world - ranging from Japanese reformers to John Stuart Mills. Figures like Dadabhai Naoroji, who taught for Elphinstone, would use this to criticise British misrule. His 'drain theory' criticised Britain for draining the wealth from India to profit the UK. However, the main nationalists were those who wanted to reform religion - such as improving the rights of women, ending child marriage, and challenging caste. As a result, Indian nationalism largely became divided along the lines of religion thanks to this. Syed Ahmad Khan's Aligarh University aimed to reform Indian Islam which resulted in the creation of the Muslim League in 1906. Meanwhile, elite Hindu reformers formed the Indian National Congress in 1885. Under Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru the Congress would become a much larger movement not specifically for Hindus, but the legacy of this would cut deep. The nationalist movement became divided about what the language should be - sectarian splits meant that Hindus chose Hindi and Muslims Urdu. Today, India's main national language is Hindi and Pakistan Urdu.

Conclusion

Nationalism was one of the key driving movements in the 1800s - only socialism or industrial capitalism can possibly rival it. It shook up the world, and set the stage for more destructive forms of nationalism of the twentieth century. Most importantly, looking at nationalism explains why we have to study history. History and imagery is regularly used, or misused, to construct national identities, but this could be to the detriment of marginalised groups. For example, today in Britain Winston Churchill has been vaulted as a national symbol despite his genocide in Bengal - this paints an image that British Indian experiences are less important than nation building. These debates occurred in the 1800s and still are relevant today.

The sources I have used are as follows:

-Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Empire, 1875-1914, (London: 1987)

-Kumari Jayawardena, Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World, (London: 1986)

-Liah Greenfeld, Nationalism:Five Roads to Modernity, (Cambridge, MA: 1992)

-Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, (London: 1983)

-Eric Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality, (Cambridge: 1990)

-Sumit Sarkar, Modern India, 1885-1947, (London: 1983)

-Mary Fulbrook, (ed.), German History since 1800, (New York, NY: 1997)

-Stuart Woolf, (ed.), Nationalism in Europe, 1815 to the Present, (London: 1996)

-Christopher Duggan, The Force of Destiny: A History of Italy since 1796, (London: 2007)

Thank you for reading. Our next World History post will look at feminism, and for other World History posts we have a list here. For other posts please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby.

Comics Explained: Different Versions of the Hulk

Anyone who has seen Avengers: Endgame will know that the Hulk is quite different from how we normally see him. Being one of Marvel's oldest and most popular characters the Hulk has gone through various iterations in the mainstream comics alone. As a fun little short post I thought it would be good to look over some of the various versions of the big green monster. Most importantly, don't get them angry. You wouldn't like them when they're angry.

Savage Hulk

This is the Hulk that everyone knows. A manifestation of Bruce Banner's rage and anxiety he turns into the tall, muscular monster. Savage Hulk's power is connected to his anger - the angrier he gets, the stronger he gets. As a result, in theory, there is nothing stopping the Hulk from getting stronger and stronger. However, there are drawbacks. The Savage Hulk has his intelligence and reasoning skills decreased so he often becomes a destructive force of rage that causes more damage than good. In the comics written by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in the 1960s the Hulk could hold basic sentences and reasoning, but as the comics have progressed the Savage Hulk has become increasingly volatile. That's why his most famous phrase is 'Hulk Smash'. Not everyone sees Savage Hulk as a hero. The Planet Hulk storyline involved Earth's heroes jettisoning an unruly Hulk to an apparently uninhabited planet so he cannot hurt anyone again, and the world cheered when Bruce Banner was accidentally killed during the Civil War II event. Finally, on top of his super strength the Hulk has intense durability so bullets, and even tank fire, cannot hurt him.

Grey Hulk

This was the original Hulk, and Stan Lee was heavily inspired by Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde when he co-created the Hulk with Jack Kirby. Instead of a formula it was a gamma bomb which turned Bruce into the Hulk. In the original comics the Hulk was more like a Mr. Hyde to Bruce Banner's Jekyll. Like all other incarnations, he is a manifestation of Banner's repressed anger, but, unlike many other versions, Grey Hulk retained most of his intelligence, was shorter, and not as strong. He was a brute, but a cunning one. He also only turned into the Hulk at night, his anger levels had nothing to do with his transformation. Kirby had differing opinions on the Hulk to Lee - for one, he argued that he shouldn't be grey for the simple fact that it was hard to keep a consistent shade over panel to panel with their printing techniques. He was correct. In the first few issues the Hulk's skin kept changing shades, and at times even looked green. Lee had to back down, and with that, Savage Hulk replaced Grey Hulk. Grey Hulk has, however, resurfaced a few times.

Joe Fixit

This was a version of Hulk who first appeared in Hulk #324. The writers wanted to spice up the Hulk so had Banner permanently stuck in his Hulk form. With his mind trapped in the Hulk's subconscious this allowed the beast out, however, he was different to the Savage Hulk. Instead, he was more like the Grey Hulk - he was grey, had some intelligence (albeit not a lot), was shorter, and was weaker but still easily stronger than any human. Unsure about what to do with himself now that he couldn't turn back into Banner or Savage Hulk, he became an enforcer for Las Vegas casinos. He even got his own suit! Eventually Banner managed to regain control of the Hulk and we got the Savage Hulk back.

Merged/Professor Hulk

In the 1990s Marvel wanted to do something different with the Hulk again, and Merged Hulk was the result. Bruce Banner, Savage Hulk, and Grey Hulk were all fighting for dominance in the mind of Banner himself, so an ally of the Hulk, Doc Samson, decided to use hypnosis to solve the situation. He managed to hypnotise Banner and merge the three identities together. He would have the body of the Savage Hulk, the drive of Grey Hulk, and the mind of Bruce Banner - he was the Merged Hulk. No longer fearing that he could lose control and hurt people, Banner decided to become a regular member of the Avengers. When the Marvel vs. DC event came around it was this version of the Hulk who fought Superman (and lost), and was later merged with Solomon Grundy to form the Skulk. Despite Doc Samson's best efforts, the psyches in Banner's mind kept on fighting and tearing each other apart. One time he reverted back into Banner form but with the Savage Hulk's mind! Due to this, Merged Hulk gave way to Savage Hulk once more. Later, in the alternate future MC2 it is revealed that Banner managed to solve this issue and become Professor Hulk - he had the body of Savage Hulk and the mind of Banner. This version would become the Hulk which we saw in Avengers: Endgame.

World War and World Breaker 

During the Planet Hulk storyline, the ship which sent the Hulk to space went off course and landed on the planet Sakaar where the Hulk was enslaved, and forced to fight as a gladiator. His mind improved, despite locking Banner deep down in his subconscious, and he retained his Hulk body. He managed to overthrow the planet's ruler, get a wife, and almost became a father. The ship which sent him to Sakaar then exploded killing most life on Sakaar, including his pregnant wife, Caiera. Blaming the heroes of Earth he formed a team to return to Earth and get revenge - this gave birth to World War Hulk. When arriving on Earth he had so much rage that his power levels grew to unknown levels. Upon seeing Mr. Fantastic he yelled 'None of this would have happened. I'll hate you forever, almost as much as I hate myself'. His anger peaked and the force of him slamming his feet started breaking the tectonic plates of the Earth! This was World Breaker Hulk.

Maestro

Maestro is the only alternate reality version of the Hulk that we're going to look at - if we were going to look at more we would be here for a long time. Maestro was introduced in The Incredible Hulk: Future Imperfect in 1992 when the regular Hulk was sent into a future where nuclear war had dosed the Hulk with radiation. Instead of dying it made him even stronger, and somewhat merged the minds of Banner and the Hulk. Maestro had Banner's intelligence with the malevolence and strength of the Hulk creating one of the most powerful superheroes. Maestro then wiped out the Earth's heroes and became king of the planet for a century. Just like Red Skull in Old Man Logan he had a room of the paraphernalia of the slain heroes and villains including Dr Doom's mask, some Iron Man suits, Spider-Man's mask, and Magneto's helmet. Truly showing Maestro's power you can even see Thor's hammer and the broken board of the Silver Surfer.

Red

The Red Hulk is not Bruce Banner - it is instead the father of Betty Ross (Banner's love interest) Thunderbolt Ross. In 2008's Hulk #1 a Red Hulk appeared and killed the Abomination, and we later find out that, two years later, that it's Ross. Ross underwent a project by the US military to create a more powerful version of the Hulk that had a tactical mind. As a result, Ross became the Red Hulk - a being stronger than the Hulk, and had the ability to increase his power by absorbing radiation from others. This power makes him hotter to the point that his skin can go on fire! With ease, in his initial appearance, he caused an earthquake in San Francisco, killed two of Hulk's enemies, destroyed the SHIELD Helicarrier, and had to be defeated by the combined forces of the Hulk and Thor. Despite being far stronger than the regular Hulk his own power was his undoing. When fighting the Hulk got madder, so Red Hulk absorbed more energy, which made the Hulk even madder, so the Red Hulk absorbed too much that he could handle and collapsed. Betty also underwent this project becoming a red version of She-Hulk.

Totally Awesome

The final version of the Hulk that we're going to discuss today is also the most recent introduction. Since the mid-2010s Marvel has updated its roster to include younger and more diverse heroes - these include Miles Morales and the new Ms. Marvel. This new version of the Hulk was Amadeus Cho, who had been introduced as a close ally of the Hulk in Amazing Fantasy Vol. 2 #15 when the Hulk saved him. Amadeus is one of the ten smartest people on Earth, something serious considering that some Marvel characters can make a time machine as easily as a mechanic can make a car, and when Banner was hit by a new dose of radiation he decided to help the scientist. Making a device that could absorb the radiation he took all the gamma radiation from Banner and stored it in himself which he could control via a machine. As a result, in Totally Awesome Hulk #1 in 2016 Bruce Banner finally could stop being the Hulk, and Amadeus Cho became the new one. Cho could control his Hulk identity so he basically became a version of Professor Hulk - super strong and super intelligent. However, the strength of the Hulk kept on pulling at him, and he quickly found it hard to keep control. When Banner died in Civil War II he almost lost control of the Hulk and came close to rampaging. Since 2018, in Champions Vol 2. #22, Cho has given up most of his Hulk power becoming Brawn instead. He still looked like the Hulk and was very strong, but not nearly as strong as the Hulk.

These are just a fraction of the many different versions of the Hulk. We haven't covered the Old Man Logan Hulk, MCU Hulk, Marvel Zombies Hulk, and, of course, She-Hulk (she deserves an entire post for herself). Anyway, I hope you found this interesting. For future blog updates please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby.

Left-Wing and the 'Other' History: I am Your Sister

Audrey Lorde's short manifesto I am Your Sister: Black Women Organizing Across Sexualities (1985) has been seen as one of the keynote texts of black feminist thought. Lorde, bell hooks, and Angela Davis have been seen as the trifecta of black feminist thought. Lorde regularly critiqued the intersection between class, race, gender, and sexuality, and aimed to criticise various movements for homogenising experiences. In particular, she criticised the feminist movement for largely focusing on the oppression that straight, white women (often middle-class) faced, and not the oppression of racial or sexual minorities. One of her most influential texts on this was I am Your Sister, which we shall look at today. Before we begin, it is very short and you can read it here.

Audrey Lorde - A Brief Biography

Lorde was born to Caribbean parents in Harlem in 1934, and faced oppression on all sides. Her parents companies were failing thanks to the Great Depression, so she faced coldness from her parents; she was black living in New York; and she was so nearsighted that she was almost considered legally blind. She would also face a specific form of prejudice often overlooked called colourism. Due to white and imperialist beauty standards people of colour with darker skin have often seen further prejudice compared to people of colour with lighter skin - even among their own communities. Lorde's mother had Spanish heritage so had lighter skin, and this affected how she raised her daughters, who all had darker skin. According to Lorde, her mother distrusted African-Americans with darker skin, and raised her daughters, consequently, by strict 'tough love'. Through all of this she had trouble communicating, but she found an outlet through poetry - something which would influence a name change. In Zami: A New Spelling of My Name she explains that is poetry which influenced her to change her name from 'Audrey' to 'Audre' due to the artistic symmetry of having names ending with the same letter. Aged 12 she felt that she was an outcast so wrote poetry to cope with it - she would later realise that she was a lesbian. She engaged with Harlem's poetry scene during her teenage years, but she was often treated as an inferior because she was 'crazy and queer' that she 'would grow out of'. However, when she started attending the National University of Mexico in 1954 she became freed. She managed to engage in LGBTQ+ and black culture, and realised that it was okay to be 'crazy and queer'. In particular, she became immersed in the LGBTQ+ culture at Greenwich Village in New York, the area which would later see the Stonewall Riot.

From entering university until she passed Lorde wrote poetry and literature, and with feminist, LGBTQ+, and black activism. She and author Alice Walker, famous for The Color Purple, helped develop the idea of 'womanism' - they viewed feminism as being too dominated by white, middle-class women which neglected the experiences of other women. Meanwhile, she also criticised the black rights movement for being dominated by men who would use homophobia to silence black women's complaints of misogyny. She would become part of the Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press to help link women's communication in 1977; tried to form a black studies department at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice; in 1981 helped found the Women's Coalition of St. Croix to help women suffering from sexual abuse; and helped found the Sisterhood in Support of Sisters which aimed to help black South African women suffering under Apartheid. In 1984 she began teaching in West Berlin where some of her best known activism occurred - it was even subject to a 2012 documentary by Dagmar Schultz. Germany's Afro-German population has often been forgotten and have always faced prejudice - many, named the 'Rhineland Bastards' were sterilised during the Holocaust. Lorde helped Afro-German women articulate their intersectional oppression, and use language to challenge this oppression. During her political activism she continued writing throughout releasing some of her best known poems, writings on LGBTQ+ identity, and even discussed with Afro-Cuban poets if the revolution had changed racism and homophobia in Cuban society. She was also interested in aiding gay and women's rights in the so-called Third World. She vocally opposed the homogenising and 'othering' of  women in the global south, and, inspired by internationalism, hoped to create international understanding. At the 1983 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom she said:

Today we march,” she said, “lesbians and gay men and our children, standing in our own names together with all our struggling sisters and brothers here and around the world, in the Middle East, in Central America, in the Caribbean and South Africa, sharing our commitment to work for a joint livable future. We know we do not have to become copies of each other in order to be able to work together. We know that when we join hands across the table of our difference, our diversity gives us great power. When we can arm ourselves with the strength and vision from all of our diverse communities, then we will in truth all be free at last.

Tragically, Lorde would be diagnosed with breast cancer in 1978, and would later be diagnosed with liver cancer in 1984. Despite this she persisted on - one of her greatest works The Cancer Journals (1981) won the Gay Caucus Book of the Year. She managed to become New York's poet laureate in 1991 before tragically passing the next year. On her death she took a naming ceremony from Nigeria, where she met her partner Dr. Gloria Joseph, adopting the name Gamba Adisa meaning 'Warrior: She Who Makes her Name Known'.

I Am Your Sister

Lorde wrote I Am Your Sister in 1985 with the intention of challenging homophobia and sexism within both the black rights movement, and the women's rights movement. Civil rights movements had a tendency of focusing on one form of oppression of a minority group - there had always been exceptions to this, as exemplified by the Black Panther Party who combined class liberation with black liberation. Thanks to this, forms of oppression seeped into rights movements - homophobia and sexism are prime examples. It was common for black feminists to be criticised as being lesbians by male activists when they pointed out sexism. Lorde aimed to challenge this. She said that 'Black women are not one great vat of homogenized chocolate milk. We have many different faces, and we do not have to become each other in order to work together...and until you can hear me as a Black Lesbian feminist, our strengths will not be be truly available to each other as black women'. Lorde identifies two key forms of prejudice preventing the acceptance of black, lesbian women: heterosexism (the idea that one form of love is superior to the rest) and homophobia ('A terror surrounding feelings of love for members of the same sex and thereby a hatred of those feelings in others'). She links this to the classic 'I can't be racist, I have non-white friends' - white liberals wore dashikis and even married African-Americans but never questioned the bedrock of society supporting white dominance. For example, band-aids and plasters match paler skins and not darker ones. Lorde states that it is the same with homophobia and heterosexism - straight allies never questioned the bedrock of straight supremacy.

'I have heard it said - usually behind my back - that Black Lesbians are not normal. But what is normal in this deranged society by which we are all trapped? I remember, and so do many of you, when being black was NOT NORMAL'. Reading this it reminds you that the way society is shaped can be changed, as new identities try to fight for rights other earlier movements become a 'norm' used to discredit the newer movements. Lorde describes common arguments against black lesbians - like they are 'destroying the family' and 'destroying the race' - are nothing but fear mongering. For one, she mentions how her own son and daughter disprove this. She argues that when women are accused of being lesbian it should not be something to be ashamed - 'If someone says you're a Russian and you know you're not, you don't collapse into stunned silence...But let anyone, particularly a Black man, accuse a straight Black woman of being a Black Lesbian, and right away that sister becomes immobilized, as if that is the most horrible thing that she could be, and must at all costs be proven false. That is homophobia.' Lorde explains how Black women and Black Lesbians should be proud. She cites her own extensive political activism - ranging from marching with Martin Luther King at Washington to helping students occupy buildings - as not diminishing her identity, 'I was a Black Lesbian' accompanies it.

Lorde ends the text, it's less than ten pages, with a final, assertive statement. Homophobic stereotypes were, and are, the problems of straight communities just as racism was the issue of white people. If equality was to come straight people had to acknowledge their own biases. Lorde concludes referencing a white produced poster from the 1960s which said 'He's not black he's my brother', which she critiqued as implying they were mutually exclusive. So she says 'I am a Black Lesbian, and I am Your Sister'.

Legacy
Lorde's manifesto shows how intersectionality works in practice. Quite often it has been misrepresented and strawmanned, but Lorde shows how intersectionality both works and is needed. Treating communities as independent, mutually exclusive categories, but were deeply connected touching many lives. Her work has gone on to inspire leftists, anti-racists, and feminists continuously, including Kimberle Crenshaw who coined the idea of intersectionality. Her words still remain vitally important today. These ones from her essay The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House:

those of us who stand outside the circle of this society's definition of acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference – those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are Black, who are older – know that survival is not an academic skill. It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths. For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. And this fact is only threatening to those women who still define the master's house as their only source of support.

The sources I have used are as follows:
-Audre Lorde, I Am Your Sister: Black Women Organizing Across Sexualities, (New York: 1985)
-Audre Lorde, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, (New York: 1983)
-Rudolph Byrd, I Am Your Sister: Collected and Unpublished Writings of Audre Lorde, (Oxford: 2009)
-Audre Lorde, The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House, Collective Liberation, [Accessed 05/09/2019]

Thank you for reading and I hope you found it interesting. For other Left-Wing and Other History posts we have our link here. For future blog updates please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby.