The Intersection between Ethnicity and Sex: Women’s Activism Against Discrimination in America during the XIX Century

Abstract

When understanding feminist theory, it is essential to consider all its layers as well as their impact on women’s rights and freedom. However, feminism, over the course of its existence, has mainly focused on white, middle-class women, whereas other minority groups have remained repressed and silenced. In that regard, intersectional feminism, alongside other feminist movements, emerged as a reaction against the injustices and struggles that women and other minorities in North America had to endure in several aspects of their lives such as social marginalisation or racial segregation. Pioneers like Lucretia Mott and Sojourner Truth, among others, created an intersectional feminist prototype that was centuries ahead of its time. Accordingly, this essay intends to portrait their efforts to disavow the structures of power imposed on women, not only to create a new order in which all women are equal, regardless of their race, sexual orientation or class status, but also to create a new order in which men and women have equal rights.