Intersectionality is an analytic tool that gives people better access to the complexity of the world and of themselves (Collins & Bilge, 2020). This section provides a more nuanced understanding of whiteness in the context of the intersecting structures and identities of race, ethnicity, social class, gender, and sexuality. Using an intersectional lens, the reader unfolds the multifaceted layers of whiteness, unpacking how our social location and different placement in systems of racism, sexism, classism and heterosexism differently shape our experiences and our frames. Hence, while all white people benefit from white privilege and white supremacy, they certainly do not all benefit equally or in all social locations.
Immigrant Women
As explained by Joseph Healey, Andi Stepnick, and Eileen O'Brien, immigrant women from Western Europe were among the most exploited segments of labor in earlier U.S. history, and they were involved in some of the most significant events in labor history. For example, consider 1909, New York City. One of the first victories of the union movement, the uprising of 20,000 people was a massive strike of mostly Jewish and Italian women (many in their teens) against the garment industry. The strike lasted 4 months despite attacks by thugs hired by the bosses and abuses experienced at the hands of police and the courts. The strikers eventually won recognition of their union, a reversal of a wage decrease, and a reduction in the 56- to 59-hour week they were expected to work (Goren, 1980, p. 584).
One of the great tragedies of labor history in the United States also involved European immigrant women. In New York City in 1911, a fire swept through the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, a garment industry shop located on the 10th floor of a building. The fire spread rapidly, with little chances for escape. About 140 young immigrant girls died, while many others chose to leap to their deaths rather than be annihilated by the flames. The disaster outraged the public, and a quarter of a million people attended the funerals of the victims. The incident fueled a drive for reform and improvement of work conditions and safety regulations (Amott & Matthaei, 1991, pp. 114–116).
European immigrant women also filled leadership roles in the labor movement, although usually in female-dominated unions. One of the most memorable union activists was Mother Jones, an Irish immigrant who worked tirelessly to organize miners. An activist until she was nearly 100 years old, Mother Jones went where the danger was greatest— crossing militia lines, spending weeks in damp prisons, incurring the wrath of governors, presidents, and coal operators; she helped to organize the United Mine Workers with "convictions and a voice," the only tools she felt she needed (Forner, 1980, p. 281).
During the 19th century, a high percentage of Irish immigrants were young single women who came to the U.S. seeking jobs and often wound up employed in domestic work, a role that allowed them to live in a respectable, family setting. In 1850, about 75% of all employed Irish immigrant women in New York City worked as servants, and the rest were employed in textile mills and factories (Healey et. al, 2019). As late as 1920, 81% of employed Irish-born women in the United States worked as domestics (Healey et. al, 2019).
Factory work was the second most prevalent form of employment (Blessing, 1980). Because the economic situation of immigrant families was typically challenging, it was common for women to be involved in low paid, wage labor. The type and location of the work varied depending on the white ethnic group. Whereas Irish women were concentrated in domestic work and factories and mills, this was rarely the case for Italian women. Italian culture had strong norms of patriarchy, and “one of the culture’s strongest prohibitions was directed against contact between women and male strangers” (Alba, 1985, p. 53). Thus, acceptable work situations for Italian women were likely to involve tasks that could be done at home (e.g. cleaning laundry, boarding others, and doing piecework for the garment industry). Italian women who worked outside the home were likely to find themselves in women-only settings among other immigrant women. Thus, women immigrants from Italy tended to be far less assimilated and integrated than those from Ireland.
According to Steinberg (1981), “Few were independent bread-winners, and when they did work, they usually found employment in the garment industry; often they worked in small shops as family members” (p. 161). Generally, immigrant women, like most working-class women, worked until they married, after which time it was expected that their husbands would support the family. In many cases, however, immigrant men could not earn enough to support their families, and their wives and children were required by necessity to also work to support the family budget. Immigrant wives sometimes continued to work outside the home, or otherwise found ways to earn a small income (e.g. gardening, sewing, cleaning laundry, etc.), jobs which all allowed them to perform their roles as caretakers in their own homes. A 1911 report on Southern and Eastern European households found that about half kept lodgers and that the income from this activity amounted to about 25% of the husbands’ wages (Healey et. al, 2019). Women were seen as working only to supplement the family income, a reality which was used to justify their lower wages. Evans (1989) reports that in the late 1800's, “whether in factories, offices, or private homes . . . women’s wages were about half of those of men” (p. 135).
White Women & Feminism
In her historical analysis of slavery, Stephanie Jones-Rogers points to the disposition of white women in upholding the peculiar institution of slavery. Rather than resisting this dehumanizing system, Jones-Rogers points out that white women were not only complicit but were active players in this caste economic system of slavery as many white women owned enslaved people. While many rights were denied to white women during this time, they could buy, sell and own slaves. Further, slave-holding parents and slave-holding family members "gave" their young daughters enslaved people as gifts — for Christmas or birthday. White female identity was tied to the home and also connected to ownership, control, and management of enslaved people.
Often stemming from their involvement in the abolition movement, suffragists began pushing for the women's vote even before the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848. Suffragists such as Angelina and Sarah Grimke, Lucretia Mott, Lucy Stone, and Sojourner Truth had their roots of political activism in the abolition movement. Though, white suffragists were split on their support for Black women's vote. In essence, some white female suffragists such as Susan B. Anthony were willing to sacrifice Black women's right to vote in order for white women to achieve suffrage; many used racist tactics to convince white Southern men that the suffrage vote would offset the African American male vote, attributed to the 15th Amendment and passed in 1869. When the vote was achieved with the 19th amendment in 1920, it was won for all women; yet, due to Jim Crow laws, Black men and women faced tremendous challenges when even registering to vote.
This split between white and Black women has often played out in U.S. history. While widely accepted in mainstream society today, "the pill" was first used to control the births of poor women, particularly poor women of color as Margaret Sanger declared "more from the fit, less from the unfit." Angela Davis explains eugenics and this divisive U.S. history in Women, Race and Class., highlighting the forced sterilization of poor women, particularly women of color. While white women advocate for reproductive rights (e.g., abortion rights and contraception), women of color advocate for reproductive justice, the right to reproduce. This Bridge Called My Back, an anthology of women writers of color including Gloria Anzaldua, Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, and Cherrie Moraga, is largely directed towards the mainstream white feminist movement, exposing the affront women of color have experienced from white women when trying to lift their voices, share their experiences, and present their vision for gender equality.
