[Suffragette V] : Votes for women!
Votes for women!.
[Modern V] : That’s great, this will do so much for the collective bargaining power
of working-class women!
[Suffragette V] : What— [Modern V] : And immigrant women!
If they’ve chosen to live their lives in this country they should at least have a say
in how it’s run.
[Suffragette V] : I didn’t— [Modern V] : And for Black women!
It’s the least we could do after having kidnapped their ancestors and exploited them
for centuries.
[Suffragette V] : I didn’t mean those women!
[Modern V] : Oh.
Um.
Then who did you mean?
[Suffragette V] : Good, respectable women.
[Modern V] : . . . don’t all those women deserve respect?
[Suffragette V] : You know who I mean.
Women like us.
[Modern V] : Ahhhh.
Right.
Given, well . . . current events, we are all understandably rather fired up about feminism
and “womens” rights.
Protests, much discussion of voting, et c.
Within the historical costuming community I’ve seen some folks looking to the suffragette
movement and their iconic white dresses and striped sashes as a way to express our frustration.
And while I am all for wearing cool outfits to protest in . . . there is a lot hiding
under these fluffy white dresses, and it’s not all pretty.
Like white supremacy.
Very not pretty.
Hi, I’m V : fashion history nerd and firm believer that “my feminism will be intersectional
or my feminism will be [BLEEP]”.
I was already planning a video about the complexities of suffragette worship and the white dresses
before that Supreme Court draft got leaked, but this seems like a timely moment to look
closer at the history of “womens” rights movements.
A couple of years ago, there was this whole fuss about it being a hundred years since
the 19th amendment and women winning the right to vote! . . . and, a great many posts and
articles and such reminding us that it was really just white women that got the right
to vote then.
Many women of color were still denied the vote because of their race until later policy
changes, and we still have plenty of racially-motivated voting restrictions today.
This isn’t something we can separate from the suffragettes or their pretty white dresses.
To explain why the suffragette outfits were tangled up with white supremacy, I’m going
to have to explain how they became part of the womens’ suffrage movement in the first
place.
Just a little heads-up : In this video, I am about to go full-on Social Justice Costumer
and maybe ruin some of your historical faves.
If you are not here for anti-racist, anti-classist, trans-inclusive, pro-choice, et cetera et
cetera historical fashion commentary, you should probably leave now because you won’t
like this one.
{aside} You should probably also just leave my channel, because you won’t like my other
stuff much better.
And, this is probably a good point to tell you that the comments are moderated, so if
you do decide to go down there and start a mess, no one’s ever gonna read it.
If you do like Social Justice Fashion History, you should subscribe because we do a lot of
this here, and if you’re a nerd like me and want further reading, you can find my
entire annotated bibliography on my Patreon.
When I started researching, I was really surprised to see there wasn’t much on Youtube about
how and why the suffragette outfit is so recognizable, and what it stood for.
It’s such a fascinating junction of issues.
How fashion can be used in political narratives, both obvious and covert branding and marketing,
aaaand how it’s important to understand the full context of anything in history before
putting it on a pedestal.
It was actually too much to fit into one video, so look out for another one soon where Ora
Lin and I will dig even deeper into the racism specifically.
Usual disclaimer on gendered terms : The historical “womens” suffrage movement certainly contained
people who wouldn’t call themselves “women” with our current understanding of gender,
and excluded many people who would be called “women” today.
However, the term “womens’ rights” is ironically appropriate for the historical
movement because they only advocated for a binary and reductive definition of “women”,
and modern feminist movements are still not out of that habit.
The beginnings of what we now call the “suffragette” movement were in the mid-19th century, and
initially in the US were one and the same as the abolitionist movement.
There was a schism in the aftermath of the Civil War, because racism, more on that later.
These early womens’ suffragists included one Amelia Bloomer originator of the “bloomer
suit” costume and thus the word “bloomers”.
Unfortunately, anti-suffragists seized on even this small rejection of gender roles
and created caricatures of suffragists as masculine, trouser-wearing “non-women”.
This level of ridicule and mockery was a major setback to the movement.
With the damage being done to their public image, and the cage crinoline offering a comparatively
more comfortable way to wear the large bell-shaped skirts of the 1850s, all of these early suffragists
eventually abandoned the bloomer suit.
The suffrage movement didn’t make fashion part of their cause again until the 1900s,
and when they did, they went exactly in the opposite direction.
As the suffrage cause developed into an organized protest movement, it became useful to establish
visual indicators and standards, both for recognition of the movement and to control
the narrative and the story that would shape public opinion and eventually policy.
Womens’ suffrage leaders, particularly in Britain, saw the harm that the “un-feminine”
image had done to their cause, and wanted to undo it.
Western understanding of gender was considered the foundation of the social order, and the
gendered role of a “woman” was considered the social and emotional glue that held society
together.
These cartoons allowed womens’ suffrage activists to be demonized as a threat to that
society— Hold on, I need to put on some pearls so I can clutch them.
By dressing fashionably and femininely, even while staging marches and breaking windows,
the suffragettes were saying “Look, we’re not trying to destroy the fabric of society
or whatever.
We’re still going to be women in all the sexist ways that matter, we just want the
vote as well.”.
English suffragist leader Sylvia Pankhurst, who had been to art school and did visual
merchandising for WSPU events, said "Many suffragists spend more money on clothes than
they can comfortably afford, rather than run the risk of being considered outré, and doing
harm to the cause".
The term “suffragette” was initially meant to be demeaning, but since anti-suffragists
could no longer mock suffragists for being masculine, they instead mocked them for being
feminine with a diminutive nickname.
Which, of course, was made into a rallying cry.
White clothes were fashionable in the 1900s regardless of one’s politics; just look
at all these fluffy white lingerie dresses.
Adopting it as a sort of uniform was practical as well as being good for the narrative : white
blouses, if not dresses, were so ubiquitous that suffragists of any demographic would
own one.
And, since white outfits were so fashionable, it maintained a certain level of plausible
deniability when that was needed.
In Britain, purple and green were chosen as accent colors, leading to the familiar striped
sashes but also a wide array of more subtle accessories.
Jewelry like necklaces and brooches was sold with suffragette color branding, allowing
the wearer to subtly show their support for the cause.
We even have a pair of stockings from the Chetsey Museum embroidered with the phrase
“Votes for Women”.
On my side of the pond, purple and gold were also used before being officially adopted
in 1913.
Apparently the gold comes from the Kansas suffrage referendum in 1867, the state flower
of Kansas being a gold sunflower.
This was the campaign where Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton worked with a blatantly
racist politician called George Francis Train trying to get a womens’ suffrage bill passed
by attacking Black suffrage.
This would pretty much set the tone for the US womens’ suffrage movement for the next
50 years, so, uhh, we know what that gold stands for.
Unfortunately, all this clever fashion branding relied on some really damaging social ideas
about femininity, and what made a “good woman”.
It’s that age-old madonna-whore double standard, although it was less madonna vs “whore”
than madonna vs “choose your hodgepodge of sexist, classist, transphobic, and racist
stereotypes”.
These delicate outfits, chosen to be above criticism, are telling the world “Look what
a good woman I am.
Look how little of a threat I am to your ideas about gender.
Look how well I perform my gender role, which entitles me to comfort and protection.
Look how cruel these policeman are for grabbing me!
How dare they lay their hands on such a fine upstanding member of the fairer sex!”.
The social contract of the time stated that (white, Western) men were supposed to treat
“ladies” with the utmost respect and courtesy, opening doors and pulling out chairs . . . as
long as the “ladies” in question held up their end.
Men who didn’t treat women with these paternalistic sorts of good manners were considered coarse
and boorish and low-class, not because they were sexist, but because they didn’t express
their sexism in “gentlemanly” ways.
By the way, this is the same social contract and ideal of white femininity that was being
used at this same time to justify lynchings.
When suffragettes put on such an aggressive performance of perfect, ladylike Western colonizer
femininity, while getting manhandled and arrested and dragged off by the police, it turned all
the narratives about suffragists breaking the social contract on their heads.
Instead of “noisy, masculine, ill-bred low-class and also non-white women with damaging political
ideas”, being put back in their places by upstanding men trying to maintain the fabric
of their society . . . now it looked like the policemen were uncouth brutes committing
an offense against the purity of virtuous, classy white womanhood.
It changed the narrative, so now the anti-suffragists were the ones breaking the social contract.
Very effective, yes— and completely reliant on that ideal of classy white womanhood being
upheld.
Harmful as it was, this was super clever branding and narrative control.
Oftentimes, as much as we would like to live in a more just world, we have to work within
the constraints of what’s around us, and I am all for manipulating oppressive social
structures in order to tear them down.
This would have been a great way for these white suffragettes to leverage their privilege,
leverage this ideal that others couldn’t embody and this protection that others couldn’t
claim, to fight for the rights of people who didn’t have that leverage or protection
and faced greater consequences for stepping out of line.
It would have been great . . . if that’s actually what they’d done.
In the US especially, the womens’ suffrage movement not only included but actively courted
white Southerners who were pursuing suffrage specifically because of white supremacy.
Some suffragettes were involved with other progressive political causes like labour rights,
abolition, disability justice, and anti-fascism, and some were . . . not.
That schism between the abolitionist movement and early US womens’ suffragists— that’s
where this started.
Probably the most illustrative example I can give is the argument between Elizabeth Cady
Stanton and Frederick Douglass over the 15th amendment.
Douglass wanted to accept this amendment that would give voting rights to Black men as a
step in the right direction while continuing to fight for womens’ suffrage alongside
abolition.
Stanton responded to this by pulling her support for the 15th amendment and giving a speech
filled with racist and classist stereotyping.
She said “[the 15th amendment] creates an antagonism everywhere between educated, refined
women and the lower orders of men”.
From this point, it was abundantly clear that these white suffragists weren’t actually
interested in antiracism, they had simply been using the abolitionist movement to achieve
their own ends.
Realizing that a national policy of womens’ suffrage wouldn’t pass without support from
the South, the National American Woman Suffrage Association adopted a policy of trying to
convince Southern politicians that they could protect white supremacy by giving white Southern
women the vote.
Belle Kearney, a speaker and lobbyist for NAWSA straight-out said “The enfranchisement
of women would insure immediate and durable white supremacy” in 1903, at a NAWSA conference
in New Orleans that Black suffragists were barred from attending.
Say it with your whole chest, why don’t you— fluffy Edwardian bust improvers and
all.
In 1913, a group of white women suffragists broke off from NAWSA to form the Southern
States Woman Suffrage Association, because NAWSA wanted a constitutional amendment which
might have enfranchised Black women too.
And though white supremacy was not an official goal for NAWSA the way it was for the Southern
States association, that didn’t stop leader Alice Paul from trying to segregate all the
Black participants in a massive demonstration in 1913.
Knowing that context . . . these white dresses are honestly reminding me a lot of the concept
of “white women tears”.
So, when a white woman cries to induce guilt or bring down external consequences on a Black
person because she, consciously or unconsciously, recognizes that white women are viewed as
Fragile Delicate Creatures who Must Be Protected At All Costs.
I’ve seen white women do this to other white people and POC too, but it’s a particularly
insidious problem in white womens’ interactions with people of color.
Please see my earlier comment about about the use of white femininity to justify racist
violence— but we’ll dig deeper into that next time.
We are implicitly taught to think that anyone who reduces a white woman to tears must be
a horrible brute and owes her an apology.
The suffragettes, getting arrested in their lovely, fashionable, feminine white dresses,
kinda look like they’re doing the same thing.
And, yes, if they had turned around and used that white femininity and privilege to fight
for the rights of all who were denied suffrage, to fight against racism and classism and other
things as well as for their own power, it would have been an admirable use of the arbitrary
advantages they were given!
But they DIDN’T.
Most of them were fighting to hold onto their own place and privilege in a changing social
order.
White women got their vote, and most of them took it and went home, every bit as racist
as they had always been.
And they left many women of color without the vote thanks to Jim Crow laws, exclusion
from citizenship, language requirements, and other racially motivated restrictions.
I am not going to claim that the suffragettes’ fashion branding was not a verrrry politically
savvy move.
It was a clever way to advance their agenda.
Taken without context, it looks intelligent and empowering and feminist.
It played on well-established social tropes and structures, and created an accessible
visual shorthand for a political movement.
It was great marketing.
But in the context of how the womens’ suffrage movement interacted with the other political
forces of their time, in the context of their actual agenda . . . it’s very symbolic of
white women, weaponizing white femininity, in order to uphold white supremacy.
To quote an article by ShaRhonda Knott-Dawson, ”In the same way we are clear that Black
people were not part of the ‘independence of America,’ we are also clear that Black
women were not part of ‘women’s suffrage.’”
So, as nice as it would be to look up to the women who “won us the vote”, I have a
really hard time with how uncritically this image is held up.
I do not want to associate myself with a movement that prioritized white women’s social superiority
over Black humanity.
I don’t want to look up to people who were so focused on getting their own right to vote
that they were willing to push other people down to do it.
This issue of white women voting in the interest of their whiteness and power over others,
rather than in solidarity with more marginalized groups is still a problem today.
It’s basically how we got this awful Supreme Court draft : white women were a major demographic
factor in electing Trump, and it’s his Supreme Court appointments that are threatening our
medical agency.
So I think the real question is this : Am I standing up for equal rights and reproductive
justice only for myself, or am I standing up for all of the people facing worse circumstances
than I am?
For me to dress up as a suffragette, given how much that movement only prioritized white
cis upper- or middle-class women, would be to say that I am only in this for my own power
and protection.
Which, as I said earlier, would make my feminism [BLEEP].
Thank you for joining me as I vent my frustration through shouting on the internet about history.
Don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss my video with Ora where we’ll talk
about suffragettes and antiracism in more depth, leave a like while you’re there,
and tell me in the comments about your favorite historical “protest fashion” pieces If
you want even more nerdy history reading, my annotated bibliography is available on
my Patreon, linked in the description.
You can find me around the internet @MissSnappyDragon, including TikTok now!
Happy Juneteenth to everyone, may it be joyous for my Black viewers and reflective for the
rest of us, now go get yourself one of Muse and Dionysus’ excellent Suffrage t-shirts
and remember that “Until we are all of us free, we are none of us free.”