History And The Metalanguage Of Race Analysis

When thinking about the complexities of colored and poor women`s identity and Truth`s argument, many questions arise. Can those who did not actually do the work of “men” effectively use that argument to demand for equal rights? In African American Women`s History and the Metalanguage of Race, Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham writes on how race was used to justify the rubric of woman. She writes “Black women failed to receive as a pretense of protection, so widely accepted was the belief that the spread of the disease was inevitable because black women were promiscuous by nature.” In this excerpt, Higginbotham writes about the belief that certain sexually transmitted diseases were spreading among the black community because black women were promiscuous.
As a way to combat the negative image of them, many sought to present themselves as opposite of what they are portrayed as. As a result, there was a respectability politics being used to attempt to combat the prejudice. Higginbotham writes that “Black women teachers, missionaries, and club members zealously promoted values of temperance, sexual repression, and police manners among the poor.” In other words, black women were thought to change how they are viewed by changing themselves to fit white standards of decency. Being a lady in the 19th century meant having the rights of a woman. Furthermore, if being a lady in the 19th century was described as someone who stays in the house and does not work except if it is the work of raising their children, then black and poor women who were forced to work to make a living do not fit that category or the category of woman. To be treated as women, many tried to take on these attributes that made white wealthy females
This contributed to the label woman being exclusively for white and wealthy females. Therefore if Truth`s argument for equal rights is based on the ability of women to do the same work as women, then in order for wealthy white women to use this argument they had to accept that poor and white women were women as well. Truth`s argument gave poor and colored females a way to demand for their rights as