This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "Blackout" by Candace Owens. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.
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How did the suffrage issue cause a rift between feminists and Blacks? Can women take “strong and independent” too far?
According to Candace Owens, feminism (as a social movement) has historically been at odds with the liberation of Black Americans. She warns that feminism continues to hurt the Black population today—specifically in the areas of suffrage, independence, and abortion.
Keep reading to understand how these policies and attitudes devastate especially Black Americans.
Suffrage
According to Candace Owens, feminism became an enemy of Black Americans during the suffrage struggles over 100 years ago. Owens believes that, because white men have historically held more power than women and Blacks, there’s always been an inherent rivalry between feminists and Black activists. Suffragettes were angry that Black men were granted the right to vote before women were. And Black women were angry with white women because they were essentially asking for both members of their household to have voting rights before even one member of a Black household did.
(Shortform note: Women were granted the federal right to vote with the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920. However, this did not eliminate state laws that prevented Black women from voting. Poll taxes and literacy tests kept many Black women out of the toll booths until after Jim Crow laws were dissolved. This is another reason why many Black people felt at odds with the feminists—the spoils were not distributed equally.)
Hyper-Independence
Similar to her discussion about welfare, Owens stresses the importance of an intact family unit. She believes that modern feminism encourages women to be “strong and independent” to the point where they emasculate or even replace men. Owens argues that proper child rearing depends upon a masculine figurehead as husband and father and that feminism is leaving a dangerous void in its place.
(Shortform note: The rate of married couples in the US has been on the decline and is currently at an all-time low. In 2019, there were six marriages for every 1,000 people. Compare these numbers to those at the start of the 21st century, when there were eight marriages for every 1,000 people. Statisticians say that this is a significant decline in a short period of time and attribute it in part to economic independence and gender equality for women. This supports Owens’s argument that feminism is affecting marriage rates, but it doesn’t address whether or not these households are happier and safer than in previous generations.)
Abortion
A key tenet of modern feminism is reproductive choice. Owens says that Black families are historically and deeply religious and that the idea of abortion goes against their Christian beliefs. She says that Democrats fund Planned Parenthood and that Planned Parenthood facilities disproportionately target Black neighborhoods. She believes that this is a feminist attack on the Black family’s religious foundations.
(Shortform note: There are many myths and misconceptions about Planned Parenthood as the abortion debate rages on. FactCheck.org, a nonpartisan website dedicated to indisputable facts and figures, goes through the most common messages about Planned Parenthood and explains why they are accurate or inaccurate. One example is a frequently cited statistic that “94% of Planned Parenthood’s services are abortions.” FactCheck explains that this number is misleading and inaccurate because it disregards all of the non-pregnancy-related health services offered, such as contraception, cancer screenings, and counseling.)
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Like what you just read? Read the rest of the world's best book summary and analysis of Candace Owens's "Blackout" at Shortform.
Here's what you'll find in our full Blackout summary:
- How the Democratic Party has been keeping Blacks poor and needy for political gain
- How Democratic policies have destroyed the nuclear family
- Why Black Democrats should jump ship and join the Republicans
