ay in The Third World Women's Alliance was a women-of-color socialist movement active from 1968 to 1980. They aimed to unite women of color to help end many issues with the United States. Racism, sexism, and imperialism were just a few issues that they were fighting against. Although these problems were explicitly stated in their newspaper, they stood for so much more. They were a safe haven for many women to come together and feel safe with one another. Though women-of-color were their main audience, they wanted to end many social stigmas for all minorities. They were an alliance for the people who were marginalized. Though we rarely hear about this group today; we do know that they played an integral role in uniting people who were a minority. In this research paper, I want to take a deep-dive into the many aspects of the third world women’s alliance.
Frances Beal was one of the most important people in the group. She was born on January 13th, 1940 in New York. She was one of the founding members of the SNCC Black Women’s Liberation Committee. She felt as if the SNCC was very women-inferior because men ran mostly everything. She was tired of the male-dominated SNCC so that is why she created the Black Women's Liberation Committee in 1968. In a movie titled She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry she explains “I was in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. You’re talking about liberation and freedom half the night on the racial side, and then all of a sudden men are going to turn around and start talking about putting you in your place. So in 1968 we founded the SNCC Black Women’s Liberation Committee to take up some of these issues.” She realized that feminism must be a thing in the SNCC for women to succeed in the group. Women had to separate themselves from the SNCC because male dominance was becoming a very prominent thing within the group. In order to have true progress for the group, the women had to come together in order to get what they wanted.
The Black Womans Manifesto was a pamphlet written by Frances Beal and was distributed by the Third World Women's Alliance in 1969 and helped to serve and demonstrate the views of the Alliance. The pamphlet seems to show every aspect of black women's struggles in the world and helped to expose the sexism and racism in the world. The pamphlet tries to reverse the roles in order to integrate a sense of accountability towards other human beings who do not have to deal with the same oppression as a black woman. Being a black female in America meant that she had to stay home and care for the family and home. She explains “The ideal model that is projected for a woman is to be surrounded by hypocritical homage and estranged from all real work, spending idle hours primping and preening, obsessed with conspicuous consumption, and limiting life's functions to simply a sex role.” (http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/196.html). IF this was true, then the woman would not be able to go out into the world and flourish. She would stay cooped up in the home and would only have the observations that her man would bring back home. This is not the way a woman should live. She needs to live as an equal to her spouse, being able to take in the life that she has.
The Third World Women's Alliance realized that women of color had to pay attention to sexism before they could get full liberation. They questioned what society that they wanted to live in. They demanded a world where women of color weren’t seen as a secondary to society, but as an equal. In the Black Women’s Manifesto, Frances Beal explains “The new world that we are struggling to create must destroy oppression of any type. The value of this new system will be determined by the status of those persons who are presently most oppressed – the low man on the totem pole.” (http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/196.html). The new system that they so desired was to bring light to the people who felt oppressed. To not only give power to them but to raise a new society where equality was at the forefront. Women of Color were at the forefront of the Third World Women’s Alliance’s efforts. They strived to destroy the misconceptions of the black woman in America and to give her the strength and love she needed in order to succeed in a world full of defensive attitudes.
The Third World Women's Alliance also paid attention to the economic exploitation of black women in America. Women have almost always been paid less for the same work that men do. Statistics from the Women's Bureau of the United States Department of Labor shows that white females make less than men of color and that women of color make even less than both of them. In the Black Woman's Manifesto, Frances Beal explains “There has been virtually no struggle against either the racism of the white worker or the economic exploitation of the working woman, two factors which have consistently impeded the advancement of the real struggle against the ruling capitalist class.” (http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/196.html). The TWWA wanted to make a difference in what was happening to women of color in the workforce. Capitalism has hit a lot of people very hard, but it especially hit women-of-color in the United States. Many men in the working class know that they are under oppression from the rich white people who own the companies, but they realize that at least they aren’t women. Women are exploited much more than men in the workforce, which is why the TWWA wanted to address this head-on in everything they did.
One interesting thing that the Third World Women's Alliance supported was the International Working Women’s Day. This day was meant to celebrate and commemorate the struggles and victories of women in the world. In an article on history.com titled The Surprising History of International Women’s Day, it explains “For their part, the organizers of the Woman’s March and the planned International Women’s Strike are asking women to go even further: take the day off from paid and unpaid labor, refrain from shopping and wear red in solidarity.” (https://www.history.com/news/the-surprising-history-of-international-womens-day). This day is still celebrated today, and it is very interesting that the Third World Women's Alliance played a key role in bringing this march to San Francisco. On March 11, 1979, the Third World Women's Alliance had a celebration at Queen Adah Hall in San Francisco. The poster shows different women in the picture. They portray a woman with a weapon holding a baby, another woman writing, another planting, and another
The SNCC realized that women of color needed many different needs than men of color. Men of color needed to spend most of their time fighting towards racism, whereas women of color had to fight towards abolishing racism and sexism. A sort of double jeopardy towards women of color. It is very prominent in the past and the present that women of color were treated unfairly because of their gender and the shade of their skin. They were targeted for two different things whereas men were only targeted for the color of their skin. Surprisingly, however, Frances Beal explains in an interview that the Third World Women's Alliance did not like the word feminism because it portrayed constructs between the man and the woman. She explains, “ I think that the activists of that period were the first ones to put together this kind of construct about the integration of the different things. But the reason we didn’t like feminism — because it also was, people were trying to do these constructs of male and female separations or, you know, and that was the dynamic of life.” (https://www.smith.edu/libraries/libs/ssc/vof/transcripts/Beal.pdf). This shows that although they fought for the woman of color, they ultimately wanted a world where the man and woman could live equally. A world where they could coexist with each other.
Sexism has been an extremely prevalent thing in the United States of America, let alone the world. There is no denying that women have been looked at as a secondary in America in the past. They have been extremely marginalized in America. Sexism has been everywhere. Education, reproductive rights, and sexual assault have all been problems for women. Although the white woman has had her own run-in with sexism in the United States. Women-of-Color, however, has been hit with a double whammy or a double jeopardy as the Third World Women's Alliance. Frances Beal raises some critical questions on white women’s liberation movements. She explains “The white women's movement is far from being monolithic. Any white group that does not have an anti-imperialist and anti-racist ideology has absolutely nothing in common with the black women' t struggle. Are white women asking to be equal to white men in their pernicious treatment of third world peoples? What assurances have black women that white women will be any less racist and exploitative if they had the power and were in a position to do so? These are serious questions that the white women's liberation movement has failed to address itself to.” (http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/196.html). White women are marginalized no doubt, but they are not close to the marginalization of black women or women of color in the United States. Beal’s questions about white women are valid, and they have the right to be apprehensive of white women. The question about whether or not white women would be racist and exploitive towards black women is understandable considering what white people have done to the white community. Black women’s double jeopardy has been a huge hinder on them for all of their lives, and the Third World Women's Alliance tried their best to address this issue.
The Third World Women's Alliance just wanted to live in a world free from the oppression that they felt. They wanted to live in a world where nobody had to worry about whether or not they had the same opportunities as men, because they did. They had a sense of urgency that was nothing short of amazing. They wanted to make a fundamental change in society to better suit people of color for a world where people felt much more equal. At the end of Frances Beal’s Black Women’s Manifesto, she explains “Black women must take an active part in bringing about the kind of world where our children, our loved ones, and each citizen can grow up and live as decent human beings, free from the pressures of racism and capitalist exploitation.” (http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/196.html). The Third World Women's Alliance was made to bring women of color together in a world where people were separated. They had analyzed the world for what it was and tried to make it a better place for everybody. They tried their best to not sit idle in the world they were in. The amount of progressiveness coming from this group is mind-blowing. They tried their absolute best to change the situation for women of color. They played an integral role in heightening the pride of women of color. While paying close attention to the triple oppression that was affecting women of color, they were able to bring to light the terrible things that were happening to women of color. The amount of work and determination into making the Third World Women's Alliance helped to make it the amazing force that it was. I am glad that I got to find out who they were and what they stood for.