Last week, Bedhead covered Meryl Streep’s Time Out London interview, where the star of Suffragette actually said “I am a humanist, I am for nice easy balance” when asked if she was feminist. That justifiably got a lot of headlines. Also making headlines? The editorial Meryl and the other Suffragette stars did with Time Out London. Meryl, Cary Mulligan, Romola Garai and other actresses posed for Time Out wearing “I’d rather be a rebel than a slave” t-shirts. Which… is very problematic. It’s a problematic message. Rebellion was a choice for women. Slavery was not a choice for slaves. And it’s not either/or, as many are pointing out – there were prominent suffragettes who happened to be black women who were actually born into slavery.
A promotional campaign for the new Meryl Streep film Suffragette has become a PR nightmare thanks to T-shirts worn by Streep and her co-stars, which some say appear to lump the plight of white women in with the horrors endured by slaves. The shirts – worn by Streep, Carey Mulligan, Anne-Marie Duff and Romola Garai (all white women)–bear a quote from the suffragette Streep plays in the film, Emmeline Pankhurst: ‘I’d rather be a rebel than a slave.’
Critics have called the campaign tone deaf, in part because the T-shirts inevitably bring to mind the Confederacy by pairing the words ‘rebel’ and ‘slave’, but also because of the uneasy history between the feminist and black civil rights movements. What’s more, some say the film’s all white cast unfairly contribute to the ‘white washing’ of the women’s suffrage movement, whose pioneers included more than just white women.
Anger with the campaign can be seen most readily on Twitter, where users have lambasted it with posts ranging from humorous to outraged. One photo paired the Pankhurst quote with a still from Gone with the Wind. Another read ‘Sorry Meryl, but these two are the REAL #Suffragette’s’ along with photos of Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman.
@nashwakay begged a different question by posting a photo of Indian suffragettes. ‘These are Indian suffragettes from London photo is from 1911. Are they included in the film? @SuffragetteFilm.’
Critics of the T-shirts are also concerned with the lack of women of color in the film, which according to some is an all too real parallel with the tactics used by some suffragists to exclude people of color from their movement over fears they might hamper their chances to get the vote.
‘Need I remind us that the original #Suffragette movement tried to stop Black people from getting access to vote too?’ wrote @TyreeBP. The promoters, who are likely now kicking themselves, used the Pankhurst quote heavily in their campaign.
Ugh, I can’t believe no one doing publicity for the film realized how problematic this would be. It would be one thing to have the quote in context, within the film, coming out of Emmeline Pankhurst’s mouth. That’s acceptable, because that’s part of the historical record for the film. But it’s quite another to build a movie campaign – for a movie that has already been whitewashed, about a historical campaign that had racial problems – around this problematic quote/concept.
Photos courtesy of Time Out London.
Cary Mulligan’s all, “I don’t know about this, you guys…” :/
:/
:/
:/
And Meryl’s all, “YEAH! ‘Cause I’m no slave to feminism!”
B-)
Haha. That’s my impression too.
Seeing the tshirt on another website made me cringe. Like slaves choose to be slaves. Eek.
I think it means a slave to men/the system rather than actual property of another. These definitions, likely: : one that is completely subservient to a dominating influence or a person who is strongly influenced and controlled by something.
Right? It’s stupid, tone deaf and the more I hear about White privilege/ no need for feminism Meryl, the more I’m disliking her after years of admiration.
Doesn’t it seem like Carey’s shirt ends at rebel? Also, I bet she’s pregnant in this pic. Probably why she shot chest up.
YIKES is all I have to say… jeez who I’d doing the PR for this film? Just awful
Because seeing a bunch of white women promoting a film about white-feminism saying they “don’t want to be slaves” isn’t problematic at all…
YIKES!
You win the “Caption This Photo” contest.
Flawless.
2015 has been the year of SPLITS and Celebrities stepping in it with their mouths and actions.
so like every other year.
Yeah, usually they’re such deep, introspective geniuses 😎
Streep should be reminded of great line in Postcards From the Edge..Debbie Reynolds tells her character not to complain because she could’ve had Joan Crawford for a mother–‘those are my only choices?’ Streep asks…..Slave or Rebel…those are the only choices???
haha I love that movie
“Slave or Rebel…those are the only choices???”
Before women could vote, yes they did have VERY limited choices, if any at all.
Clueless and so wrong
Just because these words were spoken in 1913 doesn’t mean they should be used now @IjeomaOluo on twitter user said it best
“Do you know who else would rather have been rebels? Actual slaves”.
This is only offensive if you think slave always equals what black people were in America rather than taking it as a general term.
Huh, “general term,” ay? Ok. As a comparison, how do you feel about people using a word like ‘rape’ as a “general term”, i.e. as a metaphor?
What about a group of men who ignored rape and denigrated women who were victims of rape using ‘rape’ as a metaphor, saying they’d rather be rebels than be raped? (Actually, probably a more apt comparison in this case, given the confederate/rebel stuff, would be them saying they’d rather be rapists than be raped.)
@Tara
Looks like the creators of these tees aren’t the only clueless ones.
No. No, you really don’t have to believe slave has only one definition to find this offensive.
In fact, you’re pronouncement that I *have to* believe that in order to find it offensive, is offensive.
Many are very aware that it’s quite possible that no one in the publicity dept. of that film even thought about black people and the institution of slavery that was the main driver behind our early industrilization and which essentially built the country that suffragettes wanted to fully take part in – but how ignorant and myopic do you have to be to realize there we’re millions of people/ women in the country coming out of a legacy of slavery that had no choice in the matter unlike suffragettes ?
To put it in perspective it’s kind of like an actress playing a German milk maid in a period piece in the late 30s saying I’d rather work on a farm than be imprisoned in a camp….then telling outraged Jews that ‘camp,’ is a general term and asking them why they’re offended.
Unbelievably awful of some people.
Right on @Caro
As a black woman I find it offensive that you only want to associate the word slave with black people at a horrible time in history.
And now I see there is a problem with the word rebel too? Things are getting out of hand. When a woman says she wants to be a rebel and not a slave, any one with a brain knows what she is talking about. People just look for a reason to be outraged these days. It’s funny because by trying so hard to appear tolerant and race sensitive, they are offensive because they are patronizing us black people.
And that example you used is ridiculous. So Jewish people are supposed to be offended any time they hear the word camp? No one should want to be a slave or imprisoned in a camp! When did it become a bad thing to disparage that?
@Tara I’m pretty sure most people these days are pretty aghast at slavery of any kind in any place at any time. This isn’t in context of “slave to fashion” or “slave to public opinion” it’s just “slave” and regardless of whether the human being that was owned and dominated was someone brought over from Africa to another country on a slave ship/a POC born into slavery/a Native American enslaved by a white person, or a Jew enslaved by the Egyptians or the girls kidnapped by Boku Haram and sold into slavery you need to get over your assumption that people don’t know what a slave or slavery is or that the shirt is less offensive if not limited to the Africans bonded into slavery during a particularly nasty time in US history.
That said, what the heck is wrong with people referencing the most common form of slavery in US (& British) history in reference to why this shirt shows a level of cluelessness? Feminists here are being pilloried for celebrating women’s suffrage without overtly recognizing that black women didn’t have the same access to the rights granted by the 19th amendment as white women did.
I feel what some of you are saying. As a minority and a feminist, I often see tension. I’ve seen feminists speak and people twist it in a way to somehow be offensive to other minorities. I think both histories deserve to have their stories told. Black people got the vote before women did. Women were essentially property and slaves to their husbands and fathers. I suppose it is subjective because I look at that shirt and I don’t think that is offensive to black people. I think it is empowering to women. I suspect people are being extra sensitive about only black slavery due to the many recent films on the subject.
I am not offended at all by that shirt because I don’t understand why a woman not wanting to be a slave is a bad thing. Just because these women are white doesn’t mean they are wrong for wearing it. They are women. The whole history of women is tied to victimhood and being treated as property. I respectfully disagree with the people who object to this so strongly and tie the word slave exclusively to blacks.
Tara, standing ovation for you!
Nah. I mean, say they meant it as a corporate slave. Or slave to “the man.” But in this context, the man is patriarchy. You, the woman, were being enslaved by white men. That’s who the patriarchy is. That’s who corporations are. That’s who “the man” is.
The problem is people actually WERE enslaved by white men, and they weren’t white women.
Poor choice of words, for sure.
Yeah, those usages of “slave” should also go away. Because guess what? They’re not slaves.
But the word “slave” doesn’t belong to the USA, you know? I don’t understand why everything has to be connected and related to US history in this world. In my country “slave” was regulalry used,and is still used, each time someone feels in any way used and underpaid or in any way left without a voice and women indeed used the word a lot! I see nothing wrong with the use in this context. It’s still a very popular expression “I’m not your slave” today and it doesn’t have anything to do with the slavery you had there, we rarely think of it, to be honest as it’s very distant reality to us. It simply means that someone refuses to work for free or little, to be exploited, to be mistreated, etc. Women had it exactly that way.
It is also the use of ‘rebel’. As someone from the South, I initially associated the word with the “Rebel” Flag (i.e., Confederate flag). Poor choice of words.
I’m sure Emmeline Pankhurst didn’t mean to offend you when she said those words about a century ago.
They’re English, Why should they stop using the word rebel which is not asociated with something bad because it is asociated with something bad in America?
@ Manjit and Bae … I not offended, and I never said they should stop using a word. I am responding to the post as a possible “why” some people were offended. “Rebel” and “Slave” are not a great combination of words if you are trying to sell a movie.
Why does it always have to be about Americans? So no one in the world can use the word ‘rebel’ because it reminds Americans of the Confederacy?
Americans have to learn it’s not all about them.
The quote was used in Britain at a time when slavery was abolished in the UK and women were slaves to men’s demands, they could be legally raped within marriage and had no property rights or legal identity. There is more to slavery than just the US experience.
Americans can be so self absorbed.
@Took
Completely agree and just wrote the same above! It’s all about “me, me, me” with them, it gets a bit annoying already. Their words, their history, their problems, their rules, political correctness, say this, don’t say that, and of course, “I’m offended!” At the same time, the majority I know hardly know much of any other country’ s history, so it’s tough for them to actually realize the other countries have their own background which doesn’t fall within the US frame of rignt and wrong.
@ took and Mary-Alice. I think the American perspective is important in context to the promotion of a movie. Outside of Bollywood movies, the U.S. represents the largest box-office consumer market — you won’t sell a product if you potentially offend your largest consumer base, even if it’s unintentional. With the globalization of media, companies have to be mindful. This is a PR blunder regardless of what you think of Americans.
um, no, clearly the association with the two words “slave” and “rebel” is talking about a SPECIFIC POINT IN TIME.
Haha, good point, I didn’t really let the two words rebel + slave sink in. Compounding the error, brilliant.
Sometimes I’m amazed at how high some people climb in the workforce when they’re clearly so bad at their job.
Maybe rebel + victim would’ve worked. Because you’re fighting against your own victimization (although few have the luxury of choice).
Feels like the sentiment is “I’d rather
fight and lose than not fight and gain”
Yeah the women’s movement. Context is everything, folks.
This was my issue. I get what the quote is saying, but putting “rebel” + “slave” together on a t-shirt for marketing to Americans is… not smart. I saw the trailer for the movie and am really looking forward to it so when I saw these images it just made me cringe.
This is where “feminism” picks up haters. Never ever ever EVER compare the guilded cage to slavery. Educated white women understandably chaffed against the confines of a female life in the days before voting and property rights, but women of social classes where the men also lacked property rights faced very different kinds of struggles.
And slavery is an entirely different topic altogether. One doesn’t quibble over property rights when they have no basic human rights at all.
I don’t think it’s fair to say gilded cage. Women also lacked human rights. It’s important to remember that “all men are created equal” excluded both black men and all women. When could a woman prosecute for rape or abuse? It was difficult both logistically and socially. Women were denied education, whether explicitly or implicitly. And women were treated like their husband’s property. They had little say in marriage (particularly in the actual gilded cages of royal courts), and very limited recourse as human beings. And many women were treated as slaves, regardless of legal distinctions. I am the first to decry the evils and horrors of slavery but my goodness…women certainly shared a measure of them, albeit often not so explicitly.
Semantics. It wasn’t slavery. The education wealthy women received was superior to what many American kids get in public school today, at least in regards to languages and critical thinking skills. Men and women both had to marry people they didn’t necessarily love, and women suffered more from a bad marriage, true. But tedium isn’t slavery. The law may not have protected abused wives but they had more recourse than actual slaves given that their relatives could help them.
Meanwhile, women of the working classes didn’t always have it worse than their male counterparts (who without land rights barely had more freedom than women). But slaves were owned outright by another human. Their children were taken from them, sold to strangers. They were abused and raped with no recourse at all. I imagine the life of the housewives they served seemed enviable by comparison.
I’m an unapologetic feminist, but my great-grandmother wasn’t a slave. She had power as a matriarch if nothing else. She wanted more for her daughters. But slavery isn’t the right word.
Yup. Nothing should be compared to slavery or rape.
“And many women were treated as slaves, regardless of legal distinctions.”
I understand your intent in this words and I’m sympathetic to it but when were White women ever:
-Put out in fields under hot sun to do hard manual labor from sun up to sun down with little breaks to get sips of water. Then return “home” where they are given small bits of food that is equivalent to what animals eat. 365 days out of the year. From age 8 until death?
-Raped by any White man who wanted them and routinely by their masters and their kids sold for profit to anyone slave master.
-Have no identity apart from the one given them by their masters and prevented from any source of human comfort from either men they feel in love with or again children that grew in their uterus and snatched away from them.
-Held in chains and torn apart by dogs, hung or short if they attempted to escape.
I could go on but seriously people really do not understand that America slavery was another thing altogether from being a “slave to your husband”.
@Greenieweenie, no.
“Slavery is equal to Death.“
A slave is not a person, the slave is socially dead, has no citizenship, no rights, no family, no children, no social ties. A slave is an object, is someones´ property. A slave can be sold any time of the day.
I agree with all of you, but I just want to ad that slavery isn’t exlucive to to the Americas. The history of slavery is long from ancient Egypt to serfs in feudalism, and white people were enslaved too.
@Bae
yes, the history of slavery is complex and goes back way more than ancient Egypt and into present times.
Says a lot about humans.
My quote is by Ulpian, a Roman emperor lawyer.
@Original T.C., I disagree. You’re speaking to the extremes of slavery (please note that I’m not denying the extremes or commenting on their frequency) when in fact there were a range of slave experiences. I fully agree that the field slave’s life had many extremes. I also think that women did have somewhat comparable experiences, but this was marked by class.
I’ve seen drawings and pictures of masks that women wore while their husband’s paraded them in the street as a form of punishment. I don’t know how commonplace that was in the US, but make no mistake–if people were willing to do it to slaves, it’s not like they drew a hard and fast line with women (no, I don’t think women were torn apart by dogs. My point is just that while slaves had no recourse, women had only the bare minimum in the relationship central to their lives).
A house slave obviously had more in common with women in terms of quality of life. But there are hardships that can be visited equally on slaves and women: neither had sexual agency over their own bodies. The destruction that multiple rapid births can do to women and the way it sidelines them from life…not only did rape not exist between husband and wife (legally, I mean), a woman was denied the right to even conceive it that way. There’s a reason why rape is used as a weapon of war.
What I’m saying is that by focusing on the distinctions, you risk diminishing the comparisons. It’s the SAME disenfranchisement: a lack of legal and physical ownership over one’s body and mind. To me, sitting here and elevating women’s experience is not fully unlike elevating the sharecropper experience over enslavement. Obviously, I’m not mindlessly comparing a middle class woman’s existence to that of a slave picking cotton all day. But I feel comfortable drawing parallels with poor women and I gave some examples of how more privileged women were powerless in de facto terms, if not de jure.
I dunno, that’s my 2 cents. I am not diminishing slavery in any regard. My mind has long been blown by the concept and the reality, which I’ve absorbed from American literature. But I’ve always felt that racism was a construct used to distract poor rural whites from the real threat: wealthy landowners (e.g. of plantations). If they could get poor whites to locate privilege in race, they wouldn’t realize their existence was a hop and a turd away from that of a slave. I kinda get the same sense with acting like poor women were somehow living a life of privilege in comparison to that of slaves.
See an array of masks here, for example;
http://usslave.blogspot.hk/2011/09/slave-tortures-mask-scolds-bridle-or.html?m=1
Bae, that’s an important point and reinforces that the suffragettes did not exist in a context similar to slavery in any of its historical or current forms. Sex trafficking for example is a modern horror beyond what most of us can easily comprehend.
“A house slave obviously had more in common with women in terms of quality of life. But there are hardships that can be visited equally on slaves and women: neither had sexual agency over their own bodies. The destruction that multiple rapid births can do to women and the way it sidelines them from life…not only did rape not exist between husband and wife (legally, I mean), a woman was denied the right to even conceive it that way. There’s a reason why rape is used as a weapon of war.”
I think you still don’t understand. I employ you to take a course on what set apart American slavery from other types of slavery in history. Americans took historical slavery and decided it wasn’t bad enough.
You are talking about ONE man raping his wife. I am talking about ONE women who can be raped by ANY and all men who visits a plantation. A white woman no matter how many children she was forced to produce still had the opportunity to keep and nurture those children. They weren’t taken away from her and put up for sale nor were her little girls sold as sex slaves. Do you understand how traumatic it would be to carry a pregnancy for 9 months forced on you by multiple strangers, maybe bond with that baby and have it taken away from you before you even breastfeed it and never know what becomes of that child and go through that multiple times?
A house slave was not on the same degree of lifestyle as a wife. The house slave was property, lower in esteem than the family dog. Any children she had for the master were automatically also born into slavery and were slaves “belonging” to their own half brothers and sisters. Masters did not blink from selling any of those kids if the price is right.
Many of those houseslaves will also suffer at the hands of the wife who is jealous that their husbands chose a slave over them. Those same white women can whip the house slave when their husband is out or try to scare them so their husbands would lose interest.
And yes they were still whipped by their masters to with flesh torn just as long as their faces weren’t mared. And if they really push it, they can always be sold to someone else. They were not considered human beings. Even one of our own presidents had his one teenage girl house slave that he used as a mistress. With her children serving his white children and wife. And I believe the slave had some shared blood with his wife even because she took was a product of a master having sex with his “property”. So she had the duty of serving her cousin or quarter sister and this relative’s husband.
I’m sorry but you really cannot compare the life of a white woman to that of a slave. A slave would kill to be in the place of any of those women no matter how bad their lives were. The White women in contrast no matter how bad their lives were KNEW that slaves were beneath them.
The poorest of the poor Whites knew slaves were beneath them so I’m not sure why YOU in particular want to rewrite history and pretend that White women at some level were similar to slaves. No one ever, ever, ever thought their lots in life back them was the equivalent of slavery not even that of House Slaves.
Original T?C. You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. If you could actually give yourself a break from replaying the US story we all know to death and read a bunch of books on world history, it would serve you very well. At this point you sound ignorant while quite loud. You don’t even have an idea how wives were possessed and by how many. Complete ignorance, really.
@Original T.C., that’s why I posted that link. It makes the comparison for me.
I’m not going to list my own teaching background, but I know my way around a Norton’s Anthology. Where do you think I started piecing these ideas together? It’s not that I wasn’t appalled by slavery. It’s that I was shocked at some of the parallels I found in the experience of women.
Your last point just supports my final one.
@Original T.C.
“when were White women ever:
-Put out in fields under hot sun to do hard manual labor from sun up to sun down
-Raped by any White man who wanted them and routinely by their masters and their kids sold for profit to anyone slave master.
-Have no identity apart from the one given them by their masters
-Held in chains and torn apart by dogs, hung or short if they attempted to escape.”
Look up serfdom in Russia through 1861.
Agreed Tara. Blacks don’t own the word slavery. They aren’t the first, the last, or the biggest group of people to be enslaved and treated badly. People need to crack a history book if they think that’s the case.
Exactly. Maybe because movies like 12 Years a Slave came out, they now think the word slave belongs to black people exclusively. As a black woman I am bothered by this new wave of patronizing white liberals who want to show how tolerant and down with the black causes they are by making faux outrages out of stupid non-stories like this. It is empowering for a woman of any color to say she is a rebel and not a slave! When did not wanting to be a slave become a bad thing? This is ridiculous. Some of you are turning it into a black thing because that’s how you see slaves. That is offensive actually.
Tara – We were discussing slavery in the context of the U.S./British suffragettes, so the comparison was to the American slave trade (which England was complicit in). Obviously, slavery has existed since the beginning of humanity and still exists today.
It’s true that American textbooks tend to only discuss American slavery, but anyone who grew up in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic traditions first learned about slavery from the old testament. I doubt many people first learned of the concept from “Twelve Years a Slave,” which wasn’t exactly a blockbuster film (I read the book but never saw the movie).
But to bring it full circle, every time we hear of a young woman who has been raised in captivity and raped thousands of times throughout her childhood, regardless of race, the term “slave” is almost never used. Why is that?
“Every time we hear of a young woman who has been raised in captivity and raped thousands of times throughout her childhood, regardless of race, the term “slave” is almost never used. Why is that?”
Where is that is the right question? I use it, people around me use it, may be it’s again your American environment. Sex slave would be ghe expression used by me and people around me.
Tara
I would also be bothered if anyone was patronizing me like that. At this point I cringe at the endless flow of cheesy political correctness which makes every person of any kind of minority look like an idiot who cannot speak and stand up for themselves. This is why I refuse to participate in any favoritism towards any sexual orientation and any colour. I think we are all equal and as such, no one needs to be favouritized. Aside from that, I honestly think the US school system should push the world history a bit harder and give the kids abroader perspective. The world is not ‘Murica.
“”
Mary-Alice, yes it’s the silly American in me wanting our laws to apply equally to all citizens. Slavery is a crime here, so when these monsters are charged with kidnapping and rape but not slavery, I question how our legal system defines slavery. I feel fairly certain we all support women and loathe slavery, and we mostly agree with each other. No one here defines slavery as a “black thing,” was my only point really.
Why meryl????
It’s a dumb move. Meryl I am surprised she can’t see that. Slavery is still very recent in the US History, for much of the population in one way or another. It is disturbing. The shirt made me cringe.
That said I was in Europe and a girl from Brazil was telling a Scandinavian lady that her Brazilian family was descendant from African slaves, the Scandinavian lady looked at her and said My family were slaves too, we were conquered by the Vikings and they enslaved my maternal line and then raped them. I just about fell off my chair at the disturbing image….but It made me think about many backgrounds of people having been slaves..
In the past month or so my list of favorite celebrities has dwindled! How out of touch can they possibly be? Sweet Jesus. Nobody thought this over a few times prior to the photoshoot? Hmm…
I expected more from these 3 actresses who are usually seen as smart and critical thinkers. This is really disappointing.
Right? First Matt Damon, now Meryl. It seems like race is just an ENORMOUS blind spot for virtually everyone in Hollywood. If Tom Hanks says/ does something racially dicey, I’m done.
Well, Hanks’s son likes to use the n-word so there’s that…
Even in context, it’s disturbing. There’s no softening it. There really isn’t any explaining away possible.
Good grief. When I read the headline, I assumed this was some kind of confederate flag nonsense. Only because I’ve heard some defenders of that flag claiming to be rebels, etc. But this? No no no no. NOPE.
Whoever planned this… They just shouldn’t have touched it. Nope. Nope.
I understand that “slave” can be taken as a more general term, and here it probably means a slave to the patriarchy, but there’s still no excuse for this. Right now, in the times in which we live, it’s tone-deaf at best and completely ignorant at worst. I just can’t imagine how no one knew how badly this could be perceived. Shouldn’t have touched it.
She had said other things, basically making it clear that she thought white women had it worse than actual slaves in America. Check out the link.
https://t.co/oMqa3LookZ
I’m kind of unclear as a to who it was that actually said that, could you clarify?
Either way…. No. OhhhOOhhhh no.
For the record, I don’t think comparing the suffering of marginalized groups gets us anywhere. It just creates more resentment and anger, as your link makes clear. That’s not to say that one group didn’t have it worse, of course, but making the comparisons is just fruitless. As we’ve said here before, you don’t have to choose JUST one cause to be passionate about. You can be passionate about femisim AND support POC as well. It’s not an either-or thing.
Is this a UK film? Maybe they’re out of touch with what should be obvious American sensitivities
The British were the ones who brought slavery to America. They should have known better.
they are. i mean, it’s not to be unpleasant or anything because I do get it, but because britain has a different history, the sensitivities are rather different, too. it’s cultural difference, it’s just the way it is.
Plus there’s been a bit in the news here about the British Empire’s extremely awful history of slavery (CliffsNotes version: much was made of the fact that slavery was illegal in Britain whilst conveniently ignoring that it was practised in parts of the Empire up to the 1950s). We have no excuse to be ignorant on this subject.
So, I guess every film in the world should be aware of American sensitivities.
“I just can’t imagine how no one knew how badly this could be perceived. ”
Sadly, I can. This is what happens when you have a behind the camera (and in front of the cameras) talent of composed of people from either one race or one mindset, they often are of a uniformly minded to things that would be obvious to others not of their group. It quickly gets into harmful groupthink mentality.
However in a way I am happy this accident happened so we can start a conversation about how women of color (Black, Native American and Asians) were marginalized both in the original feminists movements and currently. The feminists demanded all women join their fight but they were unwilling to join the fight for equal rights for women of color. They saw them as the “other”, referred to as the N-word, same terminology as their white husbands, brothers, and boyfriends used. It is still a problem within today’s feminist’s movement.
“That man over there say
a woman needs to be helped into carriages
and lifted over ditches
and to have the best place everywhere.
Nobody ever helped me into carriages
or over mud puddles
or gives me a best place…
And ain’t I a woman?
Look at me
Look at my arm!
I have plowed and planted
and gathered into barns
and no man could head me…
And ain’t I a woman?
I could work as much
and eat as much as a man —
when I could get to it —
and bear the lash as well
and ain’t I a woman?
I have born 13 children
and seen most all sold into slavery
and when I cried out a mother’s grief
none but Jesus heard me…
And ain’t I a woman?
that little man in black there say
a woman can’t have as much rights as a man
cause Christ wasn’t a woman
Where did your Christ come from?
From God and a woman!
Man had nothing to do with him!
If the first woman God ever made
was strong enough to turn the world
upside down, all alone
together women ought to be able to turn it
rightside up again.”
– Sojourner Truth.
The poem that pretty much changed my perspective on all things feminism. Intersectional femisim–that which includes ALL women of ALL colors and creeds– is the ONLY true feminism.
Thank you, @Original T. C. and @Shambles!! Sojourner Truth is the ultimate, the brilliant, the Queen. At the end of the day, I’d just rather see a movie about her. Growing up in Baltimore, our school yearly hosted an actress who would arrive in period clothes as Sojourner Truth and just start talking to all of us elementary school kids as Sojourner, then we had an assembly and she would talk about her life and culminated in this poem you shared. Blew our minds 😉
@Shambles- Thank you for posting that. It was much needed in this thread today.
Shambles you just quoted the very poem I chose to read for my High School Speech when we were doing poignant literature in history.
Thank you.
Ain’t I A Woman is an amazing work that really breaks down just how alien blacks were made to feel to the point they were treated as below animals and not associated with the human race.
Sojourner Truth, an ex-slave become preacher and lecturer, presented the analogy between oppression and liberation of blacks and women. I’ve heard it told that she stood almost 6 feet high, and was almost Amazonian in form. I would have loved to be there. She still pierces the upper air.
Great posts @ Original T. C. & Shambles! “Ain’t l a Woman” is much-needed today for such a emotional and complex discussion topic.
Yes, they should have updated the quote to “I’d rather be a rebel than chattel.”
That said, let’s not get collective amnesia and forget how little rights women had and all that feminism (yes, Meryl) had to fight to emancipate women from their husbands and male family members.
There are still plenty of communities in the world to remind us what a violent pre-feminist culture looks like for women.
I agree. Chattel would have been a better word. People forget that in the 19th century, women had to marry or live off a relative. Their husbands had total control over them, including money the woman brought into the marriage, if she brought any into the marriage. Husbands could do pretty much whatever they wanted with them, including beat them, and no one blinked an eye. The higher the husband’s status the more he could get away with. Women had no rights to their children — their husbands did. And they couldn’t vote to change anything.
I think a lot of people are forgetting some of the points that you just made.
Saying “chattel” is as problematic and offensive as saying “slave.” Chattel is what slaves were considered and white people involved in the Slave trade used the word chattel to say that black slaves were not human; thus did not need/have rights like other humans and therefore, could be owned.
No, it isn’t. Chattel has a general meaning: an item of tangible movable or immovable property except real estate and things, as buildings, connected with real property — though it has been used synonymously for slaves who were treated as chattel.
These discussions can really descend into inanity. While modern sensibilities dictate (for valid reasons) that certain terms not be used for other things so as not to minimize the distinctiveness or history they signify, it’s absurd to get into grievance ranking.
We can all keep two ideas or more going at a time in our heads. Oppression is not a Top 40 contest. Slavery was a crime against a humanity and the systematic oppression of women well into the last century is a waste of human talent and an affront to humanity. We can say that without suggesting that one outranks or displaces the other in our collective history of painstaking progress.
Divide and conquer is not a tactic anyone who’s concerned about these things should fall for.
Tip to movie studios, though: if your movie deals with a political issue, hire knowledge brokers and communications professionals to brief your promotional teams (including actors) ahead of time. From Meryl’s pronouncements on feminism to this, this rollout is not going well.
How does one go about updating an actual documented quote uttered by a real person? It is not like this phrase was randomly plucked out of the air. It’s a quote…
I am aware that its a Pankhurst quote from 1913 , for such an illustrious woman was that all she ever said? Surely they could have used a different quote given todays context
Tone Deafness
If they’d had the attribution on the t-shirt, it would have helped but not much. As blogdiz says, context matters; sounds tone deaf today.
Once it’s explained to me, I get why people are upset. Especially with the Confederate stuff, and whitewashing of the story.
I just want to add that I didn’t think of African-American slaves when I read it. I thought of women being a slave to men, being a slave to society, etc. Definitely thought of it in more general terms, but I’m also not black or from the South. I don’t have a lot of exposure to the whole Confederacy thing, or the systemic racism in the South. And I’m not a victim of racism on a regular basis. It just didn’t connect for me.
Tone-deaf? Yes. However, totally unintentional? I also think yes. I see what they probably meant, but whoa was that an f-up.
That was how I initially read it too. As in, “I’d rather be a rebel and stand up for my rights as a woman than be subjugated to men.” But I absolutely agree that the people running the Suffragette PR campaign should have been more astute and picked up on how it could have been construed as offensive. Especially when the movie is being considered for awards traction at the Oscars, which requires a campaign that is largely US-based.
“And I’m not a victim of racism on a regular basis”
@SAVU,
Thank-you for your honesty 🙂 I wish more non-women of color would say what you did in your post. When you are not dealing with racism or racial bias as part of your regular life it’s easy to make such a mistake like the people behind this film or Meryl and co. It doesn’t make you a bad person it just means we are all a product of our environment and that’s why it’s always helpful to have people of different backgrounds involved in any global campaign.
Studies have shown it makes a difference for example in corporatations or in writer’s rooms. However unlike yourself many other non-POC refuse to admit that they can’t always see things that a POC might pick up on right away.
I appreciate that, TC 🙂
I think we all just need to do a better job of recognizing our own perspective and why we see things the way we do. It leads to greater understanding of others. And makes us better people!
Awful…just awful
I absolutely agree on the NOPE, although I do think there’s a false equivalence in your post: you state that ” Rebellion was a choice for women. Slavery was not a choice for slaves.”.
That doesn’t really make sense, because the suffragettes’ rebellion was not equivalent to slavery, it was equivalent to the civil rights movement attempting to end that slavery.
It is the sexism that is being compared to slavery, because women could not vote, own property or hold bank accounts. I still think it’s an inappropriate use of the term and completely ignores the many black women who fought for women’s rights, but let’s not make out that those silly white women were just rebellious for nothing.
It was the Abolitionist movement in 1830 that the woman’s rights movement had its political origins. When women began working in earnest for the abolition of slavery, they quickly learned that they could not function as political equals with their male abolitionist friends. Not only were they barred from membership in some organizations, but they had to wage an uphill battle for the right to simply speak in public. As women came to see clearly the hypocrisy and cruelty of black oppression, they gained the insight to recognize it in their own lives (biblical patriarchal slavery) and the strength to reject the absurdity and meanness of masculist values, behavior and rules; where any heinousness is justified on the grounds that the enemy is either an inferior species, or really not human at all. After the Civil War, and the passage of the 14th and 15th amendments in 1869, suffrage was granted to all males, both black and white. Finally, In 1920, suffrage was obtained by both black and white women.
Even now, we know our rights are limited. We know our rights are violated. Not making a difference is a cost we cannot afford.
Thank you for your post. It is very informative. I wasn’t aware that all males, black and white, were granted the right to vote before females. I am glad that when women were granted the right to vote, it was all women.
I want to see want honest portrayal of the suffrage movement. I think it’s so important and I’d take my daughter to show her how important it was and still is. Everything I’m reading is telling me that this isn’t that important film. It’s a shame. As for the t-shirt,really a bad idea and I can see how it would be offensive.
You’re probably better off finding some good documentaries on it rather than relying on this from what I’m reading about it.
I think you’re right.
Iron Jawed Angels is not bad, and that’s from 2004. It’s not awesome by any means, but it actually does at least address the issue of women of color. The movie focuses on Alice Paul, who was a Quaker who argued for black inclusion in the movement based on equality principles. She didn’t really win on that matter, but at least the film addresses it. That one isn’t that bad, so it might be worth a shot. But that’s the only one I can think of.
I saw the film last week and I really liked it. It’s very definitely one white woman’s story though. The most affecting thing for me was at the end they had a list of various countries with the year that women got the vote there. It was pretty sobering.
I said to my friend afterwards that I wish someone would make a mini-series about first wave feminism because this film did feel very small in the scope of the movement. It was a primer and would be good for someone who didn’t know much about that period of time and the struggles (white) women faced.
And there’s an amazing doc about second wave feminism, if you’re looking for something along those lines, called ‘She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry” – it does a great job of covering off some of the issues that WOC had/have with the movement.
Can’t believe they never thought while putting on those stupid and ugly t-shirts what a mistake this was! Particularly Meryl and Carey whom, rightfully, fancy themselves as thoughtful and intellectual women. This is all kinds of wrong from any point of view and it could hurt the movie and its Oscar chances for everyone involved.
As soon as I saw these pics a few days ago I thought “poor word choice” and I stand by that. No one chooses to be a slave. I am not really offend I thin Meryl is a bit dumb now.
Sounds like the whole film is as tone deaf as Meryl. It’s a shame, because the movie could have been really interesting.
Also, it irked me that of course, as usual, it is ignored that slavery was legal in the entire country, not just the south. The north ended it sooner, but our whole country was built on the backs of slaves. White people in the north were crucial to emancipation, but they also excluded blacks. The movement severed into two in the north – people who wanted to end slavery and give blacks equal rights, and people who want to end slavery but didn’t want blacks to be able to live near them or sit with them in church or vote – the second group was the majority.
I agree with you in being irked by people not knowing/ignoring that most of the people who supported abolition of slavery in the US were far from acknowledging slaves as equal human beings/citizens. But I find it spectacularly odd that everyone is insisting on placing an American gloss over a movie about suffragettes in England. I don’t think it’s ok to criticize them for not considering our context when telling a story about a different context. If there’s criticism to be made of the film, it should be done based on the historical reality in England.
I understand why people got upset by the rebel/slave tshirts but finding out that it was a 100 year old quote from an English woman addressing an English problem should’ve calmed them down more than this. The entire world does not revolve around America! We don’t get to insist that everyone associate the term “rebel” with the Confederacy!
@Bob, I completely agree with you.
I agree with you @Bob 100%..
Most Americans act like they are the center of the world, without seeing that there is an outside world that is much older than the US that has seen many more horrors than the US has. I do not associate the word rebel with the Confederacy, I do not just think of slaves in the US when I hear the word slave. There have been slaves for as long as there has been people. There are still slaves to this day.
How do you guys think all of those black slaves came to speak the language of England? Hint: It wasn’t through a student exchange program. England brought those slaves to America, so nationality doesn’t get anyone out of ignorance, here.
@Bob and the rest
I have this trigger when I see statements that imply the South was the only part of our country to have had slavery, because …well, I won’t start up again. Just wanted to say that I totally agree with you, and embarrassingly was no longer even thinking about the movie when I wrote my second post. I know they didn’t mean rebel as in Confederate soldier. I was just annoyed by the article describing the controversy. I still think the slogan was tone-deaf, but not because I think they should have instantly made the rebel association or even made the association with slavery in America. There are all kinds of slavery, and I don’t like the implication that one has or had a choice – “oh, no thanks, I think I’ll just be a rebel, not a slave. I’d rather not do the slave thing if it’s all the same to you.” It sort of blames the victim.
So I apologize for harping, again, on my pet peeve and going off, again, on a tangent. I need to focus.
GNAT, I agree with your first comment, very simply put…
Yet while we’re all debating the connotation vs denation of this quote from 100 yrs ago, whether it was taken out of context or not, and the words “rebel” and “slave”, it seems that this whole production was problematic, white-washed and tone deaf from the beginning. That the marketing dept didn’t see this, well, neither did the writers and filmmakers, nor the actors themselves.
So, 2015 certainly is shaping up as the year where those in the public eye try to address social issues – and only end up stepping in their own messes! Ugh.
Isn’t this Time Out London ? Rebel doesn’t have that sort of connotation in the UK. I can see that maybe the American actresses should have pointed it out, but for the average Brit, it wouldn’t have been seen as some sort of insult to Americans and the history of slaves in the US.
No, “Rebel” does not have the same connotation in the UK, we love a rebel over here. This campaign may be controversial but it’s based on a quote made by the heroine of the film. I don’t get the backlash at all.
The rebel bit, I agree it doesn’t have the same meaning in the UK or Ireland as it would in the US. However the use of the word slavery, while a quote it may be, was the wrong quote to choose. What may have been ok then, is not ok now given what is going on in the world.
No one is denying that women, for years were considered property of their families first and then husbands and had very little rights, this is a fact. However, not all women were abused, sold into loveless marriages, beaten daily etc. and in the modern day using that quote and word instantly compares it to the theft of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children who were then forced into back breaking work, pain and humiliation in the most horrific conditions until they were killed or died, it should not have happened and they should have known better.
That coupled with the fact they seem to be ignoring the women of colour aspect of the suffragette movement, yeah it’s a big no from me.
Slaves didn’t come to America by themselves they were kidnapped and enslaved by the English and brought to America.
Not to mention slavery is not just an American issue, but a worldwide one. So did they need American actress need to point it out or did they all just to look outside their own little bobble.
The average Brit should know the part the ancestors played in slavery. It not just a stain on American history, but a European on as well.
Slaves didn’t come to America by themselves they were kidnapped and enslaved by the English and brought to America.
Not to mention slavery is not just an American issue, but a worldwide one. So did they need American actress need to point it out or did they all just to look outside their own little bobble.
The average Brit should know the part the their ancestors played in slavery. It not just a stain on American history, but a European one as well.
Actually they were busy enslaving Scots and Irish before they discovered people they felt even further below them…those Brits. But the Dutch/French and others were also in on the slave trade so don’t make it seem exclusively like it was a Brit thing. Pretty much every ’empire’ at the time was in on it.
It is particularly problematic given the inherent racism in the suffragette movement.
Most leaders of the movement were openly affronted by the idea that black men would get the vote before white women. Ugh.
So much this.
And worked hard to ensure black women were not among their ranks as they pleaded how they were equal to men.
And yet, black women were given the right to vote at the same time as white women. I am glad that justice prevailed in that regard.
No black women were NOT given the right to vote here in the US or the UK at the same time white women were. Please read a smidgen of history before making such low informed comment. Additionally, you’ve embellishing about white women supporting that effort.
@outstandigworldcitizen, actually only women over 30 who owned properties were first allowed to vote (40% of women in the Uk). Only later did all women got the right to vote. So, in 1918, only some of the white women were allowed to vote, not all white women.
“Representation of the People Act 1918
In 1918 the Representation of the People Act was passed which allowed women over the age of 30 who met a property qualification to vote. Although 8.5 million women met this criteria, it only represented 40 per cent of the total population of women in the UK.
The same act abolished property and other restrictions for men, and extended the vote to all men over the age of 21. Additionally, men in the armed forces could vote from the age of 19. The electorate increased from eight to 21 million, but there was still huge inequality between women and men.
Equal Franchise Act 1928
It was not until the Equal Franchise Act of 1928 that women over 21 were able to vote and women finally achieved the same voting rights as men. This act increased the number of women eligible to vote to 15 million.
outstanding, #1, I am not embellishing anything about white women supporting the effort. I didn’t make a comment about that, darling. What my comment did say, is that even if there was bias in the suffrage movement, I am glad that the 19th Amendment made no distinction in regards to race. Even if that wasn’t their aim, the Amendment was written with equality, and I applaud that.
#2, YES, black women were given the right to vote in the US with the 19th Amendment…but later states revised their laws to deny equal voting rights. The 19th Amendment states, “The right of citizens to vote shall not be abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”
From the National Women’s History Museum:
“When the 19th Amendment was passed in 1920, it legally enfranchised all women, white and black. However, within a decade, state laws and vigilante practices effectively disenfranchised most black women in the South. It would take another major movement for voting rights – the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s – before black women in the South would be effectively enfranchised.”
This is bad but the story in the news about textbooks in Texas, describing slaves from Africa as “workers who immigrated ” is a lot worse. We are talking books for children to learn from
I want to say that can’t be true. But just yesterday I had a friend from Texas (intelligent and educated), post about the superiority of her (white) culture. It made me want to cry.
That’s horrible.
Did you hear about this: http://atlantablackstar.com/2015/10/04/multiple-firings-racially-charged-facebook-remarks-mocking-black-child/
I can’t believe in this day and age this happens.
I had seen a headline but not read that until now. I don’t have the words….. how do people not look at each other and connect with their human-ness? It feels like there is a gene missing somewhere that we can’t just see people when we look at each other. And it doesn’t seem to be something you can fix with logic, or facts or even compassion. Maybe it is just simply a choice. I don’t know.
@Ferris–Good God I wish I could un-read that.
How does one person have SO many racist friends? Ugh. Glad these assholes were fired.
It’s kind of amazing how racists come out when they find a “safe haven” for like-minded people to openly display their racism. It’s like they feed off of each other..very mob mentality, very scary.
i get it but… this is a british film about the british women’s suffrage movement in the late 19th and early 20th century. they used a pankhurst quote, which is likely in the film. it needs to be put in context, especially since timeout is a british paper.
ell, I didn’t realise it was a Pankhurst quote. Thanks for that.
I didn’t either. Derp. Kinda changes things.
That actually makes it worse. Parkhurst was a close personal friend of William Lloyd Garrison, who was a famous American abolitionist who, after slavery was outlawed in the US, became really active in the suffrage movement. Parkhurst hosted him in her home multiple times and actually used him as a source on effective activism and based a lot of what she did on the abolitionist movement. She KNEW about real slavery because she learned about it from Garrison. That actually makes the quote offensive on another level. Parkhurst knew from Garrison about real slavery and what it entailed, but used that phrase anyway.
Nicely argued @Sam And the movement in the U.K. and U.S. communicated with each other…as many others have pointed out, notable women leaders/activists/crusaders were NOT white in the U.S. and/or were abolitionists. Whitewashing feminism is rewriting history and separating a struggle for equal rights based on race, and that is too gross. We keep repeating the same old baloney…
Well it is a british film about the british women’s suffrage movement in the late 19th and early 20th century. You all understand that it means it’s about hitorics facts and quotes right ? One has to remember that The politicaly correct thing to say is variable, in time and culture. I for one would hate to see a politicaly corrected film. So the 19’s english suffragetes were not concerned by black slavery in America ? I’m shocked (not).
As long as America will stay self centered and lack the minimal education required to know about the suffragettes, then it is a lost cause debate. you may know that the word “slave” may have been used as a metaphor, right?
Yup and the word slave in association with the Suffragette movement is not a metaphor. Those women literally wanted to be Rebels and did not want to be associated with or work alongside slaves. Black men and women were turned away and publicly disavowed for their attempts to join.
So what’s a good metaphor for pretending something is true that isn’t?
We know what a metaphor is, that’s how we know that isn’t one. Maybe your minimal education would care to look up William Garrison’s relationship with Pankhurst.
Another quote from the early British women’s movement: “a wife is almost as much the property of her husband as the American slave of his master”.
The lack of broader education and knowledge is scary, indeed. Started appreciating European schools a bit more today if I ever doubted their quality. Not. What’s even scarier though, is that black women’s opinion is ignored here so that white American women can carry on with their narrative about slaves in America. Appalling.
@Mary Alice
You have been all over this thread chiding people for not being educated about Britain’s History and quite frankly you need to take your own advice
Britain is absolutely central to the history of the Atlantic slave trade. It has a vast
historical culpability which it has often failed to face up to. The first slaves sent to America ( then a British Colony) were sent there BY the British and this occurred throughout the rest empire i.e the Caribbean etc
Secondly Slavery isn’t unique to America and not everyone here is a white American , in my country (as they did elsewhere) the Europeans first enslaved the indigenous people who were worked so hard that they literally dropped dead and are now extinct
It was when the enslavement of these people weren’t working out that the bright Idea of Getting Slaves from Africa was born
Finally Black people are not a monolith , As a Black woman I can assure you that we are allowed to have differing opinions on issues ( just like White women do) The fact that you need to bring up Tara race because she happens to agree with you is distasteful
Yes, it’s tone deaf. But honestly, it doesn’t surprise me. This is just basic White Feminism. It really is.
I’m sort of at the point where I really think that feminism, as a movement, simply is not for you if you’re not white (among several other criteria). It simply cannot address your viewpoint in a way that’s not insulting. Let the white women have feminism and let the rest of us have something else, because it just seems like they love to prove over and over how they simply don’t want to make room for anyone else.
And if you want to see a suffrage film that actually features black women, watch “Iron Jawed Angels.” It’s far from perfect, but there is at least a scene in which they discuss allowing black women to march with them and you do see black women in the film. I mean, it’s not great, but at least it didn’t totally erase them. This film sounds like it’s really not even trying to do that.
Do I believe in the basic tenets of feminism? Yes? Do I think that feminist movement has lived up to them? Depends on who you ask. But for a group of people who demanded and still demands that black women act as mules for the cause and picks up the benefits that black work has given them, yet still ignores and maligns black people, I won’t identify as one. If asked, I’ll call myself a womanist and happily the explain the difference. Mainstream feminism doesn’t and refuses to get it, so it doesn’t get me, and I’m going to a place where I matter. Hm, expecting black people to do the work for you with no benefit to themselves, only for you, welp, that’s world history.
Can we get a scientific survey of people who *wouldn’t* rather be a rebel than a slave? You know, if given the choice? I hate pointlessly self righteous messages.
Lolz excellent point.
I see your point, but actually most people don’t rebel even when they have a choice. I hate wearing a bra, and yet I always wear one outside the house. I could rebel but then people would misconstrue my act as something sexual, when really all I want is comfort.
^ This 1000 times. It’s so easy to be a rebel on the internet and so not nappening in real life where indeed, the majority prefer to bend and lower. It is why so many things have stopped progressing. Humans resist change with all their power. In the world history, tnere is much to be read about the belief that only highly raised heads will meet the sword. Those who stay low, will be spared. Hundreds of thousands of people, whole nations, were captured in war and enslaved because of this attitude. Rebels, ha! Today we are even less doing and much more rambling.
HA! @bettyrose
This is EXTREMELY distasteful. WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA?!?!
So stupid, and it doesn’t use quote marks or give attribution to provide any context. It looks like any other ridiculous slogan T-shirt from the mall.
No. No. Always NO. Such a poor choice of words. Completely tone deaf.
Yup. Tone-deaf, embarrassing, cringeworthy, self-serving, all that.
Yeah I’m shocked that they didn’t think this through. No one thought this was a bad idea?
The word police are at it again. A slave is someone totally under domination. It is in fact a word that belongs to the English language, and it is racist to use it to describe only one race – there are slaves all over the world right now. The suffragettes were rebelling against laws that allowed them to be the slaves of men. Not all women were suffragettes, rebellion is an anti social act that takes bravery and the slogan advertises that. It is clever marketing and draws attention to the fact that without suffrage people are slaves.
Well said!
I agree with you. It was quite obvious for me what the context of this phrase was.
Yes perfect, exactly what I was thinking Nic.
Exactly, well explained.
Amen!
For the record, slavery is NOT just a historical thing. There are thousands of enslaved men, women and children TODAY!!! I’m so very sure they would all be rebels, given the choice. Dumb a** t-shirt.
Exaaaactly. Thank you so much for this comment.
very true
Actually there are more slaves today then ever existed in history. I read this from a book from a journalist that investigated everything from human trafficking to prostitution. There’s a lot a crime activity that preys on the vulnerable and it’s just not a mainstream perception, at least the dimension of it. It’s really disturbing:/
21 million to be exact…
I’m interested in seeing if it’s institutional slavery or people grabbed and forced into slavery/human trafficking. I’m thinking it’s the second, which makes zero difference to those enslaved, of course, but is different than a country allowing and encouraging slavery, as our country did to become rich and powerful.
It’s the 2nd yes. In the past slavery was accepted has something normal, nowadays “work against someone’s will” exists under a criminal scope. But there are grey areas that could increase this number as the type of paid labour that works for fast fashion companies. People are paid but they earn less than the minimal needed to survive, they are lend money by the factories’ bosses who do it so they keep employees attached, making them work extra under difficult conditions. They are trapped. This is a system recognized by the organizations who support these workers claiming for their rights. Not having a choice isn’t being free at all. This is a really complex issue:/
You said it. People act like slavery is a thing of the past. It is very much alive today.
Here’s the photo of the Indian suffragettes, by the way:
http://twitter.com/jaivirdi/status/490523962468601858
Foolish decision re: the t-shirts. I’m sure there are plenty of other pithy Pankhurst quotes from the script they could have chosen.
I can’t believe they couldn’t find a better quote and that none of this occurred to the filmmakers.
I just checked your Twitter link. Awesome! One of the people responding also pointed out that working class Suffragettes also identified strongly with the Irish Home Rule movement too. I wonder if this will make it into the film at all?
Exactly. These t-shirts will have largely the intended effect here in the UK, where intent will be immediately understood. But it’s not a domestic film. It’s an international film. They are idiots.
I think you would really like a recent BBC documentary series by Amanda Vickery – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCty50zaGro&list=PLRxCDFGzDouwhJuPopNfrmkHqFtHf7khF – about the history of the British women’s movement leading up to and including the suffrage movement. For example, the proto-suffrage women’s groups were instrumental in moving forward the abolitionist movement. They organised the first consumer boycotts and refused to buy plantation sugar!
Home Rule, or as we call it in the UK today, devolution, would very likely have staved off an awful lot of trouble.
Hi Sixer, just wanted to say I started watching this documentary when you linked it on the Carey Mulligan post a few days ago and am really enjoying it. I have studied the American suffrage movement in detail but not the UK’s. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.
Oh, Miss Jane, I’m glad. Super series.
Dense read for Miss Jupitero: http://www.belfastsuffragettes.com/suffragettes.html
“But it’s not a domestic film. It’s an international film. They are idiots.”
Yes, it’s an international film,not American, Sixer! I, as a European, understand perfectly well and I am not British. A short survey around tne house showed that my Canadian family has no issue with the words and actually didn’t even understand what I was asking about until I explained. Therefore, I see no reason why the movie should cater to the never ending American sensitivity. Thankfully, there are enough levelheaded American women on this thtead to prove it’s not all lost there.
Yes!!! Thank you @Sixer We need to keep sharing these images! There was an amazing energy in the Middle East around the time too, Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon—coinciding with anti-colonial work. Awesome ladies and awesome photo!
Thank you!! (Intended for Sixer, above!)
Sixer!! 🙂 I was scrolling down to say that clearly this film is ignoring the suffragettes from other races and you beat me to it.
now that you’ve mentioned the Indian Suffragettes, i’ve just finished reading a biography about Princess Sophia Duleep Singh. Her family was exiled to Britain as a result of forced removal from their throne by the British. Victoria took a fancy to them and they became her god children.
Fast forward to adulthood and Princess Sophia is very active in the Suffragette movement. direct action, marches, throwing herself at the PM’s car etc…..except without consequences, unlike the other women, because of her social class, being a Princess and Victoria’s godchild. Not even Churchill, home secretary at the time, would dare arrest her!!
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/11/sophia-princess-suffragette-revolutionary-anita-anand-review-radical-indian-royal
I just linked to that below!
I’ve been trying but it’s quite hard to explain to Americans how class (and caste) and race interacted in the British women’s movement. Elite brown and black colonials, indentured white working class women, etc. You need a Venn diagram to properly show it. The story isn’t as binary as the US story, you know?
Thank you, Sixer!
I don’t think this is as bad as people are making it out to be. It says “RATHER.” Do people really think slaves are slaves because they prefer to be? Because that to me is more offensive, Given a choice, yeah, probably most of us would rather be a rebel. It’s not saying slaves have a choice in the matter, which they clearly don’t (I’m not using past tense here, because slavery does still exist). This slogan, in my understanding, is stating a preference of two conditions. All things being equal (which of course for many today they are not), yes. I would prefer to be a rebel. I’m usually ready to jump in and join the cause of pretty much every “liberal outrage” ( 😉 ), but I think this is a tempest in a teacup. Maybe the shirt would have been better if it had read “all things being equal if I had a choice in the matter which of course actual slaves now and throughout history do and did not have the choice but if called upon to give my theoretical preference between two states of being that of being a slave or being a rebel yes I think I would choose to be a rebel rather than a slave understanding of course that this is not a choice everyone is free to make in reality,” but that’s a lot for one garment. Now, having said that, I do think the shirt has been proven to be a bad idea as many people think it is saying something it wasn’t intended to say.
Not to mention that that isn’t even the context of the quote (now if you want to criticize Pankhurst for equating women of her time with slaves, go right on ahead. I’m fine with that).
On the one hand, legally women pretty much were slaves – they couldn’t own their own property in many cases, couldn’t vote, were legally allowed to be beaten and raped by their husbands. On the other hand, the actual living conditions and treatment of an upper class or middle class white woman in the US or UK at that time was privileged and in a completely different solar system than the treatment of black slaves.
An examination of history reveals, that almost all movements for liberation and change have originated among people who appear privileged beyond the means of those most sorely oppressed. It was they who had the education and training to see beyond their conditions to reasons and alternatives, they who could articulate issues and instigate strategies for change, and it was they who had the time and the wherewithal to act. The terms liberte, egalite, and faternite of the French Revolution originated among the well-educated, well-placed philosophers of the Enlightenment, not among the wretched poor who suffered most and most needed changed, and to whom help eventually flowed. Marx and Lenin were intellectuals, and although they hoped for a rising of the masses, Lenin ultimately came to believe in the necessity of an educated vanguard.
Some feminists, like the wider society, have suffered from ethnocentrism, and that is always destructive. Although the feminist movement may appear to have been instigated by the white middle class (and this appearance is misleading) it is not a movement of the white middle class, as it’s project’s regard worth, rights, opportunity, and freedoms. Tensions over strategies and issues between black and white, gay and straight, moderate and radical feminists, contain diversity and interchange creativity. Arguments reflect the currents and ideas of the times, yet the continuity of its ultimate values have remained. The movement has retained its seriousness of purpose by always responding with a reexamination of the issues, as women’s problems are linked to many broader questions of social justice. Feminism in its largest sense is a conversation of values.
Suffragettes is a movie about the British movement and this is a direct quote from Emmaline Pankhurst – while its insensitive to North Americans for the UK & European audiences, for which the Time Out piece is intended, its not. However, they still should have used a bit of common sense and picked another of Pankhurst’s famous quotes of which there are many.
As for the complaints about the whitewashing – its a movie set in Britain about Suffragettes that had very public profiles. Women who were all white. Its a story of its time.
There were lots of Suffragettes of different races in UK during Pankhurst’s time.
here is a pic of some Indian suffragettes: https://twitter.com/jaivirdi/status/490523962468601858
Here is a biography of another:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/11/sophia-princess-suffragette-revolutionary-anita-anand-review-radical-indian-royal
I saw this yesterday and cringed. It is just so awful I am effing ASTONISHED that nobody thought about how it would come across to put this shirt on a group of white privileged women.
I’m looking forward to the film because the topic is very dear to me, but if it doesn’t address some of the more problematic things that the suffragist movement did to secure the vote, I’ll be disappointed.
In my last job I helped a Harvard professor do research on this topic– it was fascinating. There were plenty of true radicals in the movement. Elizabeth Cady Stanton wanted to rewrite the Bible to make it more equitable toward women, for example– but the movement famously distanced itself from her. They realized at a certain point that if they didn’t get the vote, they would have nothing– and that if they wanted the vote, they were going to have to appeal more to a lot of very religious and conservative people. They needed the Women’s Christian Temperance League to be on their side. In 1879 Frances Willard became president of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, and advocated heavily for suffrage as a means to solidify the social agenda of conservative Christians.
This approach succeeded: at a certain point, if you had asked the average person who supported women’s suffrage why they supported it, you probably would have heard something along the lines of “Women are more spiritual and virtuous than men and will help to lead this nation on a righteous and godly path!” This is the message that won people over to the cause and got them the results they wanted. Judging by trailer, I doubt any of this will be getting in there.
Purely by coincidence, I assure you, the Heiress came out wearing her t-shirt with an Elizabeth Cady Stanton quote on it as I read this post – gave me a little hope for the future.
The Heiress?
My 8 year old.
Awwwww The Heiress! Well tell her I love her taste!
I feel like this is a really unfortunate lapse of judgement – the most sensible solution would have been to cut off the quote and have ‘I’d rather be a rebel’. That way you’re still paying tribute to Ms. Pankhurst but not offending the cultural sensitivities of a US audience (because most British people would not think of the confederacy at the word ‘rebel’).
That said, I think we have to remember that slavery did not happen only to one race but to many, and continues to happen – to argue that the word is no longer an abstract concept of submission but always definitive reference to the African slavery of the 18th & 19th centuries is, to some extent, undermining the slavery of women trafficked for sex around the world today, the slavery of Jewish peoples under the Roman empire, etc. etc.
Look, I saw the movie last week and while it’s definitely not inclusive of women of colour, it’s also pretty specifically about one woman and her small group of friends rather than the movement as a whole. Meryl is in it for one scene and she says that line that’s on the t-shirts. The film is good and while it’s certainly not a comprehensive look at suffragists, it’s still important that we got a big budget movie about this subject made! Now let’s push to get *all* women and their histories represented.
The criticism about the tone deafness of the shirts is obviously completely correct and it makes me really angry that no one at Universal thought this through because now the conversation about this film is about this boneheaded marketing choice rather than about the fact that this is one of the few films about women’s history that has gotten made. Or that’s it’s written and directed by women. Or that there are still women out there who don’t have basic human rights.
A movie like this should be a jumping off point for discussion and needs to be supported so we get more movies about women and their histories. Now there’s a backlash and a bunch of people are going to steer clear and it seems like that’s just shooting ourselves in the foot. All that’s going to happen is that some cigar-chomping dude with green-lighting ability is going to say, “see, no one wants to see movies about women!” and next year we’ll get 87 more movies about white dudes who are good at math.
this.
Awesome! I am looking forward to seeing this!
All that’s going to happen is that some cigar-chomping dude with green-lighting ability is going to say, ‘see, no one wants to see movies about women!’ and next year we’ll get 87 more movies about white dudes who are good at math.”
You make a damn good point.
yes. this x 1000
I wholeheartedly agree that there should be more movies about the Suffragettes and yes this movie focuses on several prominent British activists who were white but lets not pull it down. Its a very famous quote attributed to Pankhurst and it has a place in the movie, while i don’t like these stupid t-shirts with quotes on them (and it was just an idiot idea regardless of the quote used), there are many out there that in my opinion say worse things (i.e. promoting drug use, objectification of women, violence etc..).
It was a shoot for a UK magazine aimed at the UK market. We as a society are becoming too afraid to speak in case we offend someone – why should we sensor ourselves because lunatics bomb satirical magazines. Why should we slam a movie with an important message because one quote plastered on a t-shirt offends Americans or the cast is too white, too posh or too whatever – we should be supporting it and using it to make sure other stories are told, its a starting point and hopefully it inspires other filmmakers/writers to get out there and tell these stories. This is the kind of thing the Suffragettes (and others) spoke out against – the freedom of speech, which is something the US holds dear. But am sure i will get jumped on for saying that.
@Kitten – We have the Steve Jobs movie, another XMen movie, Dr Strange and a whole list of other macho/guy movies and there’s the talk of Bendy Private_Citizenbatch playing Eidson. Sadly the only other one that even relates to feminism coming out is Danish Girl.
…nope. This is…literally everything people talk about that others try to tell them doesn’t matter.
When people brush others off and say “There’s no need for diversity behind a camera, if we just pick races were not showcasing talent” because of course a majority white crew will always understand things from everyone’s perspective and actually feel the slings and arrows of the issues they claim to be devoted to exploring.
Of course they won’t say something so dumb and tone-dead that woukd prompt an immediate groan from anyone with a working frontal lobe.
So rich white Meryl who doesn’t need feminism but decided to do a movie about Suffragettes (cash register ding) also decided to come out with some handy branding for the film with some lovely t-shirts. Awesome.
Btw Meryl, some people didn’t get a choice. PERIOD.
This is a genuine question. The film is about the British suffragette movement. But I see a lot of comments here and other forums upset about its whitewashing. Someone please enligheten me, were there woc in the British suffragette movement? I tried googling, but fell short.
The general populace at the time was about 95% white (probably more) – there were other ethnic groups but they were small and had limited rights. So to answer your question yes the British Suffragette movement was very likely all white women. The only way to give a definitive answer is to go throu all the records of the women who were registered supporters/active members and even then those records may not be complete. The claims of whitewashing seem to be coming from those people who are looking at the movie with a modern view or through the history of their own country at the time and not from a British historical context.
Its a British movie about British suffragettes made for the international market – the whitewashing sea lions need to understand the UK was not a culturally diverse place at that time in history.
SBS – see the photo I posted above of the Indian suffragettes in London in 1911. Further to that topic, here’s a link to a biography of a prominent Indian suffragette of the time: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/11/sophia-princess-suffragette-revolutionary-anita-anand-review-radical-indian-royal.
These were the days of Empire. Suffragism was as subject to intersectionality (with the specific emphasis on class structures of the time) as is feminism today. There were few(er) WOC in Britain but they were there and their contributions *have* been whitewashed from history, just as the contributions of many of the working class women have been classwashed. Shame, since the Pankhurst sister Sylvie was a lifelong anti-racist and socialist.
Also note that when slavery was abolished in Britain, the freed slaves did not live in Britain. They lived, far from the sight of the average Briton, in the colonies of the West Indies. Also note that the compensation was paid to the slave OWNERS, hence the campaign being waged for reparations in the Caribbean to this day.
There were some women of colour, yes.
There were definitely other races involved. As Sixer has posted to photos and biographies of some of them.
ETA: Just going to post Sixer”s comment here because she says it better than i ever could.
“”I suggest you look into what Tilly says. Specifically, “centuries of indentured slavery of the working class women and Irish”.
In my view, the most interesting Pankhurst was Sylvia, who was expelled from the suffrage movement by sister and mother for opposing WW1, and who was staunchly anti-colonialist, anti-racist and socialist all her life. She actually died in Ethiopia.
The intersection of race (elite colonials such as Princess Sophie, for example, AND the entrenched caste system in India as Empire collapsed) and class (Tilly’s comment) was very significant as far as the British (and its empire’s) suffrage movement was concerned.””
You won’t find any of that in the film.
People seriously need to stop, this is not “Problematic” at all unless somebody wants to start another OTT reaction war over something new again.
Black slaves in the US are not the definition of slavery, Somebody who has no rights as women of the time didn’t can be considered metaphorical slaves to men and the system.
I get seriously annoyed when people nit pick over anything to turn it into something and no before someone bothers to come at me I’m not saying the plight of the millions of slaves who toiled and died in the US is nothing I’m saying this soon to be outrage is over nothing it’s all about context people…
P.S I find the word “Problematic” to be so eyeroll inducing… I wish people would just straight up say what they mean instead of sugar coating it with words that sound like something an egalitarian dictator would say or Professor Umbridge of ya nasty.
Lets be real did anybody who read the quote literally think it was about slavery in the US or did you realise the context and CHOOSE to bring up slavery in the US?
Im so sick of this – this is why the rest of the world gets p*ssed off with Americans all the time – it isn t all about YOU!
Why the hell should other Countries constantly bow to your cultural sensitivities? This was about a group of women fighting for womens rights in the UK – I notice you are all happy to bang on about how ‘easy’ it was for upper class women to do this whilst ignoring the centuries of indentured slavery of the working class women and Irish.
You see the T shirts you lose your minds thinking WE should be adjusting ourselves when you don’t even know about British/Irish history and how the working class are treated?
and as for the women upthread claiming working class white women didnt have it so bad – STFU.
I’m not American, but you don’t have to be American to know that England turned the international slave trade into an art. England could puff itself up about ending the slave trade, but it still endorsed the institution of permanent, race-based slavery throughout it’s vast, vast empire. I would hope that no one thinks that people are actually stupid enough to think that blacks in America were the only slaves in history or white women had a walk in the park because it’s frankly an insulting assumption, But this case is about a specific place, space and time She meant slave in the general sense, but when you consider her relationship with certain prominent abolitionist, she was also referring to something specific. That’s not self-centered, that’s just how it was. They goofed.
Jo Mama Besser
I concur that it was a foolish choice for a film to be marketed internationally and specifically wants to compete for American awards.
HOWEVER. I suggest you look into what Tilly says. Specifically, “centuries of indentured slavery of the working class women and Irish”. Cultural ethnocentrism goes both ways.
In my view, the most interesting Pankhurst was Sylvia, who was expelled from the suffrage movement by sister and mother for opposing WW1, and who was staunchly anti-colonialist, anti-racist and socialist all her life. She actually died in Ethiopia.
The intersection of race (elite colonials such as Princess Sophie, for example, AND the entrenched caste system in India as Empire collapsed) and class (Tilly’s comment) was very significant as far as the British (and its empire’s) suffrage movement was concerned.
That indentured slavery was no small thing– the details are outrageous. Speaking as half Irish with roots firmly in the working class here.
I don’t deny that the English pretty much it as their right to make the Irish work and die on their behalf or that they considered them subhuman, I’m talking about the context of this specific quotation and to whom it referred.
But she didn’t mean it in the general sense. She meant it in the context of US slaves. We might find that difficult to swallow today, but that’s hardly the point in a biopic. The point, surely, is to show it how it was, warts and all. Regardless of whether or not it was a wise choice for a promotional t-shirt.
Thank you @Tilly,
I am also annoyed about all these scandalized claims in this and other threads when most of the times the cultural sensitivities of the rest of the world are completely ignored. I could go on , but your words are brilliant.
^This.
Slaves were viewed and treated as sub-human. Rebels were not.
They only counted as 3/5 of a human. Really, they were thought of as animals, and treated worse than the pets or beloved horses. Horses weren’t beaten or raped, as slaves were at will.
The whole thing is just disgusting. I am really sick of Hollywood idiots acting like they have a clue. Because 99.9999% of them don’t.
I don’t know, I can only laugh at this lameness. ‘B-b-but, Matt Damon said…’
I’m just waiting for ‘Free, White and 21: A Cross-Cultural Exchange’ to be released.
“I can’t believe no one doing publicity for the film realized how problematic this would be.”
It is about a British Suffragette and the tee shirt was for a UK magazine. It’s not problematic unless you think the world’s cultural awareness needs to center 100% on how something will read to Americans.
Thanks Matador.
There are 20 million slaves in the world to day and you think that only “Americans” have a problem with this t-shirt? Talk about a lack of cultural awareness.
I thought that ” slave” here was ” slave of men” and apparently it is a quote of the movie
The British empire was one of the biggest slave traders to the Caribbean and their colonies
America is not the world
I am not an American
Suffragettes were not to be found just in the US, and black people were not the only people to have been enslaved. This shirt should be offensive on behalf of slaves throughout world history, not just black slaves in the US.
They are American actresses wearing shirts that rather directly borrow words from the American Civil War. It is problematic for this reason. Yes, there are other definitions of slavery but the slave trade was throughout Europe, the Indes, and the Americas. That is what most people think of when slavery comes to mind. PoC were oppressed, excluded, and WoC were treated the worst of all. They faced the brutish sexism and undoubted misogyny of the time period within their own families, and limited social circles they may have had AND they were actual slaves who were starved, beaten, tortured, raped, and left for dead. Thrown in ships by the thousands. With chains. Around their necks. Naked. Not to minimize the plight of British working class women, which should be acknowledged and remembered as well, but it seriously is mind blowing people can be put off by other people calling this shirt “problematic” and can’t see why it’s so gross. There is no excuse for the shirt. None.
All the awards to you.
Perfectly stated and not “problematic” in the slightest 😉
I concur this was a foolish choice for the t-shirt, for reasons I’ve outlined above, but also because all context is removed from it.
This is the context. Pankhurst didn’t use the word slave in a general sense, despite what people are saying above. She used it specifically to link to US slavery. This was due to women’s property rights in British law. That is to say, they didn’t have any (although some minor concessions had been made in the late 1800s). Legally speaking, a woman was the property of her husband. He could divorce. She couldn’t. She couldn’t own any property if she was married – all her possessions were transferred to her husband when she married.
Here’s another quote from the early British women’s movement: “a wife is almost as much the property of her husband as the American slave of his master”.
Whether one likes these comparisons or not – and hindsight certainly makes us cringe – they were commonly made at the time. This was a ridiculous idea for a promotional t-shirt, but if the film itself were to elide the ACTUAL discussions that were had at the time, and why they were had – well, that’s equally ridiculous. Either the film is a reasonable representation of the actions, thoughts and views at the time, or the film is a waste of time.
I don’t think we should be implicitly demanding it be comfortable viewing.
The shirt displays a statement made in 1913 by the woman Meryl is playing. It was a powerful quote at the time thus that is why it is used in the marketing.
Even so, it is a glaring mistake for rich, white, American actresses to wear that shirt. If it was a powerful quote they wanted to use, there are obvious and much better ways they could have used it: coupling it with a historic photo, on a poster, using it in a trailer, putting it in quotations and actually attributing it to the woman who spoke it, (?) etc. The fact it’s a powerful quote that could potentially give voice to a feminist issue within its context, doesn’t change the very valid negative public reaction to said quote when it’s uncoupled by its historic context and worn as a fashion statement by white, highly priveledged, American actresses. Not to say the film should be comfortable viewing, but if it’s a study of Virginia Woolf feminism, I’ll pass…
Unfortunately, coolkidsneverhavethetime, I fear the film is going to be a simple hagiography. If the choice of t-shirt is anything to go by, anyway. All the complexities and difficulties within any liberation movement will likely be lost. So, sadly, if I had to take a bet on it, I’d say it *will* be comfortable viewing.
Only Meryl is American. The other two actresses are British.
Eh, it’s a faux pas at best and self-stroking stupidity at worst. I choose not to be offended. Mostly because I can’t take too seriously any conviction expressed on a T-shirt or one’s car.
I’d rather think of the fate of the nowadays slaves that made the respective T-shirts.
The statement on the shirt is from a speech given by the woman Meryl is playing. I have no issue with it.
Me neither…
So I have learned from the comments that it is a choice to be born as a woman. Go figure.
Yeah, okay.
I’ve understood from another thread, at Awards Watch, that these t-shirts were the idea of Time Out London and not Focus Features. So at least they’re not really part of an official world wide campaign, just something for the magazine.
This tonedeaf campaign…just UGH!
Reason # 10,423 why I consider myself a Womanist rather than a feminist.
Yup.
I”d rather be a sanctimonious PC thug than an entitled middle-class person. But my guess is that some of the blowhards on here are both.
Aaand there’s the troll we were all waiting for…..I think that the PR people knew exactly what they were doing with this one. What better way to get your movie promoted than by getting EVERYONE talking about it. Seriously, the whole internet is losing their s**t over this one. And we are too. Scroll up for reference. Sure, many will throw their toys out of the pram and refuse to go see the film…but by and large, this campaign, however you feel about it, is doing EXACTLY what it was intended to do. We are ALL TALKING ABOUT IT.
I’m finally getting around to this.
Jesus people, slave here means being deprived of basic human rights. Which was the case for women in the 19th century.
Women were (and still are in some countries) considered property, legally in the possession of their fathers, brothers or husbands.
Were there worse examples of slavery at that time? Of course.
Does this mean this story is any less important tho?
And sorry, as a non-American, I didn’t even think about the US history first. There is a world out there which does not relate to the US.
+1
So I had a post written in response to someone else but something went wrong and I lost what I wrote. I’ll start again.
Firstly, as others have said, USA does NOT equal the world. If this had been targeted at an American audience I would see why it would be problematic BUT IT WASN’T. So now the entire world media have to double-check with Americans to make sure that what the rest of us say or do is cultrally acceptable to you just in case you come across it on the world wide web? That’s the *WORLD WIDE* web? Seriously? And Americans are not expected to do the same? Did Americans Like the times when talking about PoC and they are specifically refered to as African-American, Hispanic-American etc as though ALL PoC are American (you do realise there are a lot of PoC who are NOT American, right?) or when a gorgeous waistcoat is called a VEST of all things (not the worst faux pas, but it bugs me) both of (and this one I do find outright offensive) when somebody decided to make that stupid submarine film which appropiated the story of how the Enigma machine was captured, a British achievement, and presented it as an American achievement. WTF? Nobody cared about cultural sensitivies about THAT did they? And now no-one in the world is allowed to use the term ‘rebel’ because it makes some people in America think of the Confederacy? When it doesn’t mean that to ANYONE outside of America? SERIOUSLY?
Also, I find it really disturbing the way so many people in these comments are talking about what is “real slavery”. To me it’s like seeing people discuss how bad a rape needs to be before it can be considered “real rape”. Rape is rape, slavery is slavery, it’s not a contest where only those who had it worse can call themselves real slaves, FFS. Since so few of you bothered to check, here’s the dictionary definitions (from http://www.collinsdictionary.com ) :
slave
noun
1. a person legally owned by another and having no freedom of action or right to property
2. a person who is forced to work for another against his will
3. a person under the domination of another person or some habit or influence ⇒ ■ a slave to television
4. a person who works in harsh conditions for low pay
5.a. a device that is controlled by or that duplicates the action of another similar device (the master device)
b. (as modifier) ⇒ ■ slave cylinder
Women (of all colours) have been (and in some places still are) legally owned by another. They had/have no freedom of action or right to property. Under the domination of another person. Forced to work against their will and/or in harsh conditions for low pay. (As have/are many men, of course.)
IT IS NOT A CONTEST.
Sorry for typos. “Did Americans Like the times when” should read “What about when” or something to that effect.