Ethnic identities of women

Significance:Issues of ethnic identification have affected the ability of women to advance both their roles as women and their self-interest as members of particular ethnic groups. The confluence of these interests has, in turn, helped to advance interethnic understanding.

Ethnic identity is often omitted from studies of women and women’s issues in the United States and Canada. History, however, shows that women have not always identified themselves as members of one particular group. Ethnicity has played a large role in women’s social and political activities, in their economic activities, and in their domestic household activities. Ethnic group identification has been found to divide and bring women together depending on the issues and environment. The status of women and their activities on behalf of women can effectively be understood within the context of the general social and political history of which they are a part, especially their cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Ethnic identity for women is their individual identity; the part that is female cannot be separated from women’s ethnicity.

Resurgence of Ethnicity

Ethnicity is a complex concept based roughly on common or shared cultural properties, such as language, descent, and religion. Ethnic identity requires defining oneself according to notions of shared culture and focusing on the cultural uniqueness of a particular group. Various interpretations exist of why ethnicity persists and why it slowly diminishes. Until the ethnic violence shook Eastern Europe and Africa in the late 1980s and early 1990s, ethnicity was held by many theorists to be slowly disappearing with modernization and technological advancement. This view was held especially in modern countries such as the United States and Canada. Thus arose the problem of whether to place one’s loyalty with one’s ethnic group or with one’s nation-state. Women faced the additional option of placing their sense of womanhood over loyalty to the ethnic group or nation-state. Since ethnicity became recognized as a factor in US and Canadian societies, theorists found that it develops for self-interested reasons, such as gaining some type of economically based rewards from the political system. The basis for this position is that in competitive societies, one of the best ways to compete successfully is to organize. Organizing around ethnic groups can be effective. The tremendous increase in immigrants to the United States and Canada, many of whom were more resistant to change and assimilation than were earlier immigrants, also led to a renewed focus on ethnicity.

Ethnic vs. Gender Identity

When women organize along gender lines, it is often within the context of the cultural and political conditions in which they live. Gender, social class membership, age, and other criteria can vary from ethnic group to ethnic group. One group may fit well into modern Western society, whereas another ethnic group living in the same society will experience adjustment problems. Some ethnic groups may refuse attempts at adjustment to modernism and hold to traditionalism. This variance means that ethnicity can be a problem for women because, often, traditional cultural values of an ethnic group that define roles for women can conflict with overall societal values. In other situations, traditional values of an ethnic group can be advantageous to women dealing with real and perceived threats and roadblocks in contemporary US or Canadian society. An increase in women’s awareness of their ethnicity occurred alongside increased attention to women’s issues. The result has been renewed recognition of an interwoven relationship, with both positive and negative characteristics between ethnic identity and women’s issues.

To place a priority on women’s issues as one form of identity while minimizing another form of identity, such as ethnicity, results in incomplete analysis. Prior to the post–World War II period, ethnicity was largely associated with immigrants and any group unidentifiable as Northern European or British. The dawning of the twentieth century, for example, found women and African Americans without the right to vote, but the status of African American women was misinterpreted by white women in several of the political organizations to which they belonged. African American women were not regarded as true woman suffragists by white-dominated organizations because they practiced political action on the basis of race and gender rather than gender alone. Separation in American society of women’s issues and ethnicity created gender divisions of labor and assigned particular significance regarding race and ethnicity to occupational and socioeconomic standing that was typically less favorable. For example, ethnic groups were among the lower working class, whereas members of the dominant nonethnic society occupied the upper and more desirable classes. Hence, studies of race and ethnicity often leave out issues specific to women, and studies of women deemphasize race and ethnicity. It is apparent that ethnicity and women’s issues coalesce at some points. For example, it can be claimed that women and racial minorities occupy subordinate places in society; both are underrepresented in high-level occupations, and both earn lower average incomes than white men.

Inserting women’s issues into the rubric of ethnic group membership is difficult in nationalistic societies such as the United States and Canada, where being American or Canadian involves a mix of several ethnic groups. There is also a tendency in these societies to be secular, while a large percentage of ethnic groups have strong religious bases. For example, an Italian American woman may encounter a conflict between Catholicism and her position on abortion. Ethnicity often infers linkages to a homeland far from US and Canadian societies. In this instance, native cultural practices may persist within Western modernization through the maintenance of cultural enclaves such as Chinatown, Little Italy, and Germantown. Women who maintain close links to their respective ethnic groups often live in two different worlds. The preservation of access to membership in the group, such as knowledge of rituals and traditions, is an important function of any ethnic group, and anyone involved in these groups must know them.

Women as Culture Carriers

One of the key means of controlling ethnic group membership is through socialization of the young. One significant role for women is guiding the young into adulthood. This is especially the case in groups in which religion is a major factor in the community. As carriers of culture, women are crucial to communities. In the course of her work on the life histories of Italian American families in Northern California, Micaela di Leonardo introduced the idea of the “work of kinship,” defined as the conception, maintenance, and ritual celebration of cross household kin ties, including visits, letters, telephone calls, presents, and cards to kin; the organization of holiday gatherings; the creation and maintenance of quasi-kin relations; the decision to neglect or to intensify particular ties; the mental work of reflection about all these activities; and the creation and communication of altering images of family and kin in relation to the images of others, both folk and mass media. She found that over time, women developed greater knowledge of their husbands’ kin than their husbands had.

On the basis of Leonardo’s review of other research, kin-work is not nearly as much an ethnic, racial, or class phenomenon as it is a gender phenomenon. She found gender-based division of labor across ethnic, racial, and class groups. To the degree that the daily behavioral expression of community membership is embedded in how one eats, dresses, and uses household space and is woven through activities that span a lifetime (for example, family-based celebrations such as family reunions), women’s kin-work translates also as culture work. This critical women’s role partly explains why women take on such importance in defining the ethnic community and what it stands for. Women are valuable community possessions as the principal vehicle for transmitting values from one generation to another. Many ethnic communities regard women as particularly vulnerable to defilement and exploitation by negative outside forces, and many see women as being especially susceptible to assimilation and influence by outsiders. This is one cause of the oppression ethnic women often feel. For example, an ethnic family may feel particularly threatened when a female relative leaves the house in nontraditional clothing.

Additionally, the historically symbolic role of women in the politics of cultural relations has shaped cultural expressions. As women have played important roles in the family and ethnic community through their activities as wives, mothers, and homemakers, they have also played important roles in intercultural relations through other women-based roles as teachers, missionaries, and social workers. For example, women in the Northeast region of the United States went to the Southern and Western United States to teach, civilize, Americanize, and ultimately culturally transform ethnic-based Latino, African American, American Indian, and European settler communities of the nineteenth century into culturally assimilated members of the nation.

Interpreters of women’s relationships within ethnic groups have a difficult task because men tend to construct ethnic identity. Women and men come together in the family structure when competing identities, such as between male and female, could lead to disagreements. In such situations, preference usually goes to the ethnic affiliations of the male partner. Because ethnic groups often identify with physical markers, such as clothing, hairstyles, or body alterations, individuals can be identified with regard to both gender and ethnicity in the way they dress. In the area of dress and style, women and men are treated differently. For example, women are encouraged to wear traditional types of dress, whereas men can easily move from one type of dress (Western) to another (traditional).

Gender and Race

Gender and ethnic terms can influence the construction of each other. “Ethnic” does not have to mean race, and race is only a partial basis for determining ethnic identity. Race is one way in which gender and ethnicity merge when women use racial metaphors to illustrate real and perceived discrimination against women. For women, especially feminists, the gendered construction of racism serves as an excellent vehicle for faulting a male system in which women are oppressed. The experiences of European immigrant women, especially Italians and Jews, illustrate that numerous examples of discrimination can be drawn from other ethnic groups. Despite this, race is usually treated as a secondary factor in social organization, and ethnicity is a distant third factor. Much of the feminists’ perspective and activity has focused on the sexist behavior of men rather than on the positives and negatives of ethnic identification.

Part of the answer to the construction of whiteness can be traced to the cultural symbolism of European women that is rooted in a system based on good and bad, or Madonna and Magdalena symbolism. Interpretations that began to appear at the end of the eighteenth century identified particular personality traits with particular classes or races of women. Leonore Davidoff argued that the material division of household tasks in the nineteenth century caused good and bad aspects of women to be linked to socially distinct groups of women. The mistress no longer did heavy labor; all dirty, arduous physical labor was now performed by the domestic, whose stigmatizing labor accorded with her inferior character and her working-class status. Good women were wives, mothers, and spinsters, and bad women were prostitutes, laborers, and single mothers. The dual symbolism of good/bad was usually connected with race and class, but it could be used to chastise any woman moving out of her assigned place.

Women active in women’s issues who are members of ethnic minorities experience conditions that are distinct from those of white feminists. The development of ethnic minority feminism and the relationships among black feminists, white feminists, and feminists of other racial and ethnic groups are shaped by experiences in their respective communities. Unlike their white counterparts, minority women (or ethnic groups in general) face a different type of division in their construction of identity. Because of the emphasis on traditions in many ethnic groups in America, they are usually divided along lines of obedience versus independence, collective (or familial) versus individual interest, and self-control versus self-expression or spontaneity. These divisions are more complex and difficult to deal with than the good versus bad division.

African American, Asian American, and Latina female activists are aware that social inequality for women of color is two-sided. On one side, the struggle is to gain equality in male-dominated ethnic enclaves or communities; on the other side, the struggle is for equality for women in society as a whole. Among minority women, women’s issues involve more than gender because, as minority women, they are affected by both ethnic identification and nationalist ideology in their everyday lives. Minority women’s emphasis on ethnic pride and difficulties within a white-dominated society has provided significant political direction to the movement in addressing women’s issues within ethnic communities.

Women’s Movement and Ethnicity

Ethnicity creates important economic, ideological, and experiential divisions among women. These lead to differences in perception of identity and its place in society for women while at the same time, the communality of womanhood may cut across ethnic lines and provide the conditions for shared understanding. Women developed concepts around women’s issues that fostered unity. One example of this is the concept of sisterhood; it has been an important unifying force in the contemporary women’s movement and one with the ability to overcome ethnic differences. By stressing the similarities of women’s secondary social and economic positions in all societies and in the family, the sisterhood concept is useful in the movement against sexism. Yet, sisterhood has engaged only a small segment of the female population in the United States. African American, American Indian, and Latina women are seldom involved in feminist activities. In Canada, various feminist and other women’s organizations have cooperated on specific projects even though they have had different ideological perspectives. For example, an active feminist group may have interest in a child care and education project, which puts them in working contact with more moderate women’s groups advancing the same issues. On the intellectual level, socialist feminist theory finds the concept of sisterhood to be apolitical and lacking in class analysis. The problem has to do with perceptions that the women’s movement is an upper- and middle-class movement. Supporters of sisterhood stress the sense of being part of a collective movement toward a fairer and more equal society. Regardless of these varying positions, sisterhood has shown an ability to unify women beyond ethnic identifications.

The women’s movements in the United States and Canada arose within nationalist and cultural movements. In the United States, for example, the experience white women gained from participating in the civil rights movement gave them the opportunity to become involved with civil rights groups in which the decision making was shared by men and women alike. During the later part of the movement (after 1965), African American men began to exercise more control in organizations, such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC); they effectively isolated the women, especially the white women. Many of the original organizers of women’s groups were women who gained their experience in the civil rights struggle in the South. A similar situation occurred with respect to the woman suffrage movement and other political activities for women’s rights in pre-1919 United States, in which many of the politically active white women evolved out of antislavery groups. In the United States, the ethnic division appeared along racial lines.

In Canada, some ethnic tensions were clearly present in the woman suffrage movement. For example, in 1906, non-British suffragists rejected the tactics of the British suffragists as being “unwomanly.” The year 1902 witnessed a conflict over ideological differences in New Brunswick between the Women’s Enfranchisement Association and the Saint John Local Council of Women. Ethnic differences created a threat to cooperation among women. After 1896, substantial numbers of immigrants who were not Anglo-Saxon pushed antiethnic feelings to higher levels. The Anglo-Saxon membership of the majority of Canadian women’s reform organizations did not include women of other ethnic groups. The women in these organizations identified, and consequently organized, with their own cultural or ethnic groups. For example, African Canadian women in Montreal began to meet in 1900, which constituted the first organized black women’s group in that city. Canadian women’s labor groups organized along Finnish, Jewish, and Ukrainian lines.

The US and Canadian examples of cooperation, conflict, and exclusion illustrate the greater degree of ethnic divisions within the Canadian women’s movement as compared with that in the United States. They also illustrate how women’s individual identity as women—subjected to societal elements that affect them both as women and as members of particular religious, ethnic, or other cultural groups—can create a dilemma. It appears that when women organized from the nineteenth century to the present, they did so within the context of their contemporary cultural and political conditions.

Language is another factor affecting the acculturation and political participation of women on a nonethnic basis. Language barriers limit the extent to which women from some ethnic groups can express themselves. These barriers in turn limit their accessibility to different types of information and to women’s groups that may be working on issues that positively affect them. An example of this problem can be drawn from the situation in the United States in which Chicanas often organized in isolation from mainstream feminist groups because of language differences. Language is a major problem, but cultural interpretations of womanhood also play a role in the cooperative political participation among these groups. For Europeans, the ethnic factors that brought a particular group together actually eased the task of and facilitated the process of assimilation.

Ethnicity in Canada

Because of significant differences between US and Canadian experiences with women and ethnic identity, the Canadian situation merits particular attention. One of the major turning points for women in Canada occurred during World War I, with the achievement of woman suffrage. Another turning point occurred during World War II, when large numbers of married women entered the labor force. For Canadian women, ethnicity created numerous inequities. Industrial development in the late 1800s was predicated on cheap labor; thousands of immigrants, especially those from non-English-speaking countries, paid a high price for their entry into Canada by being channeled into low-paying and unsafe working conditions.

Early demographics found that Canadians of British origin decreased from 60 percent of the population in 1871 to 55 percent in 1921, and those of French origin from 31 percent to 28 percent. In terms of gender, when men began heading to the prairies and the Northwest Territories seeking economic opportunities between 1851 and 1891, women of marriageable age outnumbered men in the same age range in the original British North American provinces. Conversely, the 1881 and 1891 censuses revealed that men significantly outnumbered women in Manitoba and British Columbia. In either case, women faced a certain amount of isolation, but more so in the new settlements. Many women dealt with their isolation through maintaining links with friends and family left behind and by creating new links with women in their new communities. This proved to be much easier with those of the same ethnic origin.

In the early years of Canadian development, women supported the preservation of ethnic cultures. A negative aspect of these women’s work involved certain restrictions they erected to prevent those who did not conform or belong to their ethnic group. Similar to particular circumstances in the United States, these women touted the superiority of their culture over other cultures. Mixed-blood women were also subjected to discrimination from English-speaking settlers in the West.

Ethnic organizing in Canada continued through the 1920s and 1930s. The organizational strategy of Jewish women, mainly of Western European origins, who worked together to form the National Council of Jewish Women, is illustrative of ethnic activity among women. Through vehicles such as fundraising and volunteer work, this council supported schools, orphanages, and summer camps and cared for senior citizens. This also illustrates that, like women in the United States, they were responsible for ethnic culture well into the future. By the 1970s, some feminists, including Jewish feminists, fought to remain within the religious community while working for change from within. Work remains for Canadian women in dealing with ethnic, cultural, and gender biases.

Organizing around ethnic identity, aboriginal women initiated social and political activities. These women redefined themselves in a way that incorporated their traditions. Iroquois women accepted that Indian women were originally active participants in policy-making decisions and should therefore assume that role in contemporary Canada. The main conflict has been between traditional means of policymaking and modern/Western methods. To take the Western route is to deny the cultural roots of the group in favor of what appears to be acceptance of white government. Without giving up their ethnic identification, Indian women formed socially and politically active groups that existed in many instances outside the cultural confines of their ethnic group and inside the Western political arena. Multiethnic cooperation also existed, as exemplified by the Ontario Native Women’s Association, founded in 1972, which includes mixed-blood Indian women. Indian women also organized to deal with serious social problems, such as alcoholism and an educational system that does not include Indian traditions in its curriculum.

Ethnic Boundaries and Ethnic Identity

This discussion has illustrated both the loose and tight boundaries of ethnicity and how these boundaries can be manipulated for political purposes. Ethnic boundaries can also be manipulated for personal purposes because, unlike territorial boundaries, they are social. They do not isolate groups entirely from one another; rather, there is a continuous flow of interaction and sometimes people across them. For example, Shirlee Taylor Haizlip told how, prior to the civil rights movement of the 1960s, her mother, one of several children of mixed racial descent, was the only one to retain her African American identity. Since the movement, more individuals have accepted their ethnic heritage. It appears that maintaining an ethnic identity is not incompatible with simultaneous identification with a nationalist group, such as Canada and the United States.

Ethnic identity has been identified as an important part of women and women’s issues. Women are found to transcend their ethnicity at critical junctures and to organize into collectives. Although some problems exist between women of different ethnic groups, there are also instances in which women cooperate strictly along gender lines. One highly visible problem is the persistence of tradition among some ethnic groups. Tradition may dictate that women are forbidden to organize or devote much time to anything other than advancing the culture by nurturing and socializing the children. It is becoming difficult, however, to remain rooted in any ethnic tradition in the United States and Canada, primarily because of communication technologies and frequent encounters among group members in the marketplace. In addition, women in these countries have historically shown that they are more likely than their male counterparts to bridge the ethnic gap and work together. This is one indication that ethnicity and women’s issues are not incompatible. In fact, a primary concern for both minorities and women is pay equity. A 2016 Pew Research Center study showed that median hourly earnings in 2015 for white women were 82 cents for every dollar a white man made. The differences were greater for most minority women though: black women earned 65 cents for every dollar a white man earned, and Hispanic women earned just 58 cents; the median hourly wage for Asian women, however, was 87 cents to every dollar a white man earned. All groups of women narrowed this gap since 1980, when the median hourly wage, for every dollar a white man made, was 60 cents for white women, 56 cents for black women, and 53 cents for Hispanic women.

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