WOMANISM
Why Moms For Liberty Group Acts a Lot Like Daughters of the Confederacy
There's a common thread that unites them
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Elizabeth McRae, a historian and racial scholar, referred to White women as "segregation's constant gardeners." We can see this in the way White women protested integration. For instance, on September 4, 1957, Elizabeth Eckford and eight other Black students faced an angry mob of White women as they tried to make their way into Little Rock Central High School. White women yelled and taunted the students, calling for Eckford "to be lynched," shouting, "two, four, six, eight, we don't want to integrate!" Indeed, White women played an active role in fighting against diversity, equity, and inclusion throughout American history, but we rarely hear about white extremist women's groups. Why is that?
White women are part of a marginalized gender group and a privileged racial group. The gender-racial pay gap between men and women hasn’t changed in the past two decades. And just last year, women were stripped of their reproductive rights by the Supreme Court and hold significantly fewer leadership positions than men. Nevertheless, White women are still capable of expressing racism, of punching down at Black people and people of color, which extremist groups led by women illustrate. The historical parallels between the United Daughters of Confederacy, a group founded in 1894, and Moms For Liberty, founded in 2021, are noteworthy. Both women's groups have a conservative-leaning political ideology, actively oppose diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, are interested in maintaining a white-centered power structure, and share a deep interest in educating White children with the explicit goal of shaping their worldview.
Who are The United Daughters of the Confederacy?
The United Daughters of the Confederacy was founded on September 10, 1894, in Nashville, Tennessee, by Meriwether Goodlett and Anna Mitchell Davenport Raines. Membership was reserved for White women, descendants of Confederate soldiers, and generals. Founded in the former Confederate capital, Richmond, Virginia, the United Daughters of the Confederacy were interested in preserving heritage by spreading myths about the Civil War. Namely…
