Editing Triple oppression (section)

== History ==
Before the term "triple oppression" was coined, Black female scholars in the 19th century highlighted the unique challenges faced by Black women due to the intersecting oppressions of race and gender. As an abolitionist, [[Sojourner Truth]] affirmed the struggles she faced as a result of both her race and gender.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Smiet |first=Katrine |url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9780429754067 |title=Sojourner Truth and Intersectionality: Traveling Truths in Feminist Scholarship |date=2020-12-29 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-429-42412-0 |edition=1 |location=Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2021. {{!}} |language=en |doi=10.4324/9780429424120}}</ref> At the 1851 Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio, Truth delivered a speech that would become one of the most iconic moments in the fight for both abolition and women's rights, titled “[[Ain't I a Woman?|Ain’t I a Woman?]]”<ref name=":5">{{Cite web |title=Ain't I A Woman |url=http://www.sojournertruth.org/Library/Speeches/AintIAWoman.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161203200913/http://www.sojournertruth.org/Library/Speeches/AintIAWoman.htm |archive-date=2016-12-03 |access-date=2016-12-04 |website=www.sojournertruth.org}}</ref> In her speech, Truth challenged the arguments that excluded women, especially Black women, from the fight for equality, emphasizing her strength and abilities against the stereotypes that belittled her. Truth also voiced opposition to the [[Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fifteenth Amendment]] with the reasoning that more male power would lead to the greater oppression of black women. On May 9, 1867, during her speech at the First Annual Meeting of the American Equal Rights Association, she emphasized this point by stating, "if colored men get their rights, and not colored women theirs, you see the colored men will be masters over the women, and it will be just as bad as it was before."<ref>{{Cite web |title=Address to the First Annual Meeting of the American Equal Rights Association - May 9, 1867 |url=https://awpc.cattcenter.iastate.edu/2017/03/21/address-to-the-first-annual-meeting-of-the-american-equal-rights-association-may-9-1867/ |access-date=2024-11-01 |website=Archives of Women's Political Communication |language=en}}</ref>

Moreover, suffragist [[Elizabeth Cady Stanton]] stated that black women would suffer from a "triple bondage that man never knows" if they did not receive voting rights when colored men did.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Giddings |first=Paula |url=https://archive.org/details/whenand_gid_1996_00_7965/page/61 |title=When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America |publisher=W. Morrow |year=1984 |isbn=978-0688146504 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/whenand_gid_1996_00_7965/page/61 61]}}</ref> [[Anna J. Cooper|Anna Julia Cooper]] discussed black women's double enslavement through race and gender.<ref name=":7">{{Cite book |last=May |first=Vivian M. |url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781135911560 |title=Anna Julia Cooper, Visionary Black Feminist |date=2012-08-21 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-135-91156-0 |edition=0 |language=en |doi=10.4324/9780203936542}}</ref> Moreover, in 1904, activist [[Mary Church Terrell]] explored the unique discrimination faced by black women when she wrote about women of color's discrimination as a result of both their race and gender.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Broussard |first=Jinx C. |date=2002 |title=Mary Church Terrell: A Black Woman Journalist and Activist Seeks to Elevate Her Race |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08821127.2002.10677901 |journal=American Journalism |language=en |volume=19 |issue=4 |pages=13–35 |doi=10.1080/08821127.2002.10677901 |issn=0882-1127|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

According to scholar Eric McDuffie, the term "triple exploitation" was coined in the 1930s by activist and Communist Party member [[Louise Thompson Patterson]] to describe the oppression pertaining to class, race, and gender suffered specifically by black women.<ref>{{Cite book |last=McDuffie |first=Erik S. |url=http://read.dukeupress.edu/books/book/2193/Sojourning-for-FreedomBlack-Women-American |title=Sojourning for Freedom: Black Women, American Communism, and the Making of Black Left Feminism |date=2011 |publisher=Duke University Press |isbn=978-0-8223-5033-0 |language=en |doi=10.1215/9780822394402|hdl=2027.42/149251 }}</ref>

Triple oppression was popularized during a time of transition when the Old Left as a movement was rendered powerless post-World War II. Communism,<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=http://isreview.org/issue/91/black-feminism-and-intersectionality|title=Research files on African-Americans and communism 1919–1993|last=Solomon|first=Mark|date=October 2014|website=isreview.org|access-date=2016-11-15}}</ref> although prominent in earlier years, reached its highest peak in the political atmosphere in the 1960s. [[The Communist Party USA and African Americans|The Communist party]] was made up of immigrant members and foreign and the various coalitions formerly associated with the Socialist Party of America; those workers, many of whom were not fluent English-speakers, made little effort to include Black Americans and their rights even when both mirrored each other. As the [[Socialist Party of America|Socialist Party]] was rising, still little effort was made to include many [[African Americans|African-American]] members. Although leaders often were committed against [[racial segregation]], many in the Socialist Party didn't see the connection to [[racism]] and how it affected many in the United States. "Some African Americans dissatisfied by Socialist attitudes and their unwillingness to speak up about racial issues, joined the Communist party; others went to the [[African Blood Brotherhood]] (ABB), which was known for being a radical black liberation organization."<ref name=":0" /> The Communist Party's new concept introduced triple oppression focusing on Black women workers.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Lynn |first=Denise |date=2016-09-08 |title=Claudia Jones' Feminist Vision of Emancipation - AAIHS |url=https://www.aaihs.org/claudia-jones-feminist-vision-of-emancipation/ |access-date=2024-11-01 |website=www.aaihs.org |language=en-US}}</ref> This oppression is shown through, "The most privileged group members marginalizes those who are multiply-burdened and obscures claims that cannot be understood as resulting from discrete sources of discrimination."<ref>{{Cite book|title=Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antiracist Politics|last=Crenshaw|first=Kimberlé|publisher=University of Chicago Legal Forum|year=1989|pages=139–67|quote=The most privileged group members marginalizes those who are multiply-burdened and obscures claims that cannot be understood as resulting from discrete sources of discrimination.|url=http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1052&context=uclf}}</ref> The party focused on the blatant issues of [[Race (human categorization)|race]], [[Externality|class]], and [[gender]] while including [[intersectionality]]. After much frustration from black citizens and a reformulation of the Communist party, many African Americans joined the party to further the goal of equality. Eventually after World War I and II, the communist party underwent many splits that caused the party to get smaller and eventually disappear. Many groups came out of this, including militant power movements like the [[Black Panther Party|Black Panther movement]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=2016-08-25 |title=The Black Panther Party |url=https://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/black-power/black-panthers#bpintro |access-date=2024-11-01 |website=National Archives |language=en}}</ref>

=== Claudia Jones ===
Erik S. McDuffie credits communist [[Louise Thompson Patterson]] with coining the term "triple oppression," while Carole Boyce Davies argues that the concept of black women's triple oppression was popularized within the [[Communist party|Communist Party]] by party member [[Claudia Jones]]. Jones's pivotal article critiquing the Party’s neglect of Black women synthesized her long-standing ideas on triple oppression'''.'''<ref name=":3">{{Cite journal |last=Lynn |first=Denise |year=2014 |title=Socialist Feminism and Triple Oppression: Claudia Jones and African American Women in American Communism |journal=Journal for the Study of Radicalism |volume=8 |issue=2 |pages=1–20 |doi=10.14321/jstudradi.8.2.0001 |jstor=10.14321/jstudradi.8.2.0001 |s2cid=161970928 |doi-access=free}}</ref>

Jones believed that black women's triple oppression based on race, class, and gender preceded all other forms of oppression. Additionally, she theorized that by freeing black women, who are the most oppressed of all people, freedom would be gained for all people who suffer from race, class, and gender oppression.<ref name=":4">{{Cite web|url=http://www.aaihs.org/claudia-jones-feminist-vision-of-emancipation/|title=Claudia Jones' Feminist Vision Of Emancipation|last=Lynn|first=Denise|date=September 8, 2016|website=African American Intellectual History Society|access-date=November 10, 2016}}</ref> Jones saw that the Communist Party focused on the oppression of the white working-class male, and she criticized the party's lack of recognition of the specific oppressions of black women in her article, "An End to the Neglect of the Problems of the Negro Woman" (1949).<ref name=":4" />

Jones was sure to articulate a socialist feminism that took into account not just race, but the disparate struggles of all working women. Jones felt that black American women experienced a unique form of oppression that was not acknowledged by [[feminism]]. She argued that with the liberation of black women, [[black nationalism]] would be much more achievable. As she puts it, "once Negro women undertake action, the militancy of the whole Negro people, and thus of the anti-imperialist coalition is greatly enhanced."<ref>{{cite journal|date=Fall 2014|title=Socialist Feminism and Triple Oppression|journal=Journal for the Study of Radicalism|volume=8|issue=2|page=11|last1=Lynn|first1=Denise|doi=10.14321/jstudradi.8.2.0001|s2cid=161970928|doi-access=free}}</ref>

Jones's views influenced other Communist women and black female activists, such as [[Angela Davis]]<ref name=":3" /> and the [[Combahee River Collective]].<ref name=":4" /> Davis writes about triple oppression in her book ''[[Women, Race and Class]]'' (1981),<ref>{{Cite book|title=Literature and Gender|last=Goodman|first=Lizbeth|publisher=Routledge|year=2013|isbn=9781135636074|pages=153}}</ref> where she identifies white socialist [[Elizabeth Gurley Flynn]] as articulating the concept of "triple jeopardy" in 1948, quoting this passage: "Every inequality	and	disability	inflicted on	American	white	women	is	aggravated	a	thousandfold among	Negro women, who	are	triply	exploited — as	Negroes, as	workers, and as	women."<ref>''Women, Race and Class'', p.97</ref>