The public commentary of prominent white feminist icons in this election season has provided a fascinating glimpse into the thoughts and ideological perspective of leaders of the mainstream feminist movement. But if recent comments made by Gloria Steinem and Geraldine Ferraro are any indication, the mainstream feminist movement has learned nothing from its past and its future may be doomed.

There is no question that the Women’s Rights and Civil Rights Movements were born out of the common experiences of oppression and historical exclusion from American public life. Despite these commonalities, the two movements have had a surprisingly rocky history characterized by bigotry and competition.

It is well-documented that white women suffragettes became infuriated when the black male was granted the vote ahead of them with the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870. Feminist leaders were incredulous that their white skin did not afford them the clear advantage over black men previously held as slaves. The 1870 comments of Elizabeth Cady Stanton reflect this view:

“The few social privileges which the (white) man gives the (white) woman, he makes up to the negro (male) in civil rights. The woman may sit at the same table and eat with the white man; the free negro may hold property and vote. The woman may sit in the same pew with the white man in church; the free negro may enter the pulpit and preach. Now, with the black man’s right to suffrage…it is evident that the prejudice against sex is more deeply rooted and more unreasonably maintained than that against color. As citizens of a republic, which should we most highly prize, social privileges or civil rights? The latter, most certainly.”

This perspective was again articulated almost 100 years later by a leading white Congresswoman in the debate over the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In an attempt to undermine passage of the act, white Southern men led the move to add the category “sex” to a legislative proposal that would prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion and national origin. Concerned that white women would be the last to be hired if sex was not included in the bill’s language, Michigan Congresswoman Martha Griffiths used specific racial appeals to make her case:

“It would be incredible that white men would be willing to place white women at such a disadvantage except that white men have done this before…your great grandfathers were willing prisoners of their own prejudice to permit ex-slaves to vote, but not their own white wives.”

If the words of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Martha Griffiths sound vaguely familiar, it is because the nation has heard these sentiments echoed recently by Gloria Steinem and Geraldine Ferraro - mainstays of the modern feminist movement - in their fierce defense of presidential candidate Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

What Steinem and Ferraro’s remarks have revealed is that some leading white feminists have, in essence, held a grudge since the nineteenth century and these hard feelings are now playing out in the contest for the U.S. presidential race. The basis of this grudge is rooted in the assumption of white privilege - an often unspoken and understudied tenet of racist doctrine that holds that the condition of whiteness should carry the social, economic and political advantage regardless of other factors (in this case male gender).

In their zeal to “right historical wrongs” by getting Hillary Clinton elected to the highest office in the land ahead of Barack Obama, Steinem and Ferraro illustrate that they continue to be influenced by the bankrupt paradigm of white superiority. That they are willing to invoke racist, and even sexist, language to justify why America should vote for Hillary Clinton shows just how desperate and anachronistic the mainstream feminist movement has become.

Gloria Steinem's lamentations that a black woman with Obama's professional biography would never be considered a viable candidate for America's highest office because "gender is probably the most restricting force in American life" is in itself restricting, short-sighted and sexist. With a stroke of a pen, Steinem not only throws water on the groundbreaking presidential candidacies of women such as Shirley Chisholm, Patsy Mink, Lenora Fulani, and Carol Moseley Braun, she also suggests that it would be impossible for an African-American, Hispanic or Asian women with Obama’s (arguably distinguished) record to hold the highest office in the land. She counts women of color out despite the fact that many myopic prognosticators would have only a short time ago said the same thing about the presidential prospects of a female or an African-American candidate.

Similarly, in her zeal to attribute Senator Obama’s ascendancy to a new, previously unnoticed, national preference for black men, Geraldine Ferraro recklessly states, “If Obama was a white man he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman - of any color - he would not be in this position.” Her statement not only overlooks the gross reality that white men have been the sole frontrunners in U.S. presidential campaigns since the late eighteenth century, it ignores the fact that Senator Hillary Clinton herself has been a frontrunner in the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign - leading by double digits in early months.

In the 60s and 70s, racialized attitudes and shortsighted rhetoric similar to that now being spouted by Steinem and Ferraro alienated many black women who may have otherwise found common cause with the white feminist mainstream. The divide between white privileged women who led the feminist movement and women of color and low-income women, spurred the creation of a new form of feminism called Womanism. Created by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker, the tenets of Womanism rejected the classism, racism, and sexism exhibited by the white feminist mainstream and instead embraced a theology that recognized the inherent value in the experiences of low income women and women of color. Instead of pointing to men and traditional families as a problem, Womanism embraced men, women, and children as being essential for the well-being of the African-American community.

As an adjunct professor of Women’s Studies and a scholar of African-American politics, I have studied how the tensions between race and gender have remained amazingly consistent throughout the first, second and third wave feminist movements. Interestingly enough, even the structure of Women’s Studies courses today contributes to the ongoing divisions. For example, many young white women do not understand how their own progress has been advanced because of affirmative action laws established by the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Their ahistorical understanding is promoted by revisionist Women’s Studies courses that teach students that the legislative anchor of the contemporary Women’s Rights Movement is Title IX - a 1972 amendment to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which expanded civil rights protections for women in the educational sphere. Conveniently divorced from many Women’s Studies lessons is sustained discussion about why this seminal amendment is a part of the larger civil rights agenda or even why this linkage may be important for the contemporary feminist agenda. It is my belief that this approach to teaching Women’s Studies prevents young women from establishing a common cause with people of color. This is a missed opportunity.

Of course, the words of two leading feminists cannot accurately describe the views of all women who work for gender equality. The work of Feminists for Peace and Barack Obama, a group of multiracial/multiethnic feminists who have circulated an online petition citing their support for a candidate who reflects their policy ideals, is one example of how feminism can transcend the narrow divide of traditional identity politics.

It is also important to note that a tradition of sexism has been evident within the male-dominated civil rights establishment and the Black Power Movement of the 1970s. However, some prominent male civil rights figures have defied expectations by publicly expressed their solidarity with the Clinton campaign.

In conclusion, the anger and bitterness evident in the rhetoric of leading feminist supporters of Hillary Clinton signal a possible problem for the future of the feminist movement. While high-profile feminist leaders continue to indulge in the bigoted language of the past, fewer young women today identify with the feminist cause and women of color are becoming a dramatically growing proportion of the U.S. female population. These women will be important for the survival of the Women’s Movement in the twenty-first century but they will not identify with mainstream feminism if leading spokeswomen cannot get beyond their insistence on framing arguments in terms of gender versus race.

The decline of U.S. feminism will continue unabated unless common bonds are established and maintained and old walls destroyed. For this to happen, it may take younger women who know better in order to pull their feminist elders back from the edge.

BlackCommentator.com  Editorial Board member, Dr. Maya Rockeymoore is President and CEO of Global Policy Solutions, a public affairs consulting firm based in Washington, DC. She is the author of The Political Action Handbook: A How to Guide for the Hip Hop Generation and co-editor of Strengthening Communities: Social Insurance in a Diverse America.  Maya can be reached at www.mayarockeymoore.com.