Transnational Feminism in Cicely Hamilton’s A Pageant of Great Women: Representation or Appropriation?

• In Event: The Process of Transnational Decolonization

Abstract

I explore the perpetuation of racial hierarchies in Cicely Hamilton's 1911 suffrage play A Pageant of Great Women, and the ripple effect of performative whitewashing on the British women's suffrage movement as a whole. Specifically, I look at the apparent contradiction of a movement which was so keenly aware of both gender and class oppression simultaneously exhibiting such ignorance of race—a contradiction that persists to this day in feminist activist performance from the Women’s March to the #MeToo movement. I conclude that only by acknowledging the white supremacist origins of mainstream feminism can we begin to dismantle its racist legacy.

Presenter

• Elise Robinson, University of Georgia