| W. E. B. Du Bois said that, "Every argument for Negro suffrage is an argument for women's suffrage; every argument for woman's suffrage is an argument for Negro suffrage; both are great movements in democracy" (White 56). Du Bois generally advocated integration. Marcus Garvey, on the other hand, advocated quality through separation. I compare this disagreement to the quest for quality education of women. Some people say that single sex education is beneficial for women. There have been some studies that say that women perform on standardized verbal tests than they do on the same tests that are taken with men who are also taking the test. It is hypothesized that this occurs due to perceived expectation of inability and inferiority, whether such expectations exist or not. The answer sometimes offered for this is single sex schools. The expectation here is that by offering women the opportunity to learn in an environment free of male expectation or influence, they will be able to enrich themselves as much, or better, than men generally do. This resembles the ideas of Marcus Garvey who said that blacks should remove themselves to Africa where they would be without the influence of whites, therefore becoming free and independent. When these ideas are applied to single sex education, however, they inadvertantly concede the idea that women may be inferior or less capable of learning. I believe that actions resembling DuBois' integration would be more beneficial to society. By taking smart females from the general educational population, you take away their ability to simply prove their existence. There is no way females can be shown to be equal if they are separate. This, I believe does great injustice to women by not allowing them to show their true, equal when not superior, academic abilities. For these same reasons I think that DuBois' theories were more beneficial to blacks than Garvey's because they actually deal with the problem instead of trying to remove oneself from it. Back to Feminist page Back to Race-related Issues page Back to History page Ryan's Writing main page |
| Women's and Civil Rights Movement: An analysis of single sex education using the writings of DuBois and Garvey by Ryan Cofrancesco |