I really don’t dig this “Jane Crow” term that I have been seeing from my fellow Nice Feminist White Ladies. Are women of color using this term? Because I follow quite a few and this seems like a white feminist thing, and it feels really appropriatey.
It wouldn’t be the only instance of other groups appropriating the (ongoing) black civil rights struggle. I’ve seen “woman is the n*gger of the world” and “the struggle for LGBT rights is the civil rights issue of our era,” etcetera. It’s inappropriate for many reasons, two of which are:
1: Nobody gets to be “the new black” until society has gotten over its problems with “the old black.” Until then BLACK is the old black and the current black and the new black.
2: It separates women and people of color like those groups don’t intersect. Bad things used to happen to black people and now they happen to women! Women are suffering in ways that are new to them! Except “Women” shouldn’t just mean “white women,” it ought to mean WOC too.
Dissent of a Woman 
This is an interesting reflection! I totally agree — to often we ostracize people on our side of an issue, and this is doing exactly that! Thanks for the post 🙂
Yeah.
I can’t help but think every time I see a white feminist use this phrase, “This is why womanists don’t trust us.”
=/
So silly. Time after time we’ve watched the fragmentation of organizations have detrimental effects — religion, political parties etc. — yet we insist on continuing it within our own movements. Time to unite !
I think it’s worth noting that the woman who really has brought this phrase to prominence, Lynn Paltrow of the National Advocates for Pregnant Women, has been very specifically outspoken about how state laws affecting abortion and pregnant women have been disproportionately used against women of color, hence why she began to use the term Jane Crow.
Not saying everyone else is as specific in their usage, but that seems to be the origin of it, and it was specifically referencing the racial issues inherent in these laws.
See, THAT makes perfect frickin’ sense.
Unfortunately, I don’t think the white feminists who are borrowing the term in our neighborhood actually understand Paltrow’s point well enough to use it properly. To them I think it’s just a catchy play on words. But then, that is sort of how appropriation works, isn’t it?