福师《高级英语（一）》第八课拓展资源
福师《高级英语（一）》第八课拓展资源I’d Rather Be Black than Female
Chisholm, Shirley (1924～), American legislator, who in 1968 became the first black woman elected to the Congress of the United States. Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm was born in Brooklyn, New York, and educated at Brooklyn College and Columbia University. In 1953, having worked as a teacher and director of nursery schools and child-care centers, she joined the New York City Bureau of Child Welfare. Turning to politics, she served in the New York State Assembly from 1964 to 1968. Elected to Congress in 1968, she served in the United States House of Representatives for seven terms (1969～1983), advocating women's rights, abortion reform, day care, environmental protection, job training, and an end to the Vietnam War (1959～1975). She also spoke out against the seniority system in Congress. Chisholm ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972. After declining to run for an eighth term in the House of Representatives in 1982, Chisholm became a professor at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts. She wrote Unbought and Unbossed (1970) and The Good Fight (1973).Background
Two issues are involved in the article: racial and sexual discrimination. While many Americans are now condemning racial discrimination against the blacks, not many are really ready to admit that there is still prejudice against women. The twentieth century is still a man’s world. Indeed, no country can boast that its women enjoy full equality with men. In many so-called “free and democratic countries”, the equality is largely nominal（名义上的）.
Sexual discrimination has a longer history than racial discrimination, and is therefore more deep-rooted in the minds of millions of people. It has now been accepted as axiomatic that equal rights to vote and to be elected to national office are fundamental to women’s status. Equality of franchise with men was fought for ardently and for a long time by a dedicated minority against heavy resistance on the part of the “established”. By 1971, of the 129 countries that were members of the UN or the specialized agencies or were parties to the status of the international Court of Justice, all but eight allowed women to vote in all elections and to be eligible for election on the same basis with men.
Equal voting rights for women came to the United States as late as 1920. The right to vote is an essential means of influencing the distribution of political power, but the percentage of women elected as members of congress is only about 2% in the United States House of Representatives. After more than half a century of women’s suffrage, the number of women in high positions of political power and influence in the U. S. is still small enough for them to be known by name.
The author, Shirley Chisholm, being black and female at the same time, had to face up to the double prejudice against her. So she says, “Being the first black woman elected to Congress has made me some kind of phenomenon.”
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