Ms. Jane Crow 2024! A CellyBlue Saturday Restack.

Would you aid and protect a woman from a state with Ms. Jane Crow laws?

That protection would mean safe harbor for women and their families from anti-women led states having Ms. Jane Crow-authoritarian, anti-freedom Kind Laws.

That protection would mean aiding to end the re-victimization of incest survivors, rape survivors, sexually battered and abused victims from a criminal justice system through bullying tactics by threatening to jail the doctors, nurses, family, friends the Uber driver and by allowing the prepetrators of the crimes to sue for enormous amounts of money?

In tepid hesitation you say, Ms. Jane who? Do I know her? Yes, you do. She may be your mother, cousin, friend, co-worker, lover, partner, daughter, or a stranger. Black woman have had to deal with Jane Crow Laws for as long as there have been Jim Crow Laws. Welcome white women to the full throttle of egocentric white supremacy through systemic sexist laws put in place to keep women in line and fragily egoed men in front.

Jim Crow

Who was Jim Crow? Was he a real person? Answer. No, he was not. Jim Crow is a term attributed to a song-and-dance caricature called Jump Jim Crow which was done in black face by Thomas D. Rice, a minstrel performer, the show was first performed in 1828. Rice got rich, and because of these performances his fame rocketed. According to Woodward and McFeely’s book, The Strange Career of Jim Crow, the term Jim Crow become by 1838 became a derogatory term for person that were African American (2002).

The southern states begin to pass law racial segregation laws and statutes, which became known as Jim Crow laws. The laws in theory were look good on paper written as “separate but equal.” The laws in practice we do know - there was separation, yet, not so much equal. You get the picture.

Jane Crow

Who is Jane Crow? Jane is a what. not a who. Pauli Murray coined the term in the late forties describing Jane Crow as gender oppression combined with racial discrimination (Black women getting it from both ends). According to Humanities Kansas website, the term Jane Crow signaled that the impact of gender oppression differed from that of racial discrimination in name only. The article “Big Idea: Coupling Jim and Jane Crow” by Ayesha K. Hardison, Associate Professor of English and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Kansas, explores the intersection of Jim Crow and Jane Crow and how they impacted African Americans throughout the twentieth century. The terms Jim Crow and Jane Crow in 2024 are not new, at least not to those of us who have experienced it through history.

The laws created on their behalf aren’t original, they are just been revived and renamed.

Terms such as

• Grandfather clause: A provision that exempts certain people or entities from a law or regulation based on pre-existing conditions.  This term was used to exempt white people from voting restrictions during the Jim Crow era.

• Redlining: The practice of denying or limiting financial services to certain neighborhoods based on their racial or ethnic composition. This term was used to describe the practice of drawing red lines around neighborhoods where banks would not lend money during the Jim Crow era.

• Gerrymandering: The manipulation of electoral district boundaries to favor one political party or group over another. This term was named after Elbridge Gerry, the governor of Massachusetts, who signed a bill in 1812 that created a district that resembled a salamander (Trickery, 2017). 

For 50 years women have had the autonomy to make decisions about their bodies. In 1973 Roe v. Wade was established as law. Every nominated person for justice screamed during their hearing it is precedent, its law. RBG died on September 18, 2020, and before her cold body was hit with dirt, Coney-Barrett was nominated, then confirmed on October 27, 2020. Barrett was the fastest person confirmed to the court in forty-five years. And thus, the nailing coffin of defeat for abortion health care had been hammered. And Poof, precedence is done.

What is next? Birth control of course. Since 1972 birth control for women has been legal. Prior more than twenty-six states had prohibited the use of birth control for Unmarried Women in 1965, and birth control was mentioned in the federal anti-obscenity laws (Really). It’s on the chopping block. For more than one hundred years women have had the right to vote.

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If the precedent of women’s choice can be taken away, so can her right to vote? You don’t think so. Voting rights, affirmative action, EPA regulations.

So, the Ms. Jane Crow 2024 laws established in Jane Crow states such as Texas, Florida and other Republican strongholds can go for women with her eyes wide open. These are no pretty terms to tell women in a not-so-subtle way that she and everything she owns, it belongs to the state or Gilead. Once placed into law, unless the systemic sexist laws are broken, the rights of all will continue to be taken away and freedoms of choice lost.

Cited Works

Humanities Kansas. (2021, January 11). Big Idea: Coupling Jim and Jane Crow. https://www.humanitieskansas.org/get-involved/kansas-stories/the-big-idea/big-idea-coupling-jim-and-jane-crow

Trickey, E. (2017, July 20). Where Did the Term “Gerrymander” Come From? Smithsonian Magazine.

Woodward, C.V., & McFeely, W.S. (2002). The Strange Career of Jim Crow. Oxford University Press.

Celset does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations corporate or government beyond their academic appointment.