Leadership Quote by Shirley Chisholm

Chisholm’s line lands like a diagnostic, not a lament. It’s the blunt arithmetic of power from someone who spent her career counting the doors that didn’t open. By ranking sexism as the bigger barrier, she refuses a tidy narrative in which race is always the primary wound. The intent is strategic: to force listeners, especially liberal allies, to confront the way gender discrimination could hide in plain sight, normalized even among people who considered themselves progressive on race.

The subtext is sharper. In mid-century American politics, “black” could be a visible conflict with identifiable villains and, by the 1960s, an emerging moral consensus among some institutions. “Female” was often treated as a private limitation rather than a public injustice: a matter of temperament, likeability, “electability.” Chisholm is pointing to a prejudice that didn’t need to shout; it could smile, patronize, and still shut you out. In the male machinery of parties, committees, and donor networks, womanhood wasn’t an identity to be represented but a deviation to be managed.

Context makes the line sting. Chisholm entered Congress in 1968 and ran for president in 1972, navigating both racist gatekeeping and the quieter, more ubiquitous assumption that politics was men’s work. She’s not minimizing racism; she’s exposing hierarchy inside hierarchy. The quote works because it’s an insider’s report that scrambles expectations and dares the audience to admit which bias they’ve found easier to excuse.