Women's social and political standing has always been tied to their perceived social value. In the early modern period, pro-women arguments often focused on women's metaphysical nature as rational, ensouled beings. However, American feminists of the 19th and early 20th century argued that women matter not because of what they are , but because of what they do in the social and political world. In this chapter, I argue that late 19th and early 20th century American feminist philosophers such as Victoria Claflin Woodhull (1838–1927), Emma Goldman (1869–1940), Anna Julia Cooper (1858–1964), and Mary Church Terrell (1863–1954) extend the longstanding feminist project of reimagining the basis for esteeming women, focusing on women as political participants qua citizens, labourers, and community organizers. It also means that women's value is, in an important way, up to them. Woodhull, Goldman, Cooper, and Church Terrell argue that it is precisely the intersections of subordinated gender, race, and class which necessitate women recognizing the value of what they already do and demanding recognition of that value. Moreover, for Woodhull, Goldman, Cooper, and Church Terrell, women's fulfilment of their roles as citizens, labourers, and organizers is inextricable from the two most central feminist philosophical concerns of the era: suffrage and anti-racism.
