   In this essay, Cooper makes no attempt to gloss over the sexist challenges faced by Black women. She states that Black women are “hampered and shamed by a less liberal sentiment and a more conservative attitude on the part of those for whose opinion she cares most [i.e. Black men]” (VAJC, 113). She adds, “As far as my experience goes the average man of our race is less frequently ready to admit the actual need among the sturdier forces of the world for women’s help or influence” (VAJC, 113). Cooper asserts that women have significant contributions to make to social, economic, and national issues (“Great social and economic questions await her influence” [VAJC, 113]).  They can shed light on the management of school systems, public institutions, prison systems, and mental institutions (VAJC, 113). Cooper understood that the status of women and their role in the progress of the race was changing. She recalls that fifty years before her time a woman’s activity was limited to “a clearly cut ‘sphere’, including primarily the kitchen and the nursery… [But] the woman of today finds herself in the presence of responsibilities which ramify through the profoundest and most varied interests of her country and race” (VAJC, 116).