Black feminism

Black feminism is a strand of feminist thought and social theory that highlights the unique experiences of Black women within American society and, to a lesser degree, other nations. Black feminism emerged in the late 1960s and 1970s in response to the alienation that many Black woman activists felt from both the Black Power movement (which was primarily male dominated) and the women’s rights movement (which was largely led by middle-class White women). Prominent Black feminist scholars, writers, and activists include Patricia Hill Collins, bell hooks, Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, Tricia Rose, Melissa Harris-Perry, and Brittney Cooper.

Background

Black women have played a prominent role in the fight for equality and social justice throughout American history. For example, Harriet Tubman was a key figure in the operation of the Underground Railroad that helped enslaved people escape to freedom during the nineteenth century, while journalist Ida B. Wells was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909. However, the term "Black feminism" did not emerge until the late 1960s amid the various social identity movements of the era and the subsequent internal divisions that arose within these movements.

A central concept within Black feminism is "intersectionality"—that is, the recognition that power, privilege, and oppression flow in multiple directions, often on the basis of combinations of variables such as race, class, gender, sexuality, and other factors. Thus, an individual who may be socially advantaged in one marker of identity (such as race—being White) may be disadvantaged in other aspects (such as gender—being a woman). In other words, White women and Black women do not share identical experiences, despite all being female. Likewise, a middle-class, suburban, college-educated Black woman has a different set of social experiences from a working-class Black woman from the inner city, based on class differences. Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, a Black scholar and professor of law at the University of California, Los Angeles, coined the term "intersectionality" in an influential 1989 essay titled "Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics."

Impact

During the women’s movement of the late 1960s and 1970s (also commonly referred to as "second-wave feminism"), Black, Latina, lesbian, and other feminist activists from marginalized communities openly challenged the leadership tactics and agenda of mainstream feminism by asserting that it narrowly reflected the interests of White, heterosexual, middle-class women. For example, second-wave feminism’s struggle to gain social acceptance for women pursuing careers did not resonate nearly as strongly with those women from certain communities who, out of sheer economic necessity, had participated in the paid labor force for generations. Simultaneously experiencing racism and sexism, and frustrated with being accused of "divided loyalties" by Black Power activists and the women’s movement, Black feminists began to articulate a new form of social thought and activism that integrated the various dimensions of their unique experiences. By the 1990s, a much more nuanced approach towards feminism, known as third-wave feminism, had gained popularity. The cornerstone of third-wave feminism is that gender roles are socially constructed and that women as well as men are each extremely diverse on the basis of multiple variables and thus consist of "multiple femininities" and "multiple masculinities." The development of Black feminist thought and scholarship in the 1970s profoundly influenced third-wave feminism.

A formative moment in the development of Black feminism was the 1991 Senate confirmation hearings on Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, during which a former assistant attorney of his, Anita Hill, testified that he had sexually harassed her when they worked together in the 1980s. The spectacle of a professional Black woman being questioned by skeptical White male senators about her workplace experience with a Black male superior foregrounded many of the complicated issues of gender and race central to Black feminism.

Although intersectionality, Black feminism, and third-wave feminism have all become common theoretical frameworks within contemporary women’s and gender studies courses, the older, nonintersectional approach of second-wave feminism has not entirely disappeared. Consequently, disputes and disagreements between self-identified feminists of different philosophical orientations are not uncommon and, in fact, have garnered considerable media attention in the 2010s. One of the highest-profile examples of this occurred during the summer of 2015, when recording artists Taylor Swift (who is White) and Nicki Minaj (who is Black) got into a debate on social media. Minaj expressed frustration that the mainstream media devalues Black ideals of feminine beauty in favor of White ideals, while Swift responded by implying Minaj was dividing women among themselves by focusing on race. Similarly, African American recording artist Beyoncé Knowles has faced a degree of backlash from some White feminists for specifically articulating the struggles and experiences of Black women in her lyrics, music videos, and concert performances rather than promoting a general message in support of women’s rights and antisexism without reference to race.

While second-wave feminists, who are overwhelmingly White, often find intersectional approaches to feminism divisive, Black feminists (and third-wave feminists overall) claim that second-wave feminism has long marginalized and excluded their experiences altogether. Since the early 2010s, Black feminists and other third-wave and contemporary feminists began using the phrase "White feminism" as a pejorative term for any expression of feminist ideals that ignores or refuses to acknowledge intersectionality. While intersectionality remained an important focus of contemporary Black feminists in the late 2010s and 2020s, new trends emerged, including LGBTQIA+ Black feminism, radical Black feminism, and liberal Black feminism. Additionally, Black feminist leaders helped create the Me Too and the Black Lives Matter movements.

Bibliography

Adelman, Lori. "A Black Feminist Roundtable on bell hooks, Beyoncé, and ‘Moving beyond Pain.’" Feministing, 11 May 2016, feministing.com/2016/05/11/a-feminist-roundtable-on-bell-hooks-beyonce-and-moving-beyond-pain. Accessed 10 Dec. 2024.

"Black Feminism: The Civil Rights and Black Power Era (Part 1) Section Overview." National Women’s History Museum, www.womenshistory.org/black-feminism-civil-rights-and-black-power-era-part-1-section-overview. Accessed 10 Dec. 2024.

Blay, Zeba. "Taylor Swift’s Tweets to Nicki Minaj Are Peak ‘White Feminism.’" Huffington Post, 23 July 2015, www.huffpost.com/entry/taylor-swift-minaj-white-feminism‗n‗55afa165e4b08f57d5d30d1e. Accessed 10 Dec. 2024.

Bromley, Victoria. Feminisms Matter: Debates, Theories, Activism. U of Toronto P, 2012.

Collins, Patricia Hill. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. Routledge, 2000.

Harris-Perry, Melissa. Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America. Yale UP, 2011.

Hull, Gloria T., et al., editors. All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, but Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women’s Studies. 2nd ed., Feminist, 2015.

Peterson, Max. "The Revolutionary Practice of Black Feminisms." Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History & Culture, 4 Mar. 2019, nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/revolutionary-practice-black-feminisms. Accessed 10 Dec. 2024.