Feminism, Black (African-American)

Category: Theoretical approaches

African-American or Black feminism centers its theory, empirical research, ideology, and practical political struggle on the experiences of Black women, analyzing their position in the context of the intersection of race, gender, class, and other cultural, social, and political identities. Although Black feminism builds its theory and practice on traditions of African-American studies and early feminism, it is critical of both, as they exclude the perspectives of Black women. Black feminists see traditional feminism as primarily focused on the experiences and lives of white middle-class women, while they blame male Black activists and theorists for excluding female black experience from their theory and practice. In that sense, "intersectionality“ is the main theoretical and political focus of Black feminism. Some of the most notable Black feminists are Angela Davis, Patricia Hill Collins, hooks bell, and Audre Lorde, so we will explore their positions here.

Angela Davis believes that the exploitation of the proletariat, sexism, and racism are related systems of domination that reinforce each other and that all three are inherent features of unfettered capitalism. Global capitalism strengthened bourgeois power and authority and extended race-based domination to the entire planet. Angela Davis also studied the topic of rape. She interpreted the rape of black women, who were slaves, by their white owners, as a method of controlling and subjugating slaves of both sexes. The stereotypes introduced during slavery still exist: African-American women are portrayed as sexually unrestrained, and African-American men as sexual predators. The author sees every form of rape as an expression of the desire for control and power, not as a consequence of unrestrained sexual desire. Subjugation and violence against women in the family are a consequence of capitalist patriarchal socialization. Davis is also a great opponent of the US penal system. The prison system in America serves to maintain the racist capitalist system but also to appropriate the products of free labor of prisoners. Of the more than two million prisoners in the United States, most are African-American (although they make up 12% of the population) and most have been convicted of crimes that are a direct consequence of poverty. Davis advocates for socialism in which all forms of oppression and domination (class, racial, and gender), as well as all forms of violence, are abolished.

Patricia Hill Collins, in her book Black Feminist Thought (1990), outlines a theoretical approach to feminism built from the perspective of the experience of African-American women. Oppression can be based on several grounds: race, gender, class, sexuality, etc. These multiple systems of oppression intersect and form a structure of power and domination. For the phenomenon of the intersection of several forms of domination, she uses the term "intersectionality", which was introduced to the social sciences by Kimberlé Crenshaw. Collins dedicates an entire book to this phenomenon - Intersectionality (2016). She emphasizes how much the experience of slavery shaped all the relationships that black women have in the spheres of family, community, and work. That experience led to the creation of a political context for the intellectual work of African-American women. Collins criticizes most feminists because they ignore the experience of African-American women, and only write from their own middle-class white experiences. She believes there exist biases, both men-centered in the male African-American theory and racial bias in the white feminist theory.

Collins developed an African-American feminist epistemology that emphasizes the importance of self-defined knowledge for group empowerment. Empowerment is necessary to leave the matrix of domination. Empowerment will come with the development of personal responsibility, experiential wisdom, feminist discourse, and empathy. Empowerment of African American women cannot take place as long as there is discrimination and social exclusion. Collins believes that only the experience and knowledge gained by vulnerable groups, especially African-Americans, can provide critical and self-defining resistance. Living and working within the community, socializing, listening to music, and especially through, what she calls "motherwork", creates a special type of experience that is specific to African American women. Maternal work refers to the care, not only of one's children but also the care of children from the wider family and community. Maternal work erases the differences between the private and the public; the family and the community; oneself and others. Collins also researched how sexual policy overlaps with minority policies in the United States, that is, how attitudes and beliefs regarding sexuality and sexual behavior crucially affect racial, gender, and class inequalities in American society.

bell hooks (her real name was Gloria Watkins, and she intentionally wrote her alias with small letters) is best known for her contributions to multiracial feminist theory and the creation of "engaged pedagogy." hooks creates a feminist theory based on her own experience as an African-American woman. She explores how the combination of sexism and racism has marginalized black women. She called the system she was fighting "the imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy." However, she is also critical of other feminists, because they overlook the importance of the influence of racial and class origin on the social position of women. She advocates the construction of “radical black subjectivity”, which occurs when a person begins to understand how the interconnectedness of the structures of domination that affect her works. Black radical subjectivity is created by using fluid patterns that have emerged from the life experience of the black woman and her community. Language is very important for defining oneself and confirming experience. Language is a place of resistance and struggle for black women. Traditional stereotypes attributed to white women are not suitable for explaining the experience of a black woman. Hooks is the originator of engaged pedagogy, which is a cross-section of personal, political, and historical experiences. Such pedagogy should explore the meanings and notions that popular media create about gender and race, but it should also be a place of resistance and risk-taking. The combination of personal experience, knowledge, ideas, and critical thinking creates the possibility that education becomes the basis for the emergence of liberating practices.

Audrey Lorde belonged to the current black lesbian feminism. She felt that white feminists, such as Mary Daly, misrepresented African-Americans. She criticized what she called the "whiteness" of feminist theory, that is, neglecting the problem that the experience of oppression is not the same for all women. Lorde emphasized the importance of the experience of black people of racial oppression, for the identities and strategies African American people use to combat oppression.

Audrey Lorde's feminist approach is organized around the "theory of difference". This theory criticizes the concept of binary opposition between women and men as too simplistic. Women's identities and living conditions are influenced by many factors: class, race, gender, sexual identity, age, and health. Lorde has explored some of these factors in her books, as they have had a direct impact on her personal experience. The racial factor was very important because she was African-American, she studied sexual identity because she had a lesbian sexual orientation, and the topic of health became very important to her when she was diagnosed with cancer. She also emphasized the importance of erotic and sexual behavior as a source of power for women. The patriarchal society controlled the sexual behavior of women, which also influenced some feminists to have a very negative attitude toward the concept of eroticism. While some feminists perceived erotic as a symbol of male domination over women, Lorde saw erotic as a possibility of liberation for women from patriarchal domination. She believed that erotic, in addition to the sexual component, also contains aspects of enjoyment and love, which give freedom and power to women. Lorde is very important as one of the founders of Lesbian and African-American feminism, as well as for emphasizing the importance of studying the multiple identities of women in feminist theory.

Authors: Davis, Angela; Collins, Hill Patricia; hooks, bell; Lorde, Audre. Beale, M. Frances; Crenshaw, Williams Kimberlé; La Rue, Linda; Lynch, Gayle; Norton, Holmes Eleanor; Walker, Alice; Williams, Maxine.

Books:

Carruthers, Charlene. Unapologetic (2019);

Collins P. H. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment (1990);

- Race, Class and Gender (1992);

- Fighting Words: Black Women and the Search for Justice (1998);

- Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism (2004);

- From Black Power to Hip Hop: Racism, Nationalism, and Feminism (2006);

- Another Kind of Public Education: Race, the Media, Schools, and Democratic Possibilities (2009);

- The SAGE Handbook of Race and Ethnic Studies (2010);

- On Intellectual Activism (2012);

- Intersectionality (2016);

- Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory (2019);