I have always heard about feminism as a movement to fight for equality for ALL women. But, not until this year in my history class did I learn about the idea that the feminist movement is more helpful for white women than women of color. In my post about the Women's March, I touched on the fact that it is lead by mostly white women and that the March got backlash for that. We must understand that even though the current feminist movement is aimed towards a positive goal, it means nothing if women of color are not a part of it.
The Black Feminist Movement began in the early-mid 1900s because black women felt that they did not belong in the Women's Movement because of their race, but they also felt like the Black Liberation movement was oppressing them due to their gender. While black women needed this movement to happen, many were scared to label themselves as feminists. To make the movement legitimate, they needed to define their goals so that they could focus on getting things done. Many authors brought forth concepts about what they thought the Black Feminist Movement should be.
Alice Walker is a civil rights activist and author who is a pioneer in the Black Feminist Movement. She fought to define the movement with her writing. Her most famous novel, The Color Purple, was published in 1982 and won a Pulitzer prize in 1983. It follows a girl named Celie and her struggles as a black woman in Georgia. Similarly, Frances M. Beal, a black feminist and peace activist has a book titled Double Jeopardy: To Be Black and Female. In it she explains that being black and a woman were two identities that could not be separated in the fight for liberation. These two women were writing about the second-wave of black feminism, which is important to note. To further this fight many young black feminist writers formed the Combahee River Collective in 1974, which was a "collective that sought to articulate a black feminist theory and practice." The Collective also helped unify an agenda of often disparate needs and concerns."
Here is a little more information from the group themselves from their piece called, "A Black Feminist Statement":
We are a collective of black feminists who have been meeting together since 1974. During that time we have been involved in the process of defining and clarifying our politics, while at the same time doing political work within our own group and in coalition with other progressive organizations and movements. The most general statement of our politics at the present time would be that we are actively committed to struggling against racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class oppression and see as our particular task the development of integrated analysis and practice based upon the fact that the major systems of oppression are interlocking. The synthesis of these oppressions creates the conditions of our lives. As black women we see black feminism as the logical political movement to combat the manifold and simultaneous oppressions that all women of color face.
One part from the Combahee River Collective describes their values and I think it is important that we read it before I began to explain more about how we still need Black Feminism today!
Above all else, our politics initially sprang from the shared belief that black women are inherently valuable, that our liberation is a necessity not as an adjunct to somebody else’s but because of our need as human persons for autonomy.
With it now being the era of fourth-wave feminism, it is important that we understand that black feminism needs to be included in the larger fight for gender equality. In an article by Rebecca A. on Now.org, she explains that even though black women can fight for feminism the fact that they are also black is not incorporated in the movement. Her article is titled "My Chair is Made of Plastic: Black Women's Seat at the Feminist Table." She touches on the fact that black women are not taken seriously or that they talk about black oppression and white ignorance too much. She writes, "This disconnection between Black women and predominantly white feminist organizations(PWFO) is not just present in my classmates but something that is seen across the country." She continues to express that black women would like to break off and create black feminist organizations, but they just don't have the same resources or funding as feminist organizations run by white women.
It is so vital to the well being of black women, and other women of color, that the feminist movement steps up and tries to combat their biases. This whole summer, I have written about how the feminist movement is the fight for equality of all women no matter their race, socio-economic status, sexual orientation, etc. To say that I am underwhelmed by the feminist movements lack of integration is an understatement. I hope that we can all step back and make sure that we understand each other and are being as inclusive as possible so that we can fight for ALL women.
I hope that you have enjoyed the topics that I have written about over the course of the past two months. I have had such an amazing time learning more about feminism and the women who make the movement so important. In the future I know that I will continue to read more about this topic and try to help with the women's movement as much as I can, and I hope you all will too!
