Analysis Of Patricia Hill Collins 's Black Feminists

“I am a black feminist… I recognize that my power as well as my primary obsessions come as a result of my blackness as well as my womaness, and therefore my struggles on both of these fronts are inseparable” … As a woman of color, I find that some feminists don’t seem terribly concerned with the issues unique to women of color—the ongoing effects of racism and post-colonialism, the status of women in the Third World, working against the trenchant archetypes black women are forced into (angry black woman, mammy, hottentot, and the like). (Gay 173).

Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. Ed. By Patricia Hill Collins. (New York: Routledge, 2000. ii, 336 pp. Cloth, $128.28, ISBN 0-415-92483-9. Paper, $26.21, 0-415-92484-7.)

Similarly, Patricia Hill’s work “Black Feminist Thought” explains the need for black feminism. For Hill U.S. black feminism is needed in order for black women to survive, cope with, and resist their differential treatment in society. Black feminist thought creates a collective identity among this marginalized group of African-American women. Hill provides several features that make U.S. Black feminist thought different than any other set of feminism. The first feature Hill speaks about is ‘blackness’ it is this concept that makes U.S. black feminist a different group that suffers a “double oppression”. Thus, U.S. Black women collectively participate in a dialectical relationship which links African American women’s oppression and activism. Hill speaks on the U.S. black feminist thought and the dilemma they face in American society. During the women’s right movement there was a tremendous difference between black and white women’s experiences, “while women of color were urged, at every turn, to become permanently infertile, white women enjoying prosperous economic conditions were urged, by the same forces, to reproduce themselves”. It is this difference in attitudes that demonstrate why there is a need to focuses on the linkage of experiences and ideas experienced by the black women in America. Consequently, Davis analyzes the hypocritical differences of the government of the

In the monograph, Ain’t I A Woman: Black Women and Feminism, the author describes the complexity of black womanhood from a black women’s perspectives. This book shows the impact of sexism on the lives of black women, discussing the persistent racism of the women’s movement. Even with the many present issues, “scholars in this field are in a unique position because of their ability to explore the intersection of race, sex, and class as experienced by black women in ways that are impossible for other segments of the population” (Sheftall

Some see gender as being “Black and White” and it is, literally. With numerous gender ideologies, not only is there division between the Black (African Americans) and the White (fair skinned Europeans), but between men and women as well. Generally, white men and white men only hold most of the power in the world that there is to possess and it has consciously been set up for them to do so. The technical name for this global concept is hegemonic masculinity. This highly sexist and blatantly racist model has been implemented by bigoted western agendas to then be culturally and systematically carried out for centuries; sometimes without question. In her novel “Black Sexual Politics”, Patricia Hill Collins masterfully highlights just how much hegemonic masculinity altered the once blissful power structure, not just in the western world but specifically within the homes of the Black community. She also confers the several quintessential benchmarks within hegemonic masculinity that the Black man must uphold in order for him to unambiguously maintain his “dominant” status.

In history, women have always struggled to gain equality, respect, and the same rights as men. Women had had to endure years of sexism and struggle to get to where we are today. The struggle was even more difficult for women of color because not only were they dealing with issues of sexism, but also racism. Many movements have helped black women during the past centuries to overcome sexism, racism, and adversities that were set against them. History tells us that movements such as the Feminist Movement helped empower all women, but this fact is not totally true. In this paper, I will discuss feminism, the movements, and its "minimal" affects on black women.

Examining the links between sexuality and power in a system of interlocking race, gender, and class oppression should reveal how important controlling Black women's sexuality has been to the effective operation of domination overall. The words of Angela Davis, Audre Lorde, Barbara Smith, and Alice Walker provide a promising foundation for a comprehensive Black feminist analysis.

Patricia Hill Collins’ piece, “Defining Black Feminist Thought”, sets out to do exactly that: to determine what Black Feminism is, who is a Black Feminist, and who can become a Black Feminist. While not always specifically stated, her argument and analysis arises from the historical context of the role of Black women in feminist and activist spaces, as well as the social reality of differing lived experiences of Black women from traditional white female feminists. Created in 1990, Collins’ work is well situated in the time period of Third Wave Feminist thinking, incorporating strong themes of the need for intersectionality and alternate opinions within feminism, as well as proposing that multiple versions of feminism can be possible,

Similar to the author Kimberle Crenshaw, the author of “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antiracist Politics,” I would like to start my critical review essay by mentioning the Black feminist studies book entitled “All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave.” Having this idea of problematic predisposition to treat race and gender as mutually exclusive entities in mind, I would like to review Angela Davis’s book entitled “Women, Race, and Class”, and compare my findings to Kimberle Crenshaw’s groundbreaking article that we have read in class, where she famously terms the idea of “intersectionality.” I will start with the examination of similarities between Davis’s and Crenshaw’s arguments regarding the erasure of the Black women’s experiences in social sciences and feminist writings, and will also point out the additional consideration of class that Davis brings to the idea of intersectionality of race and gender initially suggested by Crenshaw, and further discuss the triple discrimination that Black women face on the fronts of race, gender, and class. My main aim in the review of the two author’s texts is to reveal the prevalent problematic notion in Black societies of viewing race implicitly gendered as male, and recognizing gender mainly from the white women’s standpoint.

In an attempt to define Black Feminism, Collins clarifies that it must “avoid the idealist position that ideas can be evaluated in isolation from the groups that create them (Collins 385).” In reality, this forms her basis for why Black Feminism is necessary, and who it serves. Thinking about feminism historically, the concerns of black women were pushed aside in favor of fighting sexism, most notably during the Suffrage movement. And even when feminism began looking at other social injustices, such as racism and class issues, only prominent feminists were invited to the discussion. What resulted was, and often continues to be, a problem of white women speaking for oppressed people. It’s impossible, Collins argues, to have Black Feminist thought without examining the experiences and positions of African American women. Therefore, Black Feminism must be a movement that “encompasses theoretical interpretations of Black women’s reality by those who live in it (Collins 386).” However, such a definition brings about many questions: who’s experiences are valued, how do black women take their voice back, and how can they center feminist thinking on their own unique standpoint?

It critically addresses the dynamics of the conflict between the main stream feminist, the Black Feminist, the African Feminist and the Africana Womanist. The conclusion is that Africana Womanism and its agenda are unique and separate from both white feminism and Black Feminism, and more over, to the extent of naming in particular, Africana Womanisms differs from Africana feminism”(Alexander-Floyd & Simien 2006: 67).

Throughout history, black female bodies have been marginalized by white society and viewed as only being valued for their bodies, specifically their genitals. bell hooks’ essay titled, “naked without shame: a counter-hegemonic body politic”, discusses the domination of the black female body and how there is little discussion on how the body has been “foregrounded as a site of conquest in all efforts of colonization”. According to hooks, black bodies are rarely highlighted in a way that counters the hegemonic representation of being

As African-American women address social issues that are important to their life experiences, such as class and race, instead to acknowledge “common oppression” of gender inequality, they are often criticized by “white bourgeois feminists” (hooks, 2000). Their ability to gain any form of equality within society is tarnished by such groups as they develop a “fear of encountering racism” from simply joining this movement (hooks, 2000). As white men, black men, and white women oppress them, their issues are often ignored due to reoccurring stereotypes and myths that claim black women are strong, independent, and “superhuman” (hooks, 2000). It becomes extremely difficult to seek liberation and equity within a “racist, sexist, and classist” society, as their gender and race causes them to be at the “bottom of the occupational ladder” and “social status” (hooks, 2000, pg. 16). As black women are perceived to demonstrate strength and dynamic qualities as white women perpetrate the image of being

I’ve read different parts of Patricia Hill Collins Black Feminist Thought throughout the years, but it’s not until now that I see a connection between Collins idea of Black Feminist Thought and Michel Foucault analyses of power/knowledge. With Black women in academia, as Collins stated, we see how higher education or universities surveil Black women when they are doing intellectual work. Collins makes a valid point in the academic discourse, white males control the knowledge validation process. White males can deny black women credentials to produce black feminist thought with the reasoning that it is not credible research. Universities are legitimizing their claims of knowledge to make sure their works are not altering the power of white heterosexual

Black feminist thought has gained popularity in recent years and remains a noteworthy matter in view of the fact that in the United States black women form an oppressed group. Inequality entails a complex situation, in which oppression cannot be identified as one type, for example, race, gender, class or sexual preference. In this particular situation, we will acknowledge the challenges from the standpoint of black feminists. Patricia Hill Collins educates us through the four tenets of black epistemology, in addition to the contradictions against the scientific methods of social science; positivistic knowledge. Beyond the characteristics of epistemology, there are several key implications for black feminist thought.