Black Women Studies Summary

“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

The need for Black Women’s Studies reflect the failures of Africana/Black Studies because the discipline has failed to be inclusive of Black women due to a gender and sex hierarchy within the programs and departments of Africana/Black Studies. The value of Black women’s scholarship did not gain the same recognition

How do sexism and racism, as interrelated concepts, shape the academic aspirations of women of color?

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).” This clarification 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; a notable example occurs within the Suffrage movement, where votes for white women were prioritized over women of color in order to push such legislation through. And even when feminism began looking at other social injustices, such as racism and class issues, often 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:

Black women in America are faced with many challenges. Sexual discrimination and outspoken anger were some of the oppressions that African-American women had to contend with. They were marginalized even on the political aspect. Nobody was ready to come to their rescue. They were marginalized and frustrated by claims about a universal sisterhood that was oppressive. They were discriminated along racial, ethnic, class and social lines drawing them as half-humans. They had to go through difficulties in their daily lives, but the challenges to some extent helped them become tough and strong. This paper will use information from the books Still Brave and Sister Citizen to bring out the oppression of the black women in America. The oppression is based on race, gender, and sexuality.

Over the past five years, I have taught courses at Mills that focus on Women’s Leadership in the context of social justice movements in the U.S. and the literature that frames U.S. social justice movements. I’ve also co-taught classes on African American Literature and worked with undergraduate

Later on in the years, the Black Feminist Movement was started to try to eliminate these ethnic notions that oppressed black women. In an effort to meet the needs of black women in the U.S., who felt they were racially oppressed in the Women's Movement and sexually oppressed in the Black Liberation Movement, the Black Feminist Movement was formed. "The purpose of the movement was to develop theory which could adequately address the way race, gender, and class were interconnected in their lives and to take action to stop racist, sexist, and classist discrimination"(But Some of Us Are Brave: A History of Black Feminism in the United States, (http://www.mit.edu:8001/activities/thistle/v9/9.01/6blackf.html).

The author’s main problem to address that some conflicts within classes about women of color in women’s studies arise as symbols of deeper problems within the field of women’s studies. The write offers a description of some of the tensions that arise in the Women of Color in the U.S. class, and attempts to contextualize such tensions, by pointing to the ways in which women of color have historically been marginalized within women’s studies and ostensibly included in more recent years through the development of classes like Women of Color in the U.S. The Women of Color in the U.S. course and courses like it is crucial to the development of a truly inclusive women’s studies. Incorporating such classes also poses significant problems, however,

Black women are discriminated against in different ways that not many people would think about. “Crenshaw argues that Black women are discriminated against in ways that often do not fit neatly within the legal categories of either “racism” or “sexism”—but as a combination of both racism and sexism. Yet the legal system has generally defined sexism as based upon an unspoken reference to the injustices confronted by all (including white) women,

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?

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.

Black women in particular were at an intersection of the black community and the female one. They had to fight for rights on both ends. For instance, when the birth control, “the pill,” was introduced, black men did not want black women to take it in fear of condemning their black community. They believed it a system of which the black community could be repressed once again because their population could potentially dwindle a tiny bit (Robinson). In this regard, these women were being controlled in two ways, in regards to her reproductive rights and race. They suffered the brunt of the two movements and learned that their issues were different of that of their peers. Although black men were being empowered (slowly), black women would still not get the same justices or have the same opportunities. In a comparison to white women, black women would have even less opportunities. Women of color learn that for their problems, they needed to find their own solutions and that could potentially mean a whole separate fight from that of the Civil Rights Movement, Black Power Movement and Women’s

Like many black womanist scholars, my life’s story is arbitrarily filled with the same idea of a girl meeting the world for the first time. My mother would often bore me with stories of my birth by explicitly describing how I emerged from her hollow womb that held my black skin captive for nine months. She would then expound me with tales of how she met my father in hopes of me seeking out the same life of domesticity that had been upheld in her family. As a nine year old, I knew better than to oppose my mother’s appreciation of the politics of respectability and the life of domesticity. I learned this after my mother punished my gender nonconformity with a Barbie guitar and baby dolls that I often used as boomerangs when arguing with my sisters. As I navigated through adolescence, my mother found it useful to give me the girl’s talk and to instruct me on a woman’s religious obligation to bear fruit. As she continued to rant, I could feel my lips spell out a phrase that helped me to learn that I was a feminist: I don’t want to have children. After receiving harsh criticism from my mother, I concealed my inner thoughts. It was not until college that I began to write in additional choices for my life. By being a member of university that celebrates an array of ideas in spite of society’s conviction of tradition, I decided to pursue a degree that has always been my passion: Gender and Race Studies. In turn, this fueled my desire to enter in the Women’s Studies program here at