What Is The Importance Of Gender And Sexuality In African American Studies

“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).

Economically, socially, and politically; black women are setup to remain at the bottom of society and whatever they do, society often find a way to keep them down. It is unfortunate that this is how our society operate. The fight towards a truly equal society is far in the future but many activists, writers, such as Bell Hooks, Alice Walker, and artists like Daniel Stewart have contributed greatly to bringing up the discussions around the black women’s experience and to push change in different shapes and

Patricia Hill Collins’s work, Black Feminist Thought seeks to center Black Women into intersectionalist thought, addressing the power struggles that face them not only due to their race but also to the gender. Masculine rhetoric and powerful male leaders such as Huey P. Newton and Eldridge Cleaver have overshadowed Black Women’s stories, both in and out of the Civil Right Rights/Black Power

African American women have long been stereotyped, discriminated against and generalized in this country. They have had to face both being black in America while also being a woman in America. African American women encountered and still do encounter double discrimination of both sex and race (Cuthbert, 117). Women like Elise Johnson McDougald, Marion Vera Cuthbert and Alice Dunbar-Nelson all tried to shed light on what it was like to be an African American woman living in the 20th century yet literature often portrayed them as emotional, hypersexual, unintelligent and of lesser worth. The literature highlighted that African American women have to serve both their employer and their husbands and families. They are not supposed to have an opinion or stand up for themselves, especially to a white man. ***Concluding sentence?

To be a woman meant that one had no say in regards to political affairs or in government making decisions. If being a woman had limitations, imagine what a black woman experienced, as they were considered less than human and mistreated more than any other female from any different background. In “A Plea for the Oppressed”, Lucy Stanton, one such black woman, tried to avail her people’s plight upon an audience of white women, to support the antislavery and reform cause.

This article discusses political realities that have researched scholarship, and action consequences in the field of Black studies. This includes the academy, a changing political economy, Black studies ideology, and Black studies for a new century, and it interconnectedness to the other issue, centering gender and interrogating the theory and practice of Black women’s studies.

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

Hull and Barbra Smith provided four issues that seem important for a consideration of the politics of Black women’s studies: “(1) the general political situation of Afro-American women and the bearing this has had upon the implementation of Black women’s studies; (2) the relationship of Black women’s studies to Black feminist politics and the Black feminist movement; (3) the necessity for Black women’s studies to be feminist, radical and analytical; and (4) the need for teachers of Black women’s studies to be aware or our problematic political positions in the academy and of the potentially conditions under which we must work” (Hull, Smith 187). These concepts are stepping stones to developing a better image for African American females. If society applied these, women would have a more even-chance to pursue what they believe in.

African-American women have often been an overlooked group with the larger context of American Society. Historically, oppression has been meted out to the African-American woman in two ways. Historically, everything afforded to African-American, from educational and employment opportunities to health care have been sub-par. As women they have been relegated even further in a patriarchal society that has always, invariably, held men in higher regard.

The exclusionary aspects of feminist activism in the 19th and 20th centuries are fundamental topic of the Sojourner Truth and The Combahee River Collective. In these two readings some of the concerns arisen are very similar, and they are both from the prospective of black women. In both readings they talk about how they would like to see equality between men and women because there is no reason why women and men can’t be equal.

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.

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:

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?

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

Black Feminism argues that sexism, class oppression and racism are linked together. Mainstream feminism that more than often benefits white women, strives to overcome class and gender oppression, however they do not recognise that race can discriminate against women also. Activist, Alice Walker states that black women experience a different kind of oppression when compared to their white counterparts. Professor of Sociology and social activist, Patricia Hill Collins summarises that Black feminism is ‘a process of self-conscious struggle that empowers women and men to actualise a humanist vision of community.’ Her quote welcomes individuals of any gender, whom understands black women’s struggle to fight with them. [Collins, 1991:39]