Abstract
Feminism is the political theory and practice to free all women: women of colour, working class women, poor women, physically challenged women, lesbians, old women as well as white heterosexual, economically privileged women. Anything less is not feminism, but merely female self-aggrandisement.
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References
B. Smith,All the women are white, all the men are black B-uput some of us are brave (New York: Women of Colour Press, 1985), 49.
In reflecting social attitudes we separate ourselves from the object and hold a mirror to it; in incorporating them, we weave them into our own subjectivity.
Patriarchy is a problematic term within even ethnocentric feminism. It is even more so when it is used without recognition of the problem of race. “The notion of patriarchy is most obtuse when it disregards the position that white women occupy over black men as well as black women” — M. Simons, “Racism and Feminism”,Feminist Review 5 (1979), 383–401.
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A. Davis,Women Race and Class (London: The Women's Press, 1981), 173. W.E. DuBois opens his vital literary text onThe Lives of Coloured Folk with the words “1892 was a good year for black people, only 1600 men were lynched”.
Black feminists have argued that the black women is never fully “black” because depictions of the black community are invariably male-focused, and never fully “women” because depictions of the female community are invariably white-focused. In this context, the black woman as “depreciated sex object” cannot be truly a victim of rape as she is not fully a woman. See for example G. Hullet al., supra, n.1. It should be noted that the tendency they criticise is equally evident in UK discussions of racial politics.
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For analysis of the racism and ethnocentricity implicit in some of the leading texts of contemporary feminism see, for example, M. Simons, “Racism and Feminism”,supra n.3. n. 3; A. Davis,Women Race and Class, supra n.5; B. Hooks,Talking Back, Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black (London: Sheba, 1989).
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The examples in this section are drawn largely from British society, although the same questions arise in the context of the United States.
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B. Bryanet al., n.23supra. at 102–103.
See A. Davis,supra, n.5 at ch.12, “Racism, Brith Control, and Reproductive Rights”.
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White Middle-class Women's Movement.
My special thanks to Susie Gibson for her insight and support on this project. Thanks to Akua Rugg for being there.
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Cox, C. Anything less is not feminism: Racial difference and the W.M.W.M.. Law Critique 1, 237–248 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02439615
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02439615