Abstract
Feminism has developed into gender studies and its focus on white middle-class women has broadened. Intersectionality as a method of analysis and basis for political action is more contextualized than identity politics, because people have multiple identities. Within philosophy, first white feminism and then African American philosophy became established. Black feminist philosophers proceed by reclaiming historical figures for philosophical analysis and inspiration, forging connections between different traditions in philosophy, and philosophizing contemporary concerns of black women. Black male philosophy is both the work of black male philosophers and a focus on the experience of black men, especially harmfully false and dangerous stereotypes. A new question of intersection arises: Who may write about whom and is the race/gender of sources important?
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Barnett, Bernice McNair. “Invisible Southern Black Women Leaders in the Civil Rights Movement: The Triple Constraints of Gender, Race, and Class.” Gender & Society, vol. 7, no. 2, 1993, pp. 162–82.
Berholtzheimer, Ruth. The American Woman’s Cookbook. Chicago, IL: Consolidated Book Publishers, 1939.
Berman, Ari. “The GOP’s Attack on Voting Rights Was the Most Under-Covered Story of 2016.” The Nation, Nov. 9, 2016. https://www.thenation.com/article/the-gops-attack-on-voting-rights-was-the-most-under-covered-story-of-2016/.
Bernstein, Mary. “Identity Politics.” Annual Review of Sociology, vol. 31, 2005, pp. 47–74. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/29737711.
Blumberg, R.L. Dialect Anthropol, vol. 15, 1990, p. 133.https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00264648.
Botts, T.F., L.K Bright, M. Cherry, G. Mallarangeng, and Q. Spencer. “What Is the State of Blacks in Philosophy?” Critical Philosophy of Race, vol. 2, no. 2, 2014, pp. 224–42.
Brown, Elaine. A Taste of Power: A Black Woman’s Story. New York, NY: Doubleday, 1992, 185–9.
Cho, Sumi, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, and Leslie McCall. “Toward a Field of Intersectionality Studies: Theory, Applications, and Praxis.” Signs, vol. 38, no. 4, 2013, pp. 785–810. https://doi.org/10.1086/669608.
Collier-Thomas, Betteye and V.P. Franklin, editors. Sisters in the Struggle: African American Women in the Civil Rights-Black Power Movement. New York: New York University Press, 2001.
Collins, Patricia Hill. “Learning from the Outsider Within: The Sociological Significance of Black Feminist Thought.” Social Problems, vol. 33, 1986, pp. 14–32.
Collins, Patricia Hill. “The Social Construction of Black Feminist Thought.” Signs, vol. 14, 1989, pp. 745–73.
Collins, Patricia Hill. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1990.
Collins, Patricia Hill. Fighting Words: Black Women and the Search for Justice. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998.
Crenshaw Kimberlé. “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics.” The University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1989, vol. 140, pp. 139–67.
Crenshaw, Kimberlé. “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color.” Stanford Law Review, vol. 43, no. 6, 1991, pp. 1241–99. http://multipleidentitieslgbtq.wiki.westga.edu/file/view/Crenshaw1991.pdf.
Curry, Tommy J. “Ethnological Theories of Race/Sex in Nineteenth-Century Black Thought: Implications for the Race/Gender Debate of the Twenty-First Century.” Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Race, edited by Naomi Zack. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2017a, pp. 565–75.
Curry, Tommy J. The Man-Not: Race, Class, Genre, and the Dilemmas of Black Manhood. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2017b.
Davenporta, Lauren D. “The Role of Gender, Class, and Religion in Biracial Americans Racial Labeling Decisions.” American Sociological Review, vol. 81, no. 1, pp. 57–84, Article First Published Online: Jan. 27, 2016; Issue Published: Feb. 1, 2016, https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122415623286.
Davidson, Maria del Guadalupe, Kathryn T. Gines, and Donna-Dale L. Marcano. Convergences. Albany, NY: SUNY University Press, 2010.
Dotson, Kristie. “Radical Love: Black Philosophy as Deliberate Acts of Inheritance.” The Black Scholar: The Role of Black Philosophy, vol. 43, no. 4, 2013, pp. 38–45.
Fryer, R.G, D. Pager, and J. Spenkuch. “Racial Disparities in Job Finding and Offered Wages.” The Journal of Law & Economics, vol. 56, no. 3, 2013, pp. 633–89. https://doi.org/10.1086/673323.
Gordon, Lewis R. “Sex, Race, and Matrices of Desire in an Anti-Black World.” Race/Sex: Their Sameness, Difference, and Interplay, edited by Naomi Zack. New York, NY, 1997, pp. 73–85.
Harris, Leonard. “Philosophy in Black and White.” Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, vol. 51, no. 3, American Philosophical Association, Feb. 1978, pp. 415–24.
Harris, Leonard. “Honor, Eunuchs, and the Postcolonial Subject.” Postcolonial African Philosophy, edited by E.C. Eze. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1997, pp. 252–59.
Harris, Leonard. “Looking for Alain Locke.” Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Race, edited by Naomi Zack. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2017, pp. 125–34.
Hine, Diane Clark, editor. Black Women in America. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005. 3 vols.
James, Joy. “The Quartet in the Political Persona of Ida B. Wells.” Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Race, edited by Naomi Zack. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2017, pp. 309–18.
James, V. Denise. “Theorizing Black Feminist Pragmatism: Forethoughts on the Practice and Purpose of Philosophy as Envisioned by Black Feminists and John Dewey.” The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, vol. 23 no. 2, 2009, pp. 92–9. Project MUSE, muse.jhu.edu/article/316248.
James, V. Denise. “Musing: A Black Feminist Philosopher: Is That Possible?” Hypatia, vol. 29, no. 1, Special Issue: Interstices: Inheriting Women of Color Feminist Philosophy, Winter 2014, pp. 189–95.
Jefferson, Thomas. Notes on the State of Virginia, edited by Frank C. Shuffelton. New York, NY: Penguin Classics, 1785/1999, Query XIV, Laws.
La Ganga, Maria L., and Matt Pearce. “Rachel Dolezal’s Story, a Study of Race and Identity, Gets ‘Crazier and Crazier.’” LA Times, June 15, 2015. http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-spokane-naacp-rachel-dolezal-resigns-20150615-story.html.
McKenzie, Lindsay, Adam Harris, and Fernanda Zamudio-Suaréz. “A Journal Article Provoked a Schism in Philosophy. Now the Rifts Are Deepening.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, May 6, 2017. http://www.chronicle.com/article/A-Journal-Article-Provoked-a/240021.
Nash, Jennifer C. “Re-thinking Intersectionality.” Feminist Review, vol. 89, no. 1, June 2008, pp 1–15.
Oliver, Kelly. “If This Is Feminism … .” The Philosophical Salon, May 8, 2017. http://thephilosophicalsalon.com/if-this-is-feminism-its-been-hijacked-by-the-thought-police/.
Puentes, Robert, and Elizabeth Roberto. “Commuting to Opportunity: The Working Poor and Commuting in the United States.” Brookings, Mar. 14, 2008. https://www.brookings.edu/research/commuting-to-opportunity-the-working-poor-and-commuting-in-the-united-states/.
Robinson, Charles F., II. Dangerous Liaisons: Sex and Love in the Segregated South. Fayetteville, AR: University of Arkansas Press, 2003.
Root, Maria P.P. “Bill of Rights for People of Mixed Heritage.” 1993, http://www.drmariaroot.com/doc/BillOfRights.pdf. Consulted Aug. 8, 2017.
Russell, Camisha. The Assisted Reproduction of Race: Thinking Through Race as a Reproductive Technology. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2018.
Schuessler, Jennifer. “A Defense of Transracial Identity Roils Philosophy World.” New YorkTimes, May 19, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/19/arts/a-defense-of-transracial-identity-roils-philosophy-world.html?_r=0.
Sengal, Jesse. “This Is What a Modern-Day Witch Hunt Looks Like.” New York Magazine, May, 2017. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/05/transracialism-article-controversy.html.
Sharpley-Whiting, T. Denean. “Jefferson’s Paradox, or a Very Brief History of Black Women’s Sexuality, Hip-Hop, and American Culture.” Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Race, edited by Naomi Zack. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2017, pp. 576–87.
Spelman, Elizabeth B. Inessential Woman. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1998.
Sterling, Dorothy, editor. We Are Your Sisters: Black Women in the Nineteenth Century. New York, NY: W. W. Norton, 1997.
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, and Catherine E. Beecher. American Woman’s Home, Or Principles of Domestic Science: Being a Guide to the Formation and Maintenance of Economical, Beautiful and Christian Homes, 1869. https://wwnorton.com/college/history/america-essential-learning/docs/CEBeecher-Womans_Home-1869.pdf.
Truth, Soujourner. “Ain’t I a Woman?” Modern History Sourcebook, Fordham University, Dec. 1851. https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/sojtruth-woman.asp.
Weinberg, Justin. “Statement from Hypatia Board Regarding Tuvel Controversy.” Daily Nous, July 21, 2017. http://dailynous.com/2017/07/21/hypatias-editor-reviews-editor-resign-authority-associate-editors-temporarily-suspended/.
Walker, Susannah. Style and Status: Selling Beauty to African American Women, 1920–1975, University Press of Kentucky, 2007. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt2jcm09.
Yancy, George. Black Bodies/White Gazes. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2008.
Yancy, George. “Walking While Black in the ‘White Gaze’.” The Stone, Opinionator, New York Times, Sept. 1, 2013. https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/01/walking-while-black-in-the-white-gaze/.
Yancy, George. “The Violent Weight of Whiteness: The Existential and Psychic Price Paid by Black Male Bodies.” Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Race, edited by Naomi Zack. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2017, pp. 587–597.
Zack, Naomi. “The American Sexualization of Race.” Race/Sex: Their Sameness, Difference and Interplay, edited by Naomi Zack. New York, NY: Routledge, 1997, pp. 145–55.
Zack, Naomi. Inclusive Feminism: A Third Wave Theory of Women’s Commonality. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005.
Zack, Naomi. “Gender Theory in Philosophy of Race.” Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Race, edited by Naomi Zack. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2017, pp. 598–607.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Discussion Questions
Discussion Questions
-
1.
Explain a double or triple oppression experienced by black women.
-
2.
How is identity politics different from the methodology of intersectionality?
-
3.
Explain the identity politics in which you or people you know directly participate.
-
4.
Provide some examples of intersectionality from your own experience.
-
5.
How is black feminist philosophy different from black feminism?
-
6.
Who do you think benefits from the demonization of black men in the United States?
-
7.
How is the “unmanning” of black men related to their demonization?
-
8.
Do you agree that people should be allowed to choose their gender?
-
9.
Do you think that people should be allowed to choose their race? Who gets to decide and why?
-
10.
Do you agree that even in matters of race and gender, philosophy should remain “cold” and “dry” in presentation? Give reasons for or against.
Glossary
- ad hoc
-
—added or done for a specific purpose, only, and not following from a general principle previously agreed upon; arbitrary, in terms of theory.
- philosophy
-
—inquiry and advocacy for the well-being of black women and justice for them, undertaken with the methodology of academic philosophy.
- black male studies
-
—proposed philosophical research into the experience of black men as members of a subordinate, out-group under white-dominated patriarchal society.
- black male philosophy
-
—philosophy by and explicitly about the experience of black men.
- feminism
-
—thought and action about injustice toward women, with advocacy of improvement in their circumstances, based on general and specific analysis; now broadly includes gender.
- gender
-
—umbrella term for social aspects of human sexuality, including male, female, nonbinary, heterosexual, LGBTQ.
- identity politics
-
—group organization or identification for the sake of dealing with common problems for people with specific identities.
- intersectionality
-
— theoretical method and description of people who experience multiple oppressions based on multiple identities.
- LGBTQ
-
—acronym for people who identify as: Lesbian, Gay, BiSexual, Transgender, or Queer.
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Zack, N. (2018). Feminism, Gender, and Race. In: Philosophy of Race. Palgrave Philosophy Today. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78729-9_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78729-9_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-78728-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-78729-9
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)