by bell hooks
The recent women’s movement failed to adequately address the issue of sexist oppression, but that failure does not change the fact that it exists, that we are victimized by it to varying degrees, nor does it free any of us from assuming responsibility for change. Many black women are daily victimized by sexist oppression. More often than not we bear our pain in silence, patiently waiting for a change to come. But neither passive acceptance nor stoic endurance lead to change. Change occurs only when there is action, movement, revolution. The 19th century black female was a woman of action. Her suffering, the harshness of her lot in a racist, sexist world, and her concern for the plight of others motivated her to join feminist struggle. She did not allow the racism of white women’s rights advocates or the sexism of black men to deter her from political involvement. She did not rely on any group to provide her with a blueprint for change. She was a maker of blueprints. In an address given before an audience of women in 1892 Anna Cooper proudly voiced the black woman’s perspective on feminism:
Let woman’s claim be as broad in the concrete as in the abstract. We take our stand on the solidarity of humanity, the oneness of life, and the unnaturalness and injustice of all special favoritism, whether of sex, race, country, or condition. If one link of the chain is broken, the chain is broken. A bridge is no stronger than its weakest part, and a cause is not worthier than its weakest element. Least of all can woman’s cause afford to decry the weak. We want, then, as toilers for the universal triumph of justice and human rights, to go to our homes from this Congress demanding an entrance not through a gateway for ourselves, our race, our sex, or our sect, but a grand highway for humanity. The colored woman feels that woman’s cause is one and universal; and that not till the image of God whether in parian or ebony, is sacred and inviolable; not till race, color, sex, and condition are seen as accidents, and not the substance of life; not till the universal title of humanity to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is conceded to be inalienable to all; not till then is woman’s cause won— not the white woman’s, nor the black woman’s, nor the red woman’s, but the cause of every man and of every woman who has writhed silently under a mighty wrong. Woman’s
wrongs are thus indissolubly linked with all undefended woe, and the acquirement of her “rights” will mean the final triumph of all right over might, the supremacy of the moral forces of reason, and justice, and love in the government of the nations of earth.
Cooper spoke for herself and thousands of other black women who had been born into slavery, who because they had been severely victimized, felt a compassion and a concern for the plight of all oppressed peoples. Had all women’s rights advocates shared their sentiments the feminist movement in the U.S. would be truly radical and transformative.
Feminism is an ideology in the making. According to the Oxford English Dictionary the term “feminism” was first used in the latter part of the 19th century and it was defined as having the “qualities of females.” The meaning of the term has been gradually transformed and the 20th century dictionary definition of feminism is a “theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes.” To many women this definition is inadequate. In the introduction to The Remembered Gate: Origins of American Feminism Barbara Berg defines feminism as a “broad movement embracing numerous phases of woman’s emancipation.” She further states:
It is the freedom to decide her own destiny; freedom from sex-determined role; freedom from society’s oppressive restrictions; freedom to express her thoughts fully and to convert them freely to actions. Feminism demands the acceptance of woman’s right to individual conscience and judgment. It postulates that woman’s essential worth stems from her common humanity and does not depend on the other relationships of her life.
Her expanded definition of feminism is useful but limited. Many women have found that neither the struggle for “social equality” nor the focus on an “ideology of woman as an autonomous being” are enough to rid society of sexism and male domination. To me feminism is not simply a struggle to end male chauvinism or a movement to ensure that women will have equal rights with men; it is a commitment to eradicating the ideology of domination that permeates Western culture on various levels—sex, race, and class, to name a few—and a
commitment to reorganizing U.S. society so that the self-development of people can take precedence over imperialism, economic expansion, and material desires. Writers of a feminist pamphlet published anonymously in 1976 urged women to develop political consciousness:
In all these struggles we must be assertive and challenging, combating the deep-seated tendency in Americans to be liberal, that is, to evade struggling over questions of principle for fear of creating tensions or becoming unpopular. Instead we must live by the fundamental dialectical principle: that progress comes only from struggling to resolve contradictions.
It is a contradiction that white females have structured a women’s liberation movement that is racist and excludes many non-white women. However, the existence of that contradiction should not lead any woman to ignore feminist issues. Oftentimes I am asked by black women to explain why I would call myself a feminist and by using that term ally myself with a movement that is racist. I say, “The question we must ask again and again is how can racist women call themselves feminists.” It is obvious that many women have appropriated feminism to serve their own ends, especially those white women who have been at the forefront of the movement; but rather than resigning myself to this appropriation I choose to re-appropriate the term “feminism,” to focus on the fact that to be “feminist” in any authentic sense of the term is to want for all people, female and male, liberation from sexist role patterns, domination, and oppression.
Today masses of black women in the U.S. refuse to acknowledge that they have much to gain by feminist struggle. They fear feminism. They have stood in place so long that they are afraid to move. They fear change. They fear losing what little they have. They are afraid to openly confront white feminists with their racism or black males with their sexism, not to mention confronting white men with their racism and sexism. I have sat in many a kitchen and heard black women express a belief in feminism and eloquently critique the women’s movement explaining their refusal to participate. I have witnessed their refusal to express these same views in a
public setting. I know their fear exists because they have seen us trampled upon, raped, abused, slaughtered, ridiculed and mocked. Only a few black women have rekindled the spirit of feminist struggle that stirred the hearts and minds of our 19th century sisters. We, black women who advocate feminist ideology, are pioneers. We are clearing a path for ourselves and our sisters. We hope that as they see us reach our goal—no longer victimized, no longer unrecognized, no longer afraid— they will take courage and follow.
Selected Bibliography
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Index
Abolitionists, 125
Africa, 16-21, 23, 33-4, 39, 43, 80
Amalgamation, 15, 130
Amazons, 82-3
Aparthied, 124, 163, 172
Baraka, Amiri, 95-6, 106-7 Barber, Benjamin, 145 Berg, Barbara, 7, 160, 194 Bethel, Lorraine, 152 Black Power, 5, 94-8 Bolden, Dorothy, 148 Bonding, 99; between men Breeding, 16, 39, 41 Brent, Linda, 25, 28
Brownmiller, Susan, 51-6; discussion of black women and rape, 59
Cade, Toni, 5, 9
Capitalism, 5-6, 23, 105 113-14, 145 Child, Lydia Marie, 26 Christianity, 29, 31, 85 Class, 145-7 Colonialism, 119, 122-3 Cooper, Anna, 23, 166-9. 193 Cott, Nancy, 46
