Radicalising Feminism
In: Race & class: a journal on racism, empire and globalisation, Band 40, Heft 4, S. 15-31
ISSN: 0306-3968
Examines the legacies of black female radicals to argue that feminism is neither inherently bourgeois nor incompatible with revolutionary politics. Black feminisms that emerged in the 1960s were intimately connected with historical antiracist struggles in the US, & black women have continued to shape feminist politics out of militant antiracist movements. Black feminism's goals of independence, community building, & resistance to racism/sexism focus on economic/political power rather than social service programs, thereby challenging the social tenets of law & order campaigns, as well as the corporate culture. The emergence of a multiracial sisterhood in the US is examined, maintaining that it blurs the lines between revolutionary, antirevolutionary, & counterrevolutionary, & has worked to marginalize the revolutionary exponent of black feminisms. The need for greater analysis of the ramifications of cross-ideological alliances between African & European American women is discussed, along with the struggle of progressive black feminisms to preserve radical politics in spite of internal conflicts & contradictions. 21 References. J. Lindroth