When society adopts the feminist standpoint, it allows us to comprehend how “patriarchal institutions and ideologies” create different activities for women and men (Hartsock, 284). Similar to how Lukacs argues that realizing the contradiction is what changes the system, Hartsock claims “the vision available to the oppressed group must be struggled for [because that] represents an achievement” (Hartsock, 285). Hartsock argues that the activities that are deemed acceptable to participate in differ for women and men because “women’s work in every society differs systematically from men’s” (Hartsock, 289). The activities that some groups participate in define their relationship to other groups of people. The sexual division of labor places women …show more content…
While Hartsock acknowledges that her theory focuses less on race and sexuality, the Combahee River Collective’s argument revolves around the importance of acknowledging the intersections that create an individual’s identity; this acts as a mediating category. Since this theory emphasizes the importance of considering racial divisions of labor, the purpose of the standpoint becomes more complex as well as inclusive. When society considers the intersections that interlock with the structures of oppression, we can see that Black feminism is a mediating category that urges society to dismantle the idea that gender politics is solely determinative by gender. The oppression an individual faces for her race and sexuality can determine her “working [and] economic” status (Combahee River Collective, 213). They argue that there are certain consequences and disadvantages that affect an individual’s quality of living based on their race and sexuality, along with gender. Similar to how Hartsock shows the injustices of being a woman in a patriarchal, capitalist society, the Combahee River Collective argues that white feminism is “threatening to the majority of Black people because it calls into question some of the most basic assumptions about [their] existence” (Combahee River Collective, 215). The …show more content…
She argues that the exclusiveness of her standpoint exists because no other woman can sincerely know or understand what it is like to be a Black woman in Western cultures. Considering that “Whites constitute [as] the most valuable citizens” in our society, as a Black woman, Collins’ experiences a life that is indescribable and incomprehensible to white women (Collins, 70). Collins appreciates the standpoint theory in a different manner than Hartsock and the Combahee River Collective do because she argues that there is importance and value in having personal experiences to explain and defend one’s standpoint as a Black woman in society. Rather than focusing on the multiple identities that arise from intersectionality, Collins focuses on the systems and institutions of power that are reinforced that casts Black women’s experiences as distinct and foreign compared to other women. From this standpoint, specific changes within the institutions can be demanded because there are real experiences behind each demand that challenge the enforced systems placed in our
Interstitial politics, defined by Kimberly Springer as a “politics in the cracks” is also a key element in intersectional analysis. As Black feminists it’s our job to locate places of contradiction and conflict, because in working alongside these sites of power and gatekeeping, we can achieve a better knowledge of how they operate as well as develop strategies to dismantle them. This embracing of sociopolitical dissonance embodies the spirit of dialectical practices in Black feminism. In the chapter “Distinguishing Features of Black Feminist Thought” Patricia Hill Collins emphasizes that
The Author of this book (On our own terms: race, class, and gender in the lives of African American Women) Leith Mullings seeks to explore the modern and historical lives of African American women on the issues of race, class and gender. Mullings does this in a very analytical way using a collection of essays written and collected over a twenty five year period. The author’s systematic format best explains her point of view. The book explores issues such as family, work and health comparing and contrasting between white and black women as well as between men and women of both races.
African American women are considered the most disadvantaged group vulnerable to discrimination and harassment. Researchers have concluded that their racial and gender classification may explain their vulnerable position within society, despite the strides these women have made in education, employment, and progressing their families and communities (Chavous et al. 2004; Childs 2005; Hunter 1998; Settles 2006; Wilkins 2012). Most people agree that race and gender categories are explained as the biological differences between individuals in our society; however sociologists understand that race and gender categories are social constructions that are maintained on micro and macro levels. Historically, those in power who control the means of production within a society have imposed race, class, and gender meanings onto the minority population in order to maintain their dominant position and justify the unequal treatment of minority individuals by the divisions of race, class, and gender categories (Collins 2004; Nguyen & Anthony 2014; Settles 2006;).
On Being Young-A Woman-and Colored an essay by Marita Bonner addresses what it means to be black women in a world of white privilege. Bonner reflects about a time when she was younger, how simple her life was, but as she grows older she is forced to work hard to live a life better than those around her. Ultimately, she is a woman living with the roles that women of all colors have been constrained to. Critics, within the last 20 years, believe that Marita Bonners’ essay primarily focuses on the double consciousness ; while others believe that she is focusing on gender , class , “economic hardships, and discrimination” . I argue that Bonner is writing her essay about the historical context of oppression forcing women into intersectional oppression by explaining the naturality of racial discrimination between black and white, how time and money equate to the American Dream, and lastly how gender discrimination silences women, specifically black women.
The way humans look externally and feel internally has been a barrier and the kernel to many of America’s social conflicts. Audre Lorde’s essay, “Eye to Eye: Black Women, Hatred, and Anger,” attempts to answer why Black women feel contempt among one another. It resonates that Black women, in lieu of their hatred for each other, should replace it by bonding together because they share the same experiences of being women and Black. In the essay titled, “Colorblind Intersectionality,” penned by, Devon W. Carbado seeks to expand the definition of “intersectionality,” which is a theory Professor Crenshaw initially introduced as a, “Drawing explicitly on Black feminist criticism,” (Carbado 811). Carbado is able to provide other forms of intersections by
In the weekly readings for week five we see two readings that talk about the connections between women’s suffrage and black women’s identities. In Rosalyn Terborg-Penn’s Discontented Black Feminists: Prelude and Postscript to the Passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, we see the ways that black women’s identities were marginalized either through their sex or by their race. These identities were oppressed through social groups, laws, and voting rights. Discontented Black Feminists talks about the journey black feminists took to combat the sexism as well as the racism such as forming independent social clubs, sororities, in addition to appealing to the government through courts and petitions. These women formed an independent branch of feminism in which began to prioritize not one identity over another, but to look at each identity as a whole. This paved the way for future feminists to introduce the concept of intersectionality.
Without details, the words on a page would just simply be words, instead of gateways to a different time or place. Details help promote these obstacles, but the use of tone helps pull in personal feelings to the text, further helping develop the point of view. Point of view is developed through the story through descriptive details and tone, giving the reader insight to the lives of each author and personal experiences they work through and overcome. Issa Rae’s “The Struggle” fully emplefies the theme of misplaced expectations placed on African Americans, but includes a far more contemporary analysis than Staples. Rae grapples as a young African-American woman that also struggles to prove her “blackness” and herself to society’s standards, “I feel obligated to write about race...I slip in and out of my black consciousness...sometimes I’m so deep in my anger….I can’t see anything outside of my lens of race” (Rae, 174). The delicate balance between conformity and non-conformity in society is a battle fought daily, yet Rae maintains an upbeat, empowering solution, to find the strength to accept yourself before looking for society’s approval and to be happy in your own skin. With a conversational, authoritative, humorous, confident and self-deprecating tone, Rae explains “For the majority of my life, I cared too much about my blackness was perceived, but now?... I couldn’t care less. Call it maturation or denial or self-hatred- I give no f%^&s.” (Rae 176), and taking the point of view that you need to stand up to racism, and be who you want to be not who others want you to be by accepting yourself for who you are. Rae discusses strength and empowerment in her point of view so the tone is centered around that. Her details all contribute to the perspectives as well as describing specific examples of racism she has encountered and how she has learned from those
As much as men are working, so are women, but ultimately they do not face the same obstacles. For example, “Even if one subscribes to a solely economic theory of oppression, how can one ignore that over half of the world's workers are female who suffer discrimination not only in the workplace, but also at home and in all the areas sex-related abuse” (Moraga 98). This gives readers a point of view in which women are marginalized in the work place, at home, and other areas alike. Here Moraga gives historical accounts of Chicana feminists and how they used their experiences to give speeches and create theories that would be of relevance. More so, Moraga states how the U.S. passes new bills that secretly oppress the poor and people of color, which their community falls under, and more specifically, women. For instance, “The form their misogyny takes is the dissolution of government-assisted abortions for the poor, bills to limit teenage girls’ right to birth control ... These backward political moves hurt all women, but most especially the poor and "colored." (Moraga 101). This creates women to feel powerless when it comes to control one’s body and leads them to be oppressed politically. This places the government to act as a protagonist, and the style of writing Moraga places them in, shines more light to the bad they can do, especially to women of color. Moraga uses the words, “backward moves”
In Black Ice, the autobiography of a black woman recruited into a previously all male elite New England prep school, Carey states, "the narratives that helped me, that kept me company…were those that talked about growing up black in America. They burst into my silence, and in my head, they shouted and chattered and whispered and sang together" (6). Throughout my first semester at Bates, I have identified with Carey. The narratives that discuss growing up as a woman have empowered me. Woolf, Carey, Plath, Rich, and particularly Heilbrun: I recognize the power of these narratives, not only when considered as individual lives or models suggesting alternative realities, but when considered collectively in terms of their life-altering impact. Looking at these works raises critical questions: From where have women come? Have women liberated themselves over the past century and through what means? What has it taken for women to turn their world "right-side up?"
In just a few decades The Women’s Liberation Movement has changed typical gender roles that once were never challenged or questioned. As women, those of us who identified as feminist have rebelled against the status quo and redefined what it means to be a strong and powerful woman. But at...
Name: Rethabile Moloto Student number: 215026187 Lecturer: Dr B. Magoqwane In Sociology, the feminist theory is one of the major branches that is common for how its inventors create a different logical view, assumptions and topical focus away from the male viewpoint and experience. Many people have the false belief that Feminist Theory puts its focus on females and that it has an acquired goal of promoting women to be superior to men, whereas, in reality, Feminist theory has always been about viewing the social world in a way that illuminates the forces that create and support inequality, oppression, and injustice, and in doing so, promotes the pursuit of equality and justice (ThoughtCo., n.d.). Overcoming that, feminist theory puts its focus on social problems, trends, and other discounted or ignored problems that are unnoticed by the historically leading male perspective within social theory. However, feminism is one of the key concepts that organisations have been facing since forever. In the essay that will follow, I will broadly if not largely explain, using the Feminist Approach, how organisations maintain hierarchy and inequalities today.
Among the many subjects covered in this book are the three classes of oppression: gender, race and class in addition to the ways in which they intersect. As well as the importance of the movement being all-inclusive, advocating the idea that feminism is in fact for everybody. The author also touches upon education, parenting and violence. She begins her book with her key argument, stating that feminist theory and the movement are mainly led by high class white women who disregarded the circumstances of underprivileged non-white women.
Throughout history, women have remained subordinate to men. Subjected to the patriarchal system that favored male perspectives, women struggled against having considerably less freedom, rights, and having the burdens society placed on them that had been so ingrained the culture. This is the standpoint the feminists took, and for almost 160 years they have been challenging the “unjust distribution of power in all human relations” starting with the struggle for equality between men and women, and linking that to “struggles for social, racial, political, environmental, and economic justice”(Besel 530 and 531). Feminism, as a complex movement with many different branches, has and will continue to be incredibly influential in changing lives.
Gender stratification is the cuts across all aspects of social life and social classes. It refers to the inequality distribution of wealth, power and privilege between men and women at the basis of their sex. The world has been divided and organized by gender, which are the behavioural differences between men and women that are culturally learnt (Appelbaum & Chambliss, 1997:218). The society is in fact historically shaped by males and the issue regarding the fact has been publicly reverberating through society for decades and now is still a debatably hot topic. Men and women have different roles and these sex roles, defined to be the set of behaviour’s and characteristics that are standard for each gender in a society (Singleton, 1987) are deemed to be proper in the eyes of the society. They are as a matter of fact proper but as time move on, the mind-set of women changes as well, women also want to move on. However the institutional stratification by the society has become more insidious that the stereotypical roles have created a huge barrier between men and women. These barriers has affected women in many aspects such as minimizing their access on a more superior position in workforce organization, limits their ownership of property and discriminates them from receiving better attention and care.
West, Candace, and Sarah Fenstermaker. Doing Gender, Doing Difference: Social Inequality, Power and Resistance. New York; London: Routledge, 2002.