F eminist and g ender t heories
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- Figure 7.3 Collins’s Basic Concepts and Theoretical Orientation Feminist and Gender Theories
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Structural Functionalism
3 Nonrational Rational Black feminist thought Figure 7.3 Collins’s Black Feminist Thought Collective Individual Self-defined standpoint Hierarchical power relations Institutions Cultural context Shared angles of vision Interests Figure 7.3 Collins’s Basic Concepts and Theoretical Orientation Feminist and Gender Theories 337 Reading Introduction to Black Feminist Thought In the following selection from Collins’s most highly acclaimed book, Black Feminist Thought, Collins exposes and discusses the tension for black women as agents of knowl- edge, acknowledging that “Black culture and many of its traditions oppress women” (Collins 1990/2000:230). However, she also warns against portraying black women either “solely as passive, unfortunate recipients of racial and sexual abuses” or as “heroic figures who easily engage in resisting oppression” (ibid.:238). In sum, Collins continually empha- sizes the complexity of systems of both domination and resistance. Black Feminist Thought (1990) Patricia Hill Collins d istinGuishinG F eatures oF B lack F eminist t houGht Widely used yet increasingly difficult to define, U.S. Black feminist thought encompasses diverse and often contradictory meanings. . . . Rather than developing definitions and argu- ing over naming practices—for example, whether this thought should be called Black feminism, womanism, Afrocentric feminism, Africana womanism, and the like—a more use- ful approach lies in revisiting the reasons why Black feminist thought exists at all. Exploring six distinguishing features that characterize Black feminist thought may provide the com- mon ground that is so sorely needed both among African-American women, and between African-American women and all others whose collective knowledge or thought has a similar purpose. Black feminist thought’s distinguish- ing features need not be unique and may share much with other bodies of knowledge. Rather, it is the convergence of these distinguishing features that gives U.S. Black feminist thought its distinctive contours. Why U.S. Black Feminist Thought? Black feminism remains important because U.S. Black women constitute an oppressed group. As a collectivity, U.S. Black women par- ticipate in a dialectical relationship linking African-American women’s oppression and activism. Dialectical relationships of this sort mean that two parties are opposed and opposite. As long as Black women’s subordination within intersecting oppressions of race, class, gender, sexuality, and nation persists, Black feminism as an activist response to that oppression will remain needed. In a similar fashion, the overarching purpose of U.S. Black feminist thought is also to resist oppression, both its practices and the ideas that justify it. If intersecting oppressions did not exist, Black feminist thought and similar opposi- tional knowledges would be unnecessary. As a critical social theory, Black feminist thought aims to empower African-American women within the context of social injustice sustained by intersecting oppressions. Since Black women cannot be fully empowered unless intersecting oppressions themselves are eliminated, Black SOURCE: Excerpts from Black Feminist Thought by Patricia Hill Collins. Copyright © 2000 by Taylor & Francis Group LLC. Reproduced with permission of Taylor & Francis Group, LLC via Copyright Clearance Center. |
