Womanism
[7] Womanist theory grew in large part out of the perceived indifference of the feminist movement towards the concerns of Black women.
However, white feminists equated this inclusion with "colorblindness" and preferred to deemphasize racial issues in favor of focusing exclusively on gender concerns.
An inability to reconcile this division ultimately hampered the ability of white and non-white feminists to create a functional interracial movement.
The term comes from the Black folk expression of mothers to female children, 'You acting womanish', referring to grown-up behavior.
[14][15] The womanish girl exhibits willful, courageous, and outrageous behavior that is considered to be beyond the scope of societal norms.
[19] Walker's much cited phrase, "womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender", suggests that feminism is a component beneath the much larger ideological umbrella of womanism.
A womanist is committed to the survival of both males and females and desires a world where men and women can coexist, while maintaining their cultural distinctiveness.
[20] A third definition provided by Walker pertains to the sexuality of the women portrayed in her review of Gifts of Power: The Writings of Rebecca Jackson.
In 1995, the publication of her book, Africana Womanism: Reclaiming Ourselves sent shock waves through the Black nationalism community and established her as an independent thinker.
[27] She further asserts that it is impossible to incorporate the cultural perspectives of African women into the feminism ideal due to the history of slavery and racism in America.
A large part of her work mirrors separatist Black Nationalist discourse, because of the focus on the collective rather than the individual as the forefront of her ideology.
These ideologies are integral to understanding womanism as a social and philosophical movement that centers the experiences of Black women, as well as the broader struggles for justice, equity, and empowerment.
[citation needed][30] In the context of men's destructive use of pornography and their exploitation of Black women as pornographic objects, a womanist is also committed to "the survival and wholeness of an entire people, male and female"[31] through confronting oppressive forces.
[33] Black feminist scholars assert that African-American women are doubly disadvantaged in the social, economic, and political sphere, because they face discrimination on the basis of both race and gender.
[34] Black women felt that their needs were being ignored by both movements and they struggled to identify with either based on race or gender.
[20] With this definition, the feminist agenda can be said to encompass different issues ranging from political rights to educational opportunities within a global context.
Womanist identifications have been a source of discussion and debate, particularly when individuals or groups feel that the labels assigned to them do not fully represent their complex identities.
However, those reasons may not be evident to the general public because of the connotation that the word feminism brings with it in terms of social movements, ideas, and groups of people.
In addition, a key component of a womanist discourse is the role that spirituality and ethics has on ending the interlocking oppression of race, gender, and class that circumscribes the lives of African-American women.
[43] This Afro-Politico womanism veers from the traditional feminist goal of gender equality within a group and rather seeks to fight for the men and women whose civil rights are infringed upon.
[44] Using various characters from Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon, Alice Walker's Meridian, Toni Cade Bambara's The Salt Eaters, and Paule Marshall's The Chosen Place, the Timeless People as symbols of the various political agendas and issues that were prevalent within The Black Movement, Eaton draws upon the actions of the protagonists to illustrate solutions to the problems of disgruntlement and disorganization within the movement.
[48] Coleman offers deep insight into the spiritual aspect of womanism when she declares that, "Intentionally or not, womanists have created a Christian hegemonic discourse within the field".
A specific example of this occurs in Walker's "Everyday Use", when the mother suddenly gains the courage to take a stand against her spoiled daughter as she declares, "When I looked at her like that something hit me in the top of my head and ran down to the soles of my feet.
Within philosophy, ethics is the specific branch that focuses on questions related to moral principles, values, and the rightness or wrongness of human actions.
Jacquelyn Grant expands on this point by asserting that Black women concurrently experience the three oppressive forces of racism, sexism, and classism.
[42] Black feminist theory has been used by womanist ethics to explain the lack of participation of African-American women and men in academic discourse.
Patricia Collins credits this phenomenon to prevalence of white men determining what should or should not be considered valid discourse and urges for an alternative mode of producing knowledge that includes the core themes of Black female consciousness.
[42] A major ongoing critique about womanist scholarship is the failure of many scholars to critically address homosexuality within the Black community.
Kelly Brown Douglas also sees the influence of the Black church, and its male leadership, as a reason for the community at large having little regard for queer women of color.
The continued controversy and dissidence within the various ideologies of womanism serves only to draw attention away from the goal of ending race and gender-based oppression.
