2.3: Positions in the Field

Schools of Black Feminist Thought

Prior to identifying the significant positions and schools within the field, it is important to outline what precipitates the need to create a field for Black women and address the boundaries within the field. This is done succinctly by U.S. Black feminist activist Pearl Cleage who states, “we have to see clearly that we are a unique group, set undeniably apart because of race and sex with a unique set of challenges.”[1] From here, we place front and center the two distinguishing challenges Black women face: race and gender and hold these alongside other challenges that routinely plague Black women: class, sexuality, and nation/nationality. The existence of these particular challenges is not exclusive to, or distinguishing challenges Black women face, as all oppressed people and women experience one or more of these challenges. Black Feminism holds the convergence of these challenges as defining the contours of the field.

Black Feminist Thought

Black Feminist Thought establishes itself on six identifying components that aim to provide a foundational ground for all the different schools or naming practices of U.S. Black feminist thought and others within the larger collective that share similar goals and purposes. These distinguishing features, when held together as a convergence of concerns, allow us to think about the collective knowledge and activist work of those laboring to end the oppressive experiences and conditions of Black women. They provide language to observe the differing focuses of the individual knowledge work being produced within the differing schools of thought, while at the same time providing language that coalesces the concerns of Black Feminism within the U.S.

 

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Ida B. Wells, early Black feminist and activist. (Copyright; GPA Photo Archive via Flickr)

The Necessity of Black Feminist Thought

Black Feminist Thought argues that as long as Black women face oppression based on race, gender, class, sexuality, and nation/nationality, there will remain a need for counter activism and education analyzing the dialectical relationship between the oppression Black women experience and their counter activism. As a collective group, African American women’s oppression has always been linked with counter activism. The focus of U.S. Black Feminist Thought is to actively work to resist oppressive practices, actions, and the ideas and thought patterns that sustain and advance them. Thus, at its core, U.S. Black Feminist Thought is a critical social theory with the primary goal of empowering Black women to oppose social injustices that are maintained, perpetuated, and sustained through intersecting systems of oppression. While Black Feminist Thought differs from U.S. Black Feminism in that it advances broad ideas of social justice that transcend Black women’s needs within a U.S. framework, which is contoured to the particular needs and social construct of the American system of multiculturalism, the two schools of thought share the same goal of liberating Black women from oppressive systems of harm.

U.S. Black Feminist Thought focuses its concerns on the unique prism of the American experience, where there is a fundamental contradiction between ideas and practices of liberty and freedom for all within a democratic government, and the greater reality of social practices and systems that create unique matrices of domination within intersecting oppressions of race, gender, class, sexuality, religion, and citizenship. Within the U.S. matrices of domination, Black women have experienced a historic segregation that places racism in their everyday lives and experiences. While this segregation differs from past eras of segregation, the change does not erase its presence, it just changes the ways that it is carried out. In the current iteration, race is erased from ideas of colorblindness or multiculturalism, which erases the inequality experienced by those who are both Black, female, or queer. Black Feminist Thought argues that Black women within the U.S. must constantly navigate the intersection of one’s actions and consciousness. This is evident in the literary work of Black women activists such as Ida B. Wells and Zora Neale Hurston, who both explore the distinctions between what a Black woman does and what a Black woman thinks. This characteristic of individual Black women’s experiences creates one way of coalescing the individuals into a group or collective. The collective wisdom is experienced on multiple levels—the speaker speaks for the self and as part of the collective, acknowledging that these experiences are solitary of their own experiences, but are part of and reflective of the whole. The presence of the collective choral wisdom[2] challenges the oft held ideas that the oppressed class identifies with the dominant class and that the oppressed is inept at interpreting and countering their oppression, both of which are ideas that advance their oppression.

Diversity in Experiences, Ideas, Responses within Common Struggles

While Black American women experience similar challenges within the socio-historical systems of oppression, their individual experiences occur across a spectrum of challenges, and likewise, the responses to these challenges and understanding about the degree and significance of these challenges also differ and occur on a spectrum. This differing collective of experiences, responses, and ideas of significance creates a diverse collection of knowledge based on common core themes rooted in the intersectionality Black women experience based on age, sexuality, region, religion, class, and education. While each individual Black American woman might face different intersectional identities, race and gender means society will impose oppressions within the workplace, school, housing, job market, and within the overall public space. The key here is not to assume that all Black women will have experienced the same social oppressions, but that the recurring patterns of discrimination and oppression creates core themes that characterize and coalesce Black women’s collective experiences around these core themes. For example, despite the differences that might occur over historic experiences, age, class, sexuality, skin color, and nationality/ethnicity; violence is still an inherent experience of the oppressed within America and one that has historically bound Black American women as a core theme. Other core themes include the legacy of struggle, intersectionality, misogyny and misogynoir, sexual politics, Black motherhood, and police brutality and activism.           

While core themes of oppression and struggle exist for the Black American woman, Black women do not experience these struggles and oppressions the same or believe that they should be approached in the same manner. There is a continuum of experiences and responses that differ based on class, sexuality, education, age/generation, and skin color. All these factors create a diversity of responses to the common core of struggles and oppression, stressing that the idea of a homogenous Black woman does not exist, and therefore, a homogenous Black woman’s standpoint also does not exist. There is no stereotypical or archetypal Black woman who can and will stand in for the collective’s experience, response, and consciousness. There is no one way or authentic Black woman who can render the voice of the collective, but there is a Black women’s collective standpoint that is shaped and contoured by the socio-historic tensions and challenges Black women have experienced and endured. Patricia Hill Collins states,

“[b]ecause it both recognizes and aims to incorporate heterogeneity in crafting Black women’s oppositional knowledge, this Black women’s standpoint eschews essentialism in favor of democracy. Since Black feminist thought both arises within and aims to articulate a Black women’s group standpoint regarding experiences associated with intersecting oppressions, stressing this group standpoint’s heterogeneous composition is significant.”[3]

The aforementioned standpoint is not exclusive to Black American women, as African women within the diaspora experience the same challenges, which helps us to situate the Black American woman’s standpoint within a transnational feminism that identifies and acknowledges the particular experiences of women within other national societies. African diasporas can be traced from Africa to the Caribbean, South America, North America, and Europe, places that represent the dispersal of African people during the Trans-Atlantic Chattel Slave trade. The Black American feminist standpoint is understood within the context of the U.S., but points to a larger framework where women, transnationally, encounter violence in routine manners.

Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\): The Black Woman, An Anthology: Black Women speak out. A brilliant and challenging assembly of voices that demand to be heard, edited and with preface by Toni Cade Bambara, was a pivotal text Black Feminist writing. Written in 1970, yet still relevant, the anthology collected the voices of Black women leaders through original essays, poetry, and stories to provide a collective chorus responding to the issues and concerns facing Black women. (Collection of the Smithsonian NMAAHC; Toni Cade Bambara via NMAAHC)

Key Practices and Ideas of Black Feminist Thought 

The heterogeneous nature of the Black American women’s collective produces a body of knowledge that continually seeks to subvert and challenge the larger oppressive ideas and themes expressed by those holding dominant social power. Through their shared experiences, ideas, responses, and ability to subvert the dominating class, Black American women have created a body of alternative knowledge and practices to foster activism and collective group empowerment within Black American women that is informed and defined by the intersection of thought and action. This is seen within the two defining social movements coalesced by Black women: the first occurring at the turn of the 20^th century via the Black women’s club movement, and the second initiated during the 1960s/1970s and continuing now with political and class activism.

Black feminist activism occurs within the distinctive patterns of historic American segregation. Black activism has followed the historic construction of segregation, as the experience of segregation and oppression necessitates the need to respond and build community. As a result of the historic segregation experienced, Black activism has often developed alongside lines of Black community development, Black nationalism, and Black Radical Thought. Black nationalism is based on the idea that Black people constitute a nation of people with a shared history, experience, and destiny; likewise, Black solidarity focuses on similar ideas and interests that support and advance Black community development and advancement. Black Radical Thought is intellectual, cultural, and activism-oriented thought with the goal of dismantling and disrupting the socio-historic, political, economic, and cultural norms of anti-Blackness and oppression aimed at people of the African diaspora. Black feminist consciousness has often shared the political philosophy and antiracist social justice movements of Black activism, which are rooted in ideas of nonviolent resistance to oppressive systems, active defiance, direct action against oppressive systems, grassroots organizing, artistic/expressive resistance, civil disobedience, striking and harnessing the collective’s resources, and other acts of political and social resistance.

The critical theory of Black Feminist Thought is rooted in theories that confront the social and economic oppression experienced by Black women. The critical knowledge focuses on creating and advancing knowledge and practices that frame central questions of historic struggle faced by Black American women in an effort to realize social justice. In this goal of producing social justice, knowledge for the sake of knowledge is not enough as the aim is to understand Black women’s experiences and to alleviate their struggles and oppressions once they are recognized, acknowledged, and understood. Alongside the goal of alleviating the struggles and oppressions Black women endure, the aim of Black Feminist Thought is rearticulation of the Black woman’s view of herself and her world. Collins states,

“By taking the core themes of a Black women’s standpoint and infusing them with new meaning, Black feminist thought can stimulate a new consciousness that utilizes Black women’s every day, taken-for-granted knowledge. Rather than raising consciousness, Black feminist thought affirms, rearticulates, and provides a vehicle for expressing in public a consciousness that quite often already exists.”[4]

A Black/Woman/Speaks

"A Black/Woman/Speaks" from A Sun Lady for All Seasons Reads Her Poetry (1971)

Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, Sonia Sanchez via NMAAHC.

Accessibility Note: Transcript of the Audio Recording by the artist provided below in the file: Sonia Sanchez.

Communicative Practices of Black Feminist Thought and Black Women Intellectuals

The communication of Black Feminist Thought and the role of Black women intellectuals is a key feature of the field and represents the key to the field’s advancement as the Black woman’s standpoint is not widely recognized as a catalyst for social change within the greater Black American community and academia.

Black women intellectual’s work has often been produced through a merger of theory and action where thought is experienced as both an intellectual endeavor and as a call to activism or action. Black women intellectuals produced intellectual work and activism, while working class women denied education sought to labor alongside the intellectuals within their social classes’ framework. One example of this is the Black women blues singers of the 1920s who sought to infuse activism into their music.[5] This can also be traced in the everyday actions of contemporary women involved with domestic work who subvert the economic and socio-political system by creating businesses and work. Washerwomen, home cooks, or hair braiders who create businesses are all examples of contemporary women creating a culture and community outside of society’s oppressive system.

It is key to note that there are two kinds of intellectual knowledge held by Black women. First, there is the everyday knowledge that is passed down from woman-to-woman in a female generational or peer exchange. It is the everyday, quotidian knowledge that includes caring for one’s hair, cooking cultural foods, cultural practices, and caring for a family. Second, there is specialized or expert knowledge that may not always be situated wholly in academia. Black Feminist Thought argues that Black Feminist Intellectuals are located within any field where intellectual work is done on behalf of Black women’s liberation. This is evident in the Blues workers of the 1920s and 1930s, the Hip Hop artist of Black women, the literature of Black women, as well as the poetry, art, dance, and activism of Black women laboring for the collective freedom of Black women.

Black women intellectuals represent important figures in Black Feminist Thought because their experiences provide unique understandings of the intersection of oppression and womanhood, they are committed to the struggle towards freedom despite the challenges and diminishing rewards; Black women must define, speak, and craft the aims for their own empowerment; and finally, Black women are central to coalition building amongst Black women.

The Dynamic, Shifting Nature of Black Feminist Thought  

It is necessary for Black Feminist Thought as well as Black Feminist Practices to remain flexible and dynamic, as the ability and nature of systems of oppression are dynamic change that constantly reinvents itself in the face of resistance. As such, in order to continue to resist these systems of oppression, Black Feminist Thought and practices must continually adapt to the systems and reinvent ways, knowledges, and practices of resistance. As dominant groups seek to constantly suppress the voice, thought, and actions of Black women, Black Feminist Thought and practices must draw from its unique angles of vision to express the collective consciousness of self-realized and self-defined Black women.

As social conditions continue to evolve and confront the everyday lives and experiences of Black American women, new analysis of the changes, differences, and similarities of these oppressive social conditions emerge. This is evident in the work/domestic space that Black women historically represented, and the changing conditions of Black women’s work environments. As the work environments change for Black women, Black Feminist Thought argues that the Black women’s intellectual work must also change. For example, as Black women have been incorporated (even if in meniscal numbers) into academia, a need to produce Black Feminist literary criticism has grown. A renaissance of intellectual work on Black women’s history and literary work has emerged, necessitating a need for Black women intellectuals to critically engage with the work and knowledge being generated.

Figure \(\PageIndex{3}\): Flyer advertising a rally for Angela Davis Day, September 25, 1971. (Public Domain; Collection of Smithsonian NMAAHC via NMAAHC)

In Figure 2.3.3, a flyer advertises Angela Davis Day (1971), and illustrates Black Feminist's activism, concern with all human suffering, and desire to end the subjection, oppression, and domination of all human beings. The flyer references the Massacre at Attica Prison, a four-day long revolt at the maximum-security Attica Correctional Facility near Buffalo, New York, where Black inmates were forced to live within subhuman conditions. The collective leading the charge for Angela Davis Day, included demands to hold then Governor, Nelson A. Rockefeller accountable for ordering the state police to regain control of the protesting inmates by force, resulting in 39 lives lost. Angela Davis, was wrongfully arrested in 1970 due to her support and championing for Black prisoners; she was acquited in 1972 of all charges. 

Black Feminist Thought and Social Justice

Finally, Black American Feminist Thought is concerned with the broad, humanist goal of realizing human empowerment for all people. For Black Feminist, the struggle of Black women represents and sheds light on all human struggles for dignity and empowerment the world over, regardless of race, sexuality, gender, class. As such, Black Feminist Thought is realized as a space of not just theory, but praxis through activism. These activists view political action as a tool in building human empowerment and dignity, further solidifying the humanist vision as a guiding light and principle for Black Feminist Thought.

Black Feminist Thought believes an arc of human solidarity and social justice within all political movements create and ensures sustainable futures of human freedom without subjection, oppression, and domination. Shirley Chisholm, former congresswoman and Black activist, states “working toward our own freedom, we can help others free from the traps of their stereotypes…In the end, antiblack, anti-female, and all forms of discrimination are equivalent to the same thing—antihumanism…We must reject not only the stereotypes that others have of us, but also those we have of ourselves and others.”[6]     

With Black American Feminist Thought thoroughly outlined and defined according to its six main components, a comparative look can be produced with Womanism and the differing labels within the school of thought. 

Womanism

A turn to womanism helps us to consider how Black Feminist Thought has produced a counter intellectual movement that centers a broader critical concept of ontology rooted in issues particular to Black women, men, non-binary people, and families. While womanism is most often fostered and championed by Black feminists and cited within academia, it is a Black feminist intellectual framework that is in tension with the canonical tenets of academia. Womanism holds of great concern the particular challenges and concerns of women of color, primarily Black women, and the men, queer people, and children impacted by oppressive and/or anti-Black practices, and seeks a humanist approach to ending oppression of all forms. 

Coining Womanism

Womanism, as a broad critical theory appeared first during Alice Walker’s short story “Coming Apart,” written in 1979. In the story, a line reads, “The wife has never considered herself a feminist—though she is, of course, a ‘womanist.’ A ‘womanist’ is a feminist, only more common.”[7] Following this, Walker then referred to the term in a 1981 book review essay, “Gifts of Power: The Writings of Rebecca Jackson,” and then later her famous definition of womanism that appeared in her 1983 book In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens, where she further elaborated on the term in a poetic definition.

While Walker is often noted as coining the term, it is important to note that contemporarily others were using and defining the term independently to Walker's use. Chikwenye Okonjo Ogunyemi published an article in 1985, “Womanism: The Dynamics of the Contemporary Black Female Novel in English,” and Clenora Hudson-Weems wrote the 1993 text, Africana Womanism: Reclaiming Ourselves, which was the synthesis of papers presented throughout the 1980s, including a 1989 article, “Cultural and Agenda Conflicts in Academia: Critical Issues for Africana Women’s Studies.” In time, Walker’s term remained known as womanism, Ojunyemi’s as African womanism, and Hudson-Weems as Africana womanism. While each of these coined a new name for their perspective theories, the foundational ideas themselves have existed prior to their formal naming and inception within modernity’s academia and activism. Black women have labored for and performed acts of resistance to their American conditions of racism, sexism, and classism since their suspension within the Euro-American racist-capitalist system.

Defining Womanism

Womanism is defined as a social justice theory and praxis that is rooted in Black and other women of color’s quotidian or everyday experiences within oppressive systems, their ability to problem-solve within these spaces, and their unending desire to end the oppressive systems that dominate all people, while also destroying the proper balance and synergy between humans and nature, humanity and the spiritual realm.[8] It is important to note that while womanism has a relationship with feminism, including Black feminisms, it is not feminism; it is a theory and praxis that does not root gender or sexism at the forefront and instead seeks to end all suffering and oppressions experienced by humanity whether they are situated within racism, sexism, classism, or any other form of oppression. Womanism is not a type of or version of feminism, as womanism is rooted within humanism. Likewise, womanism is not exclusive to Black American or women of the African diaspora, as it has been explored by transnational scholars. Womanism is also not exclusive to academia and has been cited as a praxis or concept, as opposed to a finite definition. This usage of the term denotes its position as an expressive, intuitive way of thinking and being in the world, as opposed to an analytical approach. While for some traditional theorists and academics this might pose a problem, to many it illustrates womanism’s distinctive nature of existing outside of academia, resisting canonization and academic appropriation, and ideological subsumption.[9] In this sense, womanism remains accessible, legible, understood, and practiced by people from a diversity of situations and walks of life.

While the term has been in use for several decades, it has not always been readily understood and has often been misrepresented. What occurs most often is employment of Walker’s definition and the lack of Ojunyemi and Hudson-Weem’s definitions and theories. In this single definition, womanism is often seen as pertaining only to women, and particularly Black women, erasing and missing the broader humanist approach of the term. These definitions also conflate womanism with feminism, and further elicit the comparison of womanism to feminism and Black feminism. Womanism is concerned with the sexual oppression Black women experience, but to connote womanism with feminism would deny the global reach and implications of womanism. It is important to appreciate the subtle nuances of womanism, when comparing it to Black feminism and other dominant forms of feminisms, where womanism is a critical approach to liberating all humankind from suffering. Womanism and Black feminism share concerns, but those concerns do not provide opportunity to conflate the two. Womanism is a humanist, universal perspective on ending suffering of all oppressed people authored by Black women. 

Major tenets of Womanism

Womanism can be understood as having five major tenets: anti-oppression, vernacular identity, non-ideological approach, communitarian, and spiritualized.[10] First, anti-oppression rejects all labeling forms of dominant culture whether they are based on sex, race, class, sexuality, ability, nationality, etc., and works towards the liberation and freedom of all humankind. The goal of the anti-oppression tenet of womanism is to empower and support all people in subverting and dismantling all forms of domination and oppression.

Second, the vernacular tenet of womanism places the everyday, the quotidian, and everyday people at the center. All people, from all walks of life and across social systems seek basic human needs—food, shelter, relationships, language, body autonomy, health, love, spirituality or the transcendent, and a dignified life and death. For the womanist, large imbalances of power and wealth leads to dehumanizing conditions and oppression that are contrary to an individual and collective liberty, happiness, and well-being. Womanist desire to act in the everyday, during the course of everyday life, and these actions can range in how they are carried out, depending on the individual circumstances of the activist and the situation being addressed.

Third, the non-ideological tenet refers to the desire of womanists to function outside of rigid, ideological lines that exist within binaries. Womanist do not belong to any disciplinary systems or adhere to any rules that mark one a womanist or not. Instead, womanist seek to establish dialogue and relationships that allow for disagreements as well as agreement, rooted in a praxis of affinity and love. Womanism functions as a holistic, affective, and spiritual approach to self-evaluation and critical evaluation.

The fourth tenet, communitarian, is understood as collective well-being and is the genesis and goal of lasting social change. It is realized through a successive, overlapping community that begins with Black women or women of color (self), followed by the Black community and other communities of color (kin), followed by all other oppressed people, and ending with all of humanity (universal).[11] While this way of thinking originates with the self, or Black women, it does not end there, and moves outward from those closest to the self, to all of humankind, as well as all living things—including animals, plants, microorganisms, and the inanimate components of world, universe, and the spiritual and transcendent realms of the universal. Womanists seek to heal three fundamental relationships: the relationship between people from differing groups, the relationship between people and nature, and the relationship between people and the spiritual/transcendental world or realm.[12]

Finally, the fifth tenet of womanism, spiritualized, refers to the womanism acknowledgement of the spiritual/transcendental realm that exists alongside human life and the physical world we experience every day. This transcendent realm is experienced as a real, tangible relationship between humans and the spiritual, where the spiritual intercedes and undergirds the political actions, practices, and beliefs of humans. Womanists believe that the spiritual world, no matter how it is conceptualized, is rooted in the reality of the human world. The spiritual belief of womanism is often viewed as the most unique and controversial tenet of its beliefs.

Methods

Womanist methods range from acts of harmonizing and balancing, to acts of healing. As such, womanist can range in praxis from everyday activities that center around relationship and community building, dialogue, arbitration and mediation, spiritual activities, providing hospitality, mothering, providing mutual aid, and practicing self-help. Included in these acts of healing and harmonizing are physical healing activities that meld body, mind, and spirit, which recognizes that physical and psychological well-being as a foundation for wellness, social justice, and common well-being.

Africana Womanism

Africana Womanism, as defined by Clenora Hudson-Weems, differentiates itself from Black feminism, African feminism, African womanism, and womanism because it views each of these schools of thoughts as originating from and sympathetic to the views of feminism, which it vehemently rejects. It argues that African feminism is the least problematic of the field, as it more closely resembles Africana Womanism, but its inclusion of feminist in the naming naturally aligns it with the field of dominant feminism, which is viewed as problematic for the African diasporic woman. Hudson-Weems argues that feminism “as a concept…has been alien to the plight of Africana women from its inception” and that “[t]his is particularly the case in reference to racism and classism, which are prevailing obstacles in the lives of Africana people.”[13] Hudson-Weems declare that the racist history of feminism is incompatible with the lives of Africana women as its agenda has always been to meet the needs and demands of white women, leaving Black women unaccounted for and unseen within the movement despite the appropriation of early Black women activists ideas and labor on behalf of abolition and equal rights. Hudson-Weems outlines the lives and activist work of Black women leaders such as Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, and Ida B. Wells who were denied space in the women’s suffrage movement, yet their activism was used as blueprints, models, and framework for feminism.        

Hudson-Weems differentiates Africana Womanism from Walker’s and others’ definitions of Womanism in that those terms share an affinity with feminism. For Hudson-Weems, the term “womanism” is not chosen to align with Walker’s womanism or Ojunyemi’s African womanism, it is used because it relates to human females and the term female can be used to refer to animals, plants, or mechanical parts. Further, Africana is chosen to define the ethnicity of the women Hudson-Weems choses to focus on, those of the African diaspora. In the explanation of the naming, Hudson-Weems points us to how Africana Womanism differs from the other two ideas of womanism—Hudson-Weems is focused on women of the African diaspora and not women of color, while also denoting the human female.

For Hudson-Weems, the major issues with the Black Feminist and Womanist movements are the adaptation of the feminist agenda that advances gender and women as the most critical component of womanhood. Second, Hudson-Weems notes the lack of power Black women have had historically within the feminist movement. She does acknowledge that there are some differences and problems within the Black woman and man’s historic relationship, she views this as a concern that needs to be addressed within the familiarity, space, and home of African culture and not addressed using alien or foreign tools, concepts, or frameworks. Africana womanism posits that Africana people cannot be distracted or persuaded into elevating gender issues above all other issues, and instead must focus on ways to collectively work towards the freedom and advancement of the collective and the end of the oppressive systems.

Defining Africana Womanism

Africana Womanism outlines several key differences from feminism, beginning with the idea that Black women are inherently both Black and female, one identity always with and tied to the other, and that Black women experience a triple consciousness similar to the double consciousness DuBois outlines in The Souls of Black Folk, where the Black American woman is American, Black, and woman. In this triple consciousness, one is never isolated or separated from the other. In the joint nature of her identities, Africana womanism argues that for the Africana womanist liberation is never an event solely for women, as traditional feminist frameworks advance in an antagonist power struggle between genders. Instead, the Africana womanist views the struggle for freedom as a collective struggle that includes both women and men from the oppression racialized system.

This viewpoint is possible because Africana Womanism observes the socio-economic structure of American Trans-Atlantic chattel slavery that did not observe the divisions of gender—African men and women labored alongside each other and faced the same terrors and challenges of oppression. Due to this historic relationship, Black women have never been treated as an unequal partner to their male counterparts, as they were expected to work alongside the men and further required to work at home. Also, Black women have never been placed in positions of privilege or placed on a gendered pedestal requiring protection and support due to a gentle feminine nature like white women. Black women also face class issues that have been woven into the chattel slavery and plantation systems, relegating Black women to class oppressions in their battle against racism.

Due to these issues, Africana Womanism posits that Black American women need a framework that addresses the complex, triple conscious challenges they endure that is capable of fully assessing their socio-historic realities in both theory and praxis. The primary goal and aim of the Africana Womanist are to liberate her entire race.

The Key Tenets of Africana Womanism

One of the key differences between Africana Womanism [14] and the others listed above is the placement of African culture, practices, and ideas within the construction of the framework. The Africana Womanist tenets draw from the legacy of African civilization, observing the cultural legacy of the African diaspora throughout the United States, Caribbean, South America, Europe, and beyond.

Self-namer

Africana Womanist thought believes that the primary need for the advancement of Africana women is self-naming of herself and her movement. This is rooted in the African idea of nommo, which acknowledges the ability of the spoken word to generate and produce power. The idea is that when we correctly name a thing, we give it life and bring it into existence. African womanists believe that the Africana woman is and must continue to exist as her own person, and thus she must name herself authentically, rooted in her own culture and sense of self and not after another dominant culture.

Self-definer

Second to naming herself, the Africana woman must then define herself and her reality, regardless of the name’s ability to resonate further than herself and her community with the broader world. The act of defining oneself is viewed not as an allegiance to any existing frameworks or ideas. Africana womanism contends that mainstream feminism doesn’t have an exclusive right to discussing, exploring, and challenging gender norms and issues.

Family-Centrality

One of the major tenets and beliefs of Africana Womanism is the central role of family, including male counterparts, children, elders, and future generations. This concern about the greater kinship moves the idea of family and kinship beyond sisters and to the greater network of family and kin. At the core of this tenet is the collective oppression the Africana family faces within an oppressive system. The ability to focus solely on oneself and or women when the entire community and race faces peril is a luxury Africana womanist feel Africana women do not have and that further goes against the collective, holistic philosophy of harmony and community of African societies. For the Africana woman, her individual survival, safety, and place within society are joined to her community’s collective survival and place within society.

In concert with Males in Struggle

For the Africana woman, liberation has always been a collective struggle for the Black family, including both women, men, and children. Black women and men have historically worked together in the struggle for freedom, so abandoning the other while both are still locked in the struggle for liberation is nonsensical. The Africana womanist viewpoint holds that the Africana woman has historically invited her male counterpart into her struggle, and he has brought her into his, resulting in a collective struggle that holds them together as one unit enabled to survive a hostile and racist system.

Flexible role players

Historically, gendered roles have often been negated within the Africana community dating back to slavery, where women worked alongside men and neither enjoyed freedom. Africana women have never been restricted or delegated to domestic roles within the home, and likewise, Africana men have worked within the home when jobs outside of the home were scarce. This need for dynamic roles within the dominant culture’s ideas of gender roles has never been a clearly articulated expectation, allowing for Africana women and men to appreciate traditional roles while also being flexible to the needs of the family.

Genuine Sisterhood

For the Africana woman the bond of asexual relationships and bonds between Africana women represents the possibility and experience of true sisterhood, where one is received within a reciprocal relationship of caring and support. In this bonded relationship, support is given and received equally, empathy is extended naturally, and love is the root of all things, including criticism and sharing of one’s wisdom in the common experience of struggle.

Strong

The Africana woman descends from a long history of physical and psychological strength that has allowed her to endure centuries of struggle towards liberation. This historic struggle has been faced solely, as well as for the Africana woman’s family and extended community. As witness of the Africana males’ historic emasculation and inability to fulfill traditional male roles, the Africana women remains strong in protecting her family, often drawing from the historic strength of her female ancestors and their ability to survive despite the circumstance because of their deep love for family and self.

Male compatibility

Positive female-male relationships are a desired and welcome part of companionship for the African womanist, for she sees herself as part of an Africana family where both genders are desired and irreplaceable. The view of Africana womanist is that both male and female are necessary for sustaining the human race, and that each need and relies upon the other for comfort and companionship.

Respected and recognized

The Africana woman demands and requests respect for herself to realize positive self-esteem and true self-worth. In realizing her self-worth and holding a positive view of herself, the Africana woman does not rely on Euro-Western ideas of beauty to define herself. Her Africana male counterpart plays a role in this by holding her in a place of respect and worth, as disrespecting and rejecting her is rejecting and disrespecting himself.

Whole and Authentic

For the Africana woman, whole and complete personhood, as well as authenticity are key components to her life. To achieve this, the Africana woman works to achieve a holistic reality between her home, family, and career. She affirms her true essence as a complement of her culture and heritage.

Spirituality

The Africana womanist observes and acknowledges the existence of a spiritual head, or a higher power. Her belief in spiritual reality means that she observes and acknowledges the power of faith, healing, and the power of the unknown. Within her life, whether consciously or unconsciously, Africana cosmology is present as a coexisting force that complement each other in the effort of achieving God’s good will.

Respectful of Elders

Integral to the Africana family system is the rootedness of the elder and the role of the elder within the family network. The Africana woman highly respects the elder and hold them in high esteem, while also demanding that those around her holds them in high esteem too. This regard for the elder is born out of the African diaspora and culture, which values the wisdom and advice of the elders as the parental head of the community.

Adaptable

The Africana woman is adaptable in her ability to nourish herself, her family, and her creativity and individual needs. She does not require a separate space that diverts resources away from the family unit, and instead she adapts to the limitations of her resources and is able to remain creative and successful with the space and resources she has available to her.

Ambitious

For the Africana woman self-reliance and resourcefulness are ingrained at a young age, creating a character of responsibility and ambition within. It is often said that she can make a way when no way seems possible, and that she is creative and resourceful in realizing her goals, dreams, and ambitions in life. She can create a space of refueling and restoration wherever she is and with whatever she has available to her, while not diverting resources away from her family. She is ingenious in locating and carving out spaces for creative work and thought to realize her ambitions.

Mothering and nurturing

Finally, the Africana womanist serves as the supreme mother and nurturer within her family and is committed to the act of nurturing and mothering her children and humankind at large. This idea is born out of Africana culture, which values and places an importance on the role of the mother within the family. While she is devoted to and committed to her own family, she is also committed to mothering and nurturing the whole Africana family.

Methods

The key methods used by Africana womanist is literary criticism where the theories are applied to texts written by and about Black women. In applying the theories of Africana womanism to texts written about and by Africana women, the family-centered theories can critically engage with paradigms of race, gender, class, and community struggle towards freedom. While literary studies are the primary discipline used by Africana Feminists, the theories can be applied to any discipline as the theory focuses on the holistic unit of Africana families.

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Endnotes

[1] “Distinguishing Features of Black Feminist Thought,” Black Feminist Thought, Pearl Cleage, 29.

[2] See Toni Morrison’s “Rootedness: The Ancestor”

[3] “Features of Black Feminist Thought,” Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought, pgs. 37-38

[4] Ibid., 42.

[5] See Blues Legacies and Black Feminism, Angela Y. Davis

[6] Ibid., 56.

[7] Layli Phillips, “Womanism: On Its Own,” The Womanist Reader, xix

[8] Ibid., xx.

[9] Ibid., xxi.

[10] Ibid., xxiv

[11] Ibid., xxv

[12] Ibid., xxvi.

[13] Hudson-Weems, Africana Womanism, 11.

[14] Taken from “The Agenda of the Africana womanist,” in Africana Womanism, by Clenora Hudson-Weems.