Angela Davis
speaking at the
University of Alberta on
28 March 2006
Black feminism
Black feminism argues that sexism, class oppression, and racism are inextricably bound together.
Forms of feminism that strive to overcome sexism and class oppression but ignore race can discriminate
against many people, including women, through racial bias.
The Combahee River Collective argued in 1974 that the liberation of black women entails freedom for all people, since it would require the end of racism, sexism, and class oppression.
One of the theories that evolved out of this movement was Alice Walker's Womanism. It emerged after the early feminist movements that were led specifically by white women who advocated social changes such as woman’s suffrage. These movements were largely white middle-class movements and ignored oppression based on racism and classism. Alice Walker and other Womanists pointed out that black women experienced a different and more intense kind of oppression from that of white women.
Angela Davis was one of the first people who articulated an argument centered around the intersection of race, gender, and class in her book, Women, Race, and Class.
Kimberle Crenshaw, a prominent feminist law theorist, gave the idea the name Intersectionality while discussing identity politics in her essay, "Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics and Violence Against Women of Color".
Multiracial feminism
Multiracial feminism (also known as “women of color” feminism) offers a standpoint theory and analysis
of the lives and experiences of women of color.
The theory emerged in the 1990s and was developed by Dr. Maxine Baca Zinn, a Chicana feminist and
Dr. Bonnie Thornton Dill, a sociology expert on African American women and family.
