The article I found particularly interesting this week was Hooks' "Ain't I A Woman?", which discussed the exclusion of black women from discourse in both the historic feminist and racial equality movements. She lays the groundwork as to how she found exclusion from both communities, and how black women are continually excluded and erased from systems, especially when being referred to in historical documents. "Women" exclusively means "white women" and any terminology relating to black people only refers to black men.
This really brought to mind my understanding of intersectionality. Of course black women would have stake in both of these important movements, being a part of both oppressed groups. However, they are continually ignored, and have proven to be underrepresented. They are very rarely discussed in history classes; I've personally never been taught any perspectives unique to black women in any of my American history classes that I've taken previously. In fact, Hooks brought up that while black women should be encouraged to be feminists and take women's rights seriously, they are continually discouraged due to being told the racial movement was more important. However...rarely do we see any representation or are taught history of black women in the racial equality movements, and is an invalid argument as to why they shouldn't be feminists. Somehow, they were given the short end of the stick simply for being a part of two oppressed groups. When we think of intersectionality, we should be encouraging freedom for all parts of our identity. However, it appears that rather black women were told that they couldn't be both of those at once, and had to be silenced both by historians, and by members of their own communities. While luckily we have much better representation of black women today as well as substantially better rights compared to what they dealt with in the past; there is still an erasure that we see today. There is still an implicit bias that I've even noticed in myself to default to thinking of "women" as white women, and "black" as black men when coming across the term in a book, article, or etc. Intersectionality is a subject we need to discuss more, as it is heavily prevalent and will (hopefully) help us move past our preconceived notions and advocate for more equal representation, and that all facets of our identity are important: not just the ones we associate with the most.
Hooks, Bell. Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black. Routledge, 2015.
Hi Caiti, this was also one of the articles that stood out the most to me. I think that the overarching theme of intersectionality especially among women of color in particular is something that should be more widely talked about. In addition to the oppression that was talked about in this article specifically, it got me thinking about the other types of oppressive systems that black women face in this country. One example that came to mind for me was the disparities and disadvantages that black women face when it comes to healthcare. The maternal mortality rate is two to three times higher in the U.S. for black women than it is for white women. I believe that if it was more commonly talked about, it could be easier or more possible for us to navigate the possibilities of improving something like this.
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