Argument Essay for Black/Women History for english 11

PT-P HEORETICAL DISCUSSION in African-American women's history begs for greater voice. I say this as a black woman

who is cognizant of the strengths and limitations of current

feminist theory. Feminist scholars have moved rapidly forward

in addressing theories of subjectivity, questions of difference, the construction of social relations as relations of power, the conceptual implications of binary oppositions such as male versus female or equality

versus difference-all issues defined with relevance to gender and with

potential for intellectual and social transformations.l Notwithstanding a

few notable exceptions, this new wave of feminist theorists finds little to

say about race. The general trend has been to mention black and Third

World feminists who first called attention to the glaring fallacies in essentialist analysis and to claims of a homogeneous "womanhood,"

"woman's culture," and "patriarchal oppression of women."2 Beyond

this recognition, however, white feminist scholars pay hardly more than

A number of people read earlier versions of this article. I am especially grateful to

the insights, suggestions, and probing questions of Sharon Harley, Paul Hanson, Darlene

Clark-Hine, and Carroll Smith-Rosenberg.

1 See, e.g., Teresa de Lauretis, Alice Doesn't: Feminism, Semiotics, Cinema (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984), and Teresa de Lauretis, ed., Feminist Studies,

Feminist Criticism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986); Toril Moi, Sexual/

Textual Politics (New York: Routledge, 1985); Joan W. Scott, Gender and the Politics of

History (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988); Judith Butler, Gender Trouble:

Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 1990).

2 By the early 1980s women of color from various disciplines had challenged the notion of a homogeneous womanhood. A few include: Sharon Harley and Rosalyn

Terborg-Penn, eds., The Afro-American Woman: Struggles and Images (Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat, 1978); Gloria T. Hull, Patricia Bell Scott, and Barbara Smith, eds.,

But Some of Us Are Brave (Old Westbury, N.Y.: Feminist Press, 1982); Barbara Smith,

ed., Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology (New York: Kitchen Table: Women of

Color Press, 1983); Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua, eds., This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (New York: Kitchen Table: Women of

Color Press, 1983); Bonnie Thornton Dill, "Race, Class, and Gender: Prospects for an

All-Inclusive Sisterhood," Feminist Studies 9 (Spring 1983): 131-50.

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