Crenshaw began using the term to understand how African American women encounter both racism and sexism in multifaceted ways. Understanding intersectionality is important for disassembling
Alice Walker, in fact, uses the imagery of the quilt to suggest what womanism is all about. Dee approaches culture by decontextualising it, while Maggie and Mama relate to it with a kind of ‘organic criticality’. The former stance is mere rhetoric and the later one is womanist. In one of her interviews, Alice Walker identifies three cycles of Black Woman she would explore in her woman’s writing: 1. First are those “who were cruelly exploited, spirits and bodies mutilated, relegated to the narrowest and confining lives, sometimes driven to madness”.
ABSTRACT Alice Walker the feminist deals with the oppression of black women and men. Her quest is a new identify for black women, a self–awareness which will make them self dependent socially, emotionally and spiritually. Racial oppression, general violence, history and ancestry, Civil Rights Movement – all these form the sum and substance of her work. It was Alice walker who coined the term ‘Womanism’ a form of black feminism that affricates and prefers women’s culture, women’s flexibility and women’s strength. ‘Womanism’ according to Alice Walker is not narrowly exclusive; it is committed to survival and wholeness of entire people, male and female.
This successful female author wrote a masterful poem during one of the most brutal times to be a black woman. The poem Still I Rise is a great example of how women are strong and beautiful beings who deserve the same rights as those who identify another race or gender. In a thorough critique of Maya Angelou’s powerful poem Still
She experienced racial prejudices and discrimination in Arkansas. She is known as the voice to the voiceless; her works have been viewed as production of Black culture. Angelou evokes a social change in the minds of the people through resistance. In a concise manner she explores themes such as gender, race and resistance in her works. The nature of Black resistance in her writings are mainly in two forms: artfulness resistance and active protest against racism and sexism.
In this monolitic and exclusionary feminist arena, African American women who engaged in feminist activisim, were “often expected to choose between identifying as blacks or women” (McCluskey, 1994, pg 1), at this historical momentum, the two emancipationary movements were thought to be exclusive of one another. Black feminism emerged in the effort to address the struggle of the black woman; Dorothy King perfectly condense the subversion of the current order by stating in a powerful statement in a rally: “I refuse to choose. And by that I mean I refuse to choose between being black and being a woman. Men don't have to choose. I don't know why women have to choose.
Conclusion For the black mother, motherhood learns exactly what is entailed in the acceptance of responsibility for a new life. The taking on new responsibility will accept of suffering, sacrifice and a lot of love. The present paper is a discussion of the sufferings have been the most suppressing challenges in the lives of African American women as depicted in two great novels, The Color Purple and Meridian by Alice Walker. Alice Walker is one of the most influential figures in the American literature. Her writings are widely influential among the Western culture to see the black female as mankind nor women.
Black women faced constant sexism in the Black Liberation Movement. The movement, though ostensibly for the liberation of the black race, was in word and deed for the liberation of the black male. Freedom was equated with manhood and the freedom of blacks with the redemption of black masculinity. The lives of African-American women have been critically affected by racism, sexism and classism, which are systems of societal and psychological restriction. The racist, sexist and classist structure the American society compartmentalizes its its various ethnic groups, denigrates the colored as inferior and characterizes males and females as center and margin respectively.
Through her statement on the impairment that internalized racism can do to the most vulnerable member of a community— Pecola; a young girl, Morrison jumps out of the tradition of African-American literature that “Portrays racism as a definite evil” (Eichelberger, 1999, p.59). Whiteness within this novel is said to be the symbol of goodness and innocence. The blacks in the novel are unhappy that they are not part of the dominant race. The main characters in this novel are marginalized people. Their status in the society causes them to feel subjugated.
Modern feminism is prevalent in movements such as “Me Too” and “Say Her Name” to diminish sexism and oppression felt on all fields. Modern feminism has been made to destroy the history of racism, homophobia and cisgender embedded principles of historical feminism. One of the most influential and intersectional feminist works are that of Audrey Lorde. In Audrey Lorde’s book, Sister Outsider she explains the sexism felt by black lesbian women and the intersectional oppressions and the lack of social acceptance. Lorde explains the homophobia she faces in the black community, the racism she feels in the LGBT community and the intense homophobia and racism embedded in