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Examples Of Womanism In Search Of Our Mother's Garden

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Many white feminists treated black woman as secondary by excluding them from feminist activities, ignoring them and preventing them from rising to power. In a reaction to this, countless numbers of black women activists developed a distinctly feminist consciousness that gave them an agency to strive for empowerment on their own terms. African communities and interests were incorporated into a theoretical paradigm we call Womanism. Womanism was introduced in the feminist discourse by Alice Walker’s essay In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens. Womanism’s main difference from feminism is that Womanists are open to all men and woman. Womanists do not look to cast a shadow over men, and discriminate, like feminism, but adopt a more inclusive and wholesome approach. Womanism attacks racism, sexism and poverty. Their ultimate goal is to institutionalize their rights as being black and women against exploitative capitalism and radicalized construction of gender.
By adopting an wholesome approach, Womanism acknowledges an ‘universality-principle’. Walker illustrates this with her ‘metaphor of the garden’ in which: ‘the women and the men of different colors coexist like flowers in a garden. Child: ‘Mama, why are we brown, pink, and yellow, and our cousins are white, beige, and black?’ Answer: ‘Well, you know the colored race is just like a flower garden, with every color flower represented.’’ By applying this metaphor of the garden, Womanism is traditionally universalist and offers a

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