“Africana Womanism: An Historical, Global Prespective for Women of African Descent”
“Africana Womanism: An Historical, Global Perspective for Women of African Descent” is an essay based on Africana Womanism and how it compares to white feminism. The essay was written by Clenora Hudson-Weems, an African American writer and literary critic. She was born in Oxford, Mississippi and she was raised in Memphis, Tennessee. I will compare Africana Womanism and Feminism and discuss the definition of the two the topics. Also I will discuss the important historical figures that are womanists. I think the issue is important because the common misconception is that a womanist and a feminist are the same thing but they are totally different. A womanist is more family oriented and feminists are dealing with the empowerment of themselves.
Clenora Hudson-Weems wrote “Africana Womanism: An Historical, Global Perspective for Women of African Descent” and it was about womanism. Another word for womanism is feminism, and feminism is defined as the empowerment of woman. In the era of women’s rights, women were not treated as equals, especially black women. Colored women could not get any equality or any empowerment unless they live in a community which they can establish their own racial and cultural integrity. White women and Africana both have the same amount of rights but white women had better accommodations as far as restrooms, water fountains, swimming pools, and everything else that is segregated. I think that Africana women were oppressed more than white women. I believe that black women should be treated just as equally as white women. Africana women are fighting for civil rights and women’s rights. Africana women have been more concerned for the whole Africana community. Their main priority is “…race empowerment, with class and gender following…”(Weems, 80). Womanism was important in the Africana community because the Africana women was trying empower not just themselves but empower the whole Africana community. For example, Harriet Tubman (Underground Railroad conductor), “risked her life time and again in freeing Africana men, women, and children in slavery, thereby establishing her commitment to racial parity”(Weems, 80).
The crucial role of an Africana woman is that many Africana academicians accepted the idea of female empowerment so that the level of struggle or concerns of Africana women are noticeable. Many people think because a woman is a feminist, that she is oppressed with gender issues, but an Africana woman are traditionally family centered.
To begin with, there are many events in United States history that have shaped our general understanding of women’s involvement in economics, politics, the debates of gender and sexuality, and so forth. Women for many centuries have not been seen as a significant part of history, however under thorough analyzation of certain events, there are many women and woman-based events responsible for the progressiveness we experience in our daily lives as men, women, children, and individuals altogether. Many of these events aid people today to reflect on the treatment of current individuals today and to raise awareness to significant issues that were not resolved or acknowledged in the past.
The black women’s interaction with her oppressive environment during Revolutionary period or the antebellum America was the only way of her survival. Playing her role, and being part of her community that is not always pleasant takes a lot of courage, and optimism for better tomorrow. The autonomy of a slave women still existed even if most of her natural rights were taken. As opposed to her counterparts
As both Tracey Reynolds and Audre Lorde have emphasized, Black women are not perpetually passive victims, but active agents. It is totally possible for Black women to seize a form of empowerment, whether that be alternative education, or the creation of organizations that weren’t situated in either the Civil Rights movement or Women’s
Malcolm X stated that the most disrespected, unprotected and neglected person in America is the black woman. Black women have long suffered from racism in American history and also from sexism in the broader aspect of American society and even within the black community; black women are victims of intersection between anti-blackness and misogyny sometimes denoted to as "misogynoir". Often when the civil rights movement is being retold, the black woman is forgotten or reduced to a lesser role within the movement and represented as absent in the struggle, McGuire 's At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance--A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power does not make this same mistake.
Anna Julia Cooper’s, Womanhood a Vital Element in the Regeneration and Progress, an excerpt from A Voice from the South, discusses the state of race and gender in America with an emphasis on African American women of the south. She contributes a number of things to the destitute state African American woman became accustom to and believe education and elevation of the black woman would change not only the state of the African American community but the nation as well. Cooper’s analysis is based around three concepts, the merging of the Barbaric with Christianity, the Feudal system, and the regeneration of the black woman.
Collins, Patricia Hill. "Mammies, Matriarchs, and Other Controlling Images." Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. New York: Routledge, 2000. 89. Print.
Women had been “denied basic rights, trapped in the home [their] entire life and discriminated against in the workplace”(http://www.uic.edu/orgs/cwluherstory/). Women wanted a political say and wanted people to look at them the way people would look at men. in 1968, many women even protested the Miss America Beauty Pageant because it made it look that women were only worth their physical beauty. A stereotyped image was not the only thing they fought, “Women also fought for the right to abortion or reproductive rights, as most people called it” (http://www.uic.edu/orgs/cwluherstory/). These were the reason why the Women started the Women’s Liberation. African Americans, however, had different causes. After almost a century after the Emancipation Proclamation, black men are still being treated unfairly. They were being oppresed by the so-called “Jim Crow” laws which “barred them from classrooms and bathrooms, from theaters and train cars, from juries and legislatures” (http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/). They wanted equal rights, equal facilities and equal treatment as the whites. This unfairness sparked the African American Civil Right’s Movement. This unfairness was seen in the Women’s Liberation as well. Both were treated unfairly by the “superior”. Both wanted equal rights, from the men or whites oppressing them. They both wanted equal treatment and equal rights. During the actual movement
Being an African American male I have no clue of what women had to go through in order to be treated fairly, like how women had to fight harder than the men did because when black people were given the right to vote it did not include women. Today as a young black man and being raised by a single black mother I see the struggle that she goes through each everyday for the color of her skin and the fact that she is a women.
Ar’n’t I a Woman? Written by, Deborah Gray White shows the trials and hardships that African American Women faced during the years of the infamous plantations up to the civil war. In this book White describes how the images of “Jezebel” and the “Mammy” and how they were the most vulnerable group with the least amount of formal power in Antebellum America. She compares the life of men and women in the slave society, and how truly different they were. The roles of women are shown through the slaves’ life cycle, family life, slave society networks, and the civil war. Each of these various aspects of life are discussed very vividly in the book, and serve purpose in showing how African American women were treated so unjustly not only because of their skin color but the fact that they were women, therefore they were the most discriminated against in Antebellum America. Though they were discriminated against their nature proved them to not be submissive and subordinate in all aspects.
• AW calls herself “a womanist “, her term for a black feminist. She is one of the female Afro-American writers founding the concept “New Black Renaissance” .
For centuries, educated and talented women were restricted to household and motherhood. It was only after a century of dissatisfaction and turmoil that women got access to freedom and equality. In the early 1960’s, women of diverse backgrounds dedicated tremendous efforts to the political movements of the country, which includes the Civil Rights movement, anti-poverty, Black power and many others (Hayden & King, 1965). The Africa...
After the overwhelming success of the talk, such as having millions of views on YouTube and being featured in the song “Flawless” by Beyoncé, she decided to publish the speech into an expanded essay named “We Should All Be Feminists.” In this essay, Adichie talks about her life and encounters with sexism from a young age, especially her introduction to the word “feminist” occurring at fourteen. She is having a normal day, playing and arguing with her friend Okoloma, until he “harmlessly” quips, “You know, you’re a feminist’” (8), which in Nigeria, is not a compliment. She also spends a third of the essay addressing the fact that all negativity towards gender inequality has the same root: unwavering tradition.
Now to conclude the discussion one can say that the the texts by black American women became the grounds where these women fought oppression by challenging the ideas of the mainstream society.Thus the movement launched by black women did not only hold political and literary significance.The movement also had the potential to bring about a social change for the better.
Nnoromele, Salome C. "Representing the African Woman: Subjectivity and Self in The Joys of Motherhood." Critique 43.2 (2002): 178-190.
Barrington M. Salmon. “ African Women in a Changing World.” Washington Informer 13 March 2014: Page 16-17