Women of Color in the Feminist Movement

Since gender is just one of the many other socially constructed categories of difference and inequality, it is of the utmost importance for social scientists to observe the contributing factors that shape gender. Gender as a whole cannot be studied without observing the social context in which it is situated--variations of meaning and interaction are displays when put into more specific context revealing the reality of privilege, power and prestige (57). There are also factors of environment to consider, such as individual, interactional and institutional. These complex but imperatively interrelated factors hold significance in how the construct of gender operates, without other social identifiers, gender alone is too general of a subject to be inclusive without diminishing other diverse groups. One of the most considerable is how race and gender interplay in social spheres. To clearly see the reason why studying the difference in how women of color are affected by their status, one must first understand the word “white privilege”.

Privilege in itself is synonymous with white skin color, being male, masculine, wealthy, heterosexual, youthful, able-bodied and so on (58). White privilege can be difficult to observe from the perspective of the individual who inherently has it. For white females in the women’s rights movement, their privilege puts them in the front seat of an important social movement which presents a default for all women and their issues. Obviously all women are not white and not all women have the same specific issues and interests as white women. This presents another instance of hierarchy--even within social movements there are hierarchies and for most of the history of the women’s rights movement, white women ...

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...ture of whole societies that are legitimated and maintained across society groups. A critique of this method is that it has a possibility to downplay gender as a “continually changing quilt of life experiences”, causing a lessening sense of social action. Thus one must find a way to connect gender with the various identifiers and circumstances, while also extending to other groups of people. Doing such is a whole other process that involves a mix of quantitative and qualitative data as it pertains to how the researcher is attempting to use the conclusions. The finality of the social experience is not only based on the social variables and identifiers, but the perspective of said variables. Women of color have opened more minds on the subject of gender and sex, allowing the social movement to have more validity as it reaches out to others without certain privileges.