Black Feminism

Abstract

Black feminism empowers black women through new and critical paradigms that address how racism and sexism function together to create the social issues and inequalities that affect them. It offers a way of analyzing and understanding the world that: (i) centers on the experiences of black women and the ways mutually interlocking systems of oppression shape these experiences; (ii) emerges from engagement with black communities; (iii) theorizes agency for black women; and (iv) promotes a humanistic visionary pragmatism to accomplish social justice projects. Additionally, black women intellectuals in and beyond academia clarify the standpoint of black women by drawing on the experiences of black women as a site of theorization. Starting at the “outsider within” position, black feminists promote intersectionality as a form of critical praxis that illuminates the overlap and tensions between the feminist and anti‐racist social movements that have shaped contemporary society. Black feminists therefore articulate an oppositional consciousness in response to intersecting oppressions through a collective black women's standpoint that informs social movements, intellectual thought, and artistic or creative productions.