Black Feminism

Black feminism is a body of thought and political practice that analyzes the interlocking systems of racism, sexism, and class exploitation shaping the lives of Black women, and that insists mainstream feminism and anti-racist movements have often neglected their experiences. Its roots lie in the activism of Sojourner Truth and Anna Julia Cooper, and in the Combahee River Collective Statement of 1977, which described interlocking oppressions and the importance of identity politics. Angela Davis examined the intersections of race, gender, and class in Women, Race and Class, while bell hooks criticized the exclusion of Black women from feminist theory and the movement. Patricia Hill Collins developed Black feminist thought as a distinctive standpoint grounded in lived experience, introducing the matrix of domination and the controlling images, such as the mammy and the welfare queen, used to stereotype Black women. Kimberle Crenshaw coined the term intersectionality to explain how overlapping identities produce distinct forms of discrimination, and Audre Lorde stressed that difference is a source of strength. Critics debate the concept's scope and its application beyond Black women. Black feminism remains central to research on inequality, identity, knowledge, and social movements.