Multiracial feminist theory is promoted by women of color (WOC), including Black, Latina, Asian, Native American, and anti-racist white women. In 1996, Maxine Baca Zinn and Bonnie Thornton Dill wrote “Theorizing Difference from Multiracial Feminism," a piece emphasizing intersectionality and the application of intersectional analysis within feminist discourse.^[1]

Women of color, such as Audre Lorde and bell hooks, challenged the second-wave feminist movement for placing women's oppression at the root of sexism, without any regard to other forms of domination.^[2] Generally speaking, women of color acknowledge that race acts as a foundational power structure that heavily affects their lives. The activist work of women of color has been erased from the second-wave movement.^[2] The term "multiracial" was used to illustrate the importance of race interacting with other forms of oppression to understand gender relations. With a focus on race, multiracial feminism acknowledges, "the social construction of differently situated social groups and their varying degrees of advantages and power."^[3] The definition of multiracial feminism, as given by Becky Thompson, is stated as, "an attempt to go beyond a mere recognition of diversity and difference among women to examine structures of domination, specifically the importance of race in understanding the social construction of gender."^[2] The central point of this perspective is to focus on the significance of race, institutionalized racism and struggles against racial oppression to understand how various forms of dominance influence women's experiences.^[3]

Overview

Multiracial feminist theory influenced the recreation of Second-wave feminism.^[4] Second-wave feminism only focused on white middle-class women in the United States with the goal of being equal to (also white and middle-class) men, thereby disregarding women from other economic, racial, and ethnic backgrounds.^[4] Second-wave feminism failed to address the overlap between racism and misogyny as well as the issues that arise from it. Multiple groups of feminist organizations focus on their differing identities; for example, Hijas de Cuauhtémoc, which is a Chicana-based group. Another group, the Asian Sisters, focused on the drug abuse that was happening in Los Angeles around the 1970s.^[4]

History

Having first gained momentum in the 1970s, multiracial feminism grew as a movement to challenge racist, classist, and sexist barriers; not as separate, singular matters but as interlocking identities that make up both privilege and oppression.^[5] Multiracial feminism is described as a “liberation movement spearheaded by women of color” and focused primarily on intersectional analysis and both an international and a multiracial approach to oppression.^[6]

Although not acknowledged by the second-wave movement, women of color and white women took a stand to combat racism and colonialism.^[2] Black feminists believed that "cross-racial struggle made clear the work that white women needed to do in order for cross-racial sisterhood to really be powerful."^[2] White women also recognized that sexism was not the root of women's oppression.^[2] They collaborated to put forth an anti-racist movement that incorporated inter-related forms of oppression.^[2]

Notable proponents

• Maxine Baca Zinn, born in Santa Fe, New Mexico on June 11, 1942, Maxine Baca Zinn is a sociologist^[7] known as being one of the “foremothers of multiracial feminism.”^[8] Working alongside other feminist theorists like Bonnie Thornton Dill, Patricia Hill Collins, and Lynn Weber, Baca Zinn's hypotheses suggest a need for intersectional analysis regarding identities such as race and gender in contemporary feminism.
• Bonnie Thornton Dill is a dean of the College of Arts and a professor at the University of Maryland. She has won numerous awards for mentoring, including the Jessie Bernard Award from the American Sociological Association.^[9]
• Becky Thompson is a human rights activist as well as an activist in feminism surrounding multiple issues of antiracism, gender and class issues. She has a Ph.D. and has written around 100 or more articles.^[10]
• Patricia Hill Collins born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1948, she is greatly known for her article "Learning from the Outsider Within" which was published in 1986.^[11] She is a professor at the University of Maryland, she is working with students and graduate students in race studies as well as feminist studies.^[11]
• Bell Hooks (September 25, 1952 – December 15, 2021) was an American author, professor, feminist, and social activist. The focus of hooks' writing was to explore the intersectionality of race, capitalism, gender, and what she described as their ability to produce and perpetuate systems of oppression and class domination.
• Audre Lorde (February 18, 1934 – November 17, 1992) was an American writer, feminist, womanist, librarian and civil rights activist. She was a self-described "black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet" who "dedicated both her life and her creative talent to confronting and addressing injustices of racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia."

Application

A fundamental belief of multiracial feminist theory is the requirement of intersectionality to broaden contemporary feminist discourse. Despite this, however, multiracial feminism struggles to gain momentum as an intersectional approach to combating oppression and is a fairly new concept in the world of quantitative research. Though it may be new, Catherine Harnois writes in her book, Feminist Measure in Survey Research, that multiracial feminism may be more beneficial to feminist discourse than once thought.^[12]

Family study, formation and power relations have been extensively examined using a multiracial feminist approach, the results of which reveal a hidden power dynamic between “advantaged families and disadvantaged families.”^[13] Advantaged families have been shown to rely on the labor and disadvantage of poorer families, women, women of color, minorities and immigrants.

Women of color provide an "outsider within" perspective as they are active participants in dominance while also continuing to be oppressed by it.^[3] In understanding multiracial feminism, it is important to note how interlocking forms of oppression persist to marginalize groups of people.^[3] Although people continue to be oppressed, others are privileged at the sacrifice of those who don't obtain the benefits of the system. Patricia Hill Collins defines the term, Matrix of Domination, to refer to how various forms of oppression work differently depending on what social location one obtains.^[3] In reference to this term, people will have varying experiences with gender, class, race and sexuality depending on what social position one has in relation to structural powers.^[3] In terms of interlocking oppressions, this results in different social groups experiencing varying subordination and privilege.^[3]

Activism

Though women of color are rarely credited as being prominent in the second-wave feminist movement, it has become clear that multiracial feminism was present in the 1980s, 1990s and even today.^[2]

In the 1970s, women of color worked alongside hegemonic, white feminist groups but found them to be mostly centered on the white, middle-class feminist issues of the time. With the help of white, anti-racist women, women of color gave rise to multiracial feminist theory and led to the development of organizations created by and for women of color.^[4]

Multiracial feminists of the 1980s challenged white feminism by speaking out about the individual experiences of women of color, immigrants, and “third-world women” who had been largely swept under the rug.^[14] This was mostly done through multiracial feminist writings, which have been revealed to date as far back as the 1960s.

Organizations

In April 1996, there was a rally in Middletown, Connecticut led by a multiracial coalition.^[19] Taking place at Wesleyan University, the rally was organized in defense of journalist and author Mumia Abu-Jamal who had been placed on Pennsylvania's death row in Pennsylvania.

The Combahee River Collective was a black feminist group that started in 1974 and influenced multiracial feminism to be included in Second-Wave feminism.^[20] They created a Black Feminist Statement to express their political views and the changes they desired.

Women of All Red Nations (WARN) is a feminist group created by Native American women that was formed in 1974 to fight the promotion of sterilization and the act of sterilization in Native communities.^[4]

In 1971, a group of Chicanas created one of the earliest feminist organizations of the Second Wave, due to sexual harassment within The Chicano Movement. They named this women's revolutionary group after a Mexican underground newspaper, Hijas de Cuauhtémoc. Later, some of the founders launched the first national Chicana studies journal, Encuentro Feminil.

Criticism

Some criticisms have been raised challenging whether or not multiracial feminist theory can produce measurable results due to a lack of “existing survey tools” by which to quantify or examine those experiences.^[21]

See also

• Feminist theory § History of feminist theory
• Maxine Baca Zinn § Early life and education
• Intersectionality § Historical background
• Feminism and racism

References