This is from book "feminist and theory and literary practie by Deborah L. Madsen"

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Gender and Race:
Feminism of
Colour
Wiwin Malinda - 216332006
Critical Theory

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Deborah L. Madsen
Melbourne, Australia December 13 1960 (age
61 years)
Professor of American Literature at the
University of Geneva
the author of numerous books books on
aspects of literature, genre, gender and
allegory
The varieties of feminist
thought

3. the fact of being male of female,
especially when considered with
reference to social and cultural
differences, not differences in
biology. (Dict)
Gender
one of the main groups that humans can be
divided into according to their physical
diffences, for example colour of their skin.
(Dict)
Race

4. A survey of theoretical issues highlighted by
feminist colour, foucing upon:
01
Angela Davis's Women, Race and Class (1981)
It contains Marxist feminist analysis of gender, race
and class.
02
bell hook's Feminist Theory: From MArgin to
Center (1984)
The book confirmed her importance as a leader in
radical feminist thought.
03
Paula Gunn Allen's The Sacred Hoop (1986)
04
Gloria Anzaldúa's Borderlands/La Frontiera (1987)
and Making Face, Making Soul: Haciendo Caras
(1990)
The primary theoretical concept here include: the critique of mainstream feminism by women
of colour in terms of the historical relationship between white feminism and racism.
the theoretical focus upon activism (by women of colour) versus self-aggrandisement (by
white middle-class feminists)

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Peyton Smith
Co-Founder and Chief
Executive Officer
Feminist of
colour point
to the
emergence
of:
Black feminism is a philosophy that centers on the idea
that "Black women are inherently valuable, that [Black
women's] liberation is a necessity not as an adjunct to
somebody else's but because our need as human persons
for autonomy."

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Peyton Smith
Co-Founder and Chief
Executive Officer
Chicana/Hispana Feminism
Feminist of colour point
to the emergence of:
Chicana feminism is a sociopolitical movement in the United States that
analyzes the historical, cultural, spiritual, educational, and economic
intersections of women that identify as Chicana. Chicana feminism
empowers women and insist that they challenge the stereotypes and
boundaries that Chicanas face across lines of gender, ethnicity, race, class,
and sexuality. Most importantly, Chicana feminism is a movement. It is
also a theory and praxis that helps women reclaim their existence
between and among the Chicano Movement and American feminist
movements.
Chicana (a chosen identity
for Mexican-American in US
Chicano (sometimes used
interchangeably with
Mexican American)

7. The women's liberation movement in Asia was a feminist movement that started in
the late 1960s and through the 1970s. Women's liberation movements in Asia
sought to redefine women's relationships to the family and the way that women
expressed their sexuality. Women's liberation in Asia also dealt with particular
challenges that made the liberation movement unique in different countries.
White Feminism
Feminist of colour point to the emergence of:
Asian Feminism
White feminism is a term used to describe expressions of feminism
which are perceived as focusing on white women while failing to
address distinct forms of oppression faced by ethnic minority
women and women lacking other privileges, it has been used to
label and criticize theories that are perceived as focusing solely on
gender-based inequality, failing to acknowledge and integrate the
notion of intersectionality in the struggle for equality

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This racialised feminist perspective recognises the feminist issue of
‘double consciousness’:
- the perceived contradiction between what one is in oneself and
the cultural image imposed by the racism of others
- a contradiction that prevents women of colour achieving full
subjectivity or selfhood.

9. Survey of Feminism of
Colour
Feminism of colour has directed attention to the historical relationship between white feminism and
racism. the first wave of American feminism supported the anti-slavery cause but threatened the
withdrawal of its support for abolition if black men should be enfranchised before white women.
Angela Davis, in "Women, Race and Class (1981)", quotes Elizabeth Cady Stanton's 1865 to the New York
Standard:
"It becomes a serious question whether we had better stand aside and see "Sambo" walk into the
kingdom first" If two millions of black women are not secured the rights of person, property, wages and
children, their emancipation is but another form of slavery. In fact, it is better to be a slave of an educated
white man, than of a degraded, ignorant black one. (Davis, 1981, p.70)
PrincipleofFeminismofColour

10. The second wave of feminism in America did little to
recognize the interdependence of racism and sexism as
symptomatic of a culture of oppression
coloured women were excluded from position of public
influence in both the black male-dominated Civil Rights
movement and the Women's Movement which was
dominated by white women.
in "Feminist Theory: from margin to center", bell hooks
critics the colour (and class) blindness embedded in one
of the resurgent feminist movement's canonical text:
hooks points out:
"Friedan's famous phrase, 'the problem that has no name',
actually referred to the plight of college-educated, middle and
upper class, married white women – housewives bored with
leisure. She did not speak of the needs of women without men,
without children, without homes. She ignored the existence of
all non-white women and poor white women."

11. not only black Feminist like Davis and hooks, but all feminists of colour insist
upon recognition of the relationship between class and race as they crucially affect
the experience of gender and sexualised power relationships.
They work towards the redistribution of cultural power rather than increased
access (by white women) to the existing power hierarchy, which is how theorists
like bell hooks represent liberal feminism.
The emphasis upon getting women into positions of power and prestige has meant
preserving the existing socioeconomic system, and the result has been increased
poverty for the majority of women.
By addressing the problem of sexism in isolation from the network of oppressive
relationships that include racism and classism as well, feminists have alienated
working class and coloured women from liberation struggle.
In Borderlands / La Frontera, Gloria Anzaldúa explains that there are very few
cultural roles available for Chicanas; women were confined to the roles of ‘wife’,
‘prostitute’ or ‘nun’

12. In patriarchal Chicano culture, femininity is identified with the
carnal body and so women must be protected against the power
of their own sexuality. Correspondingly, masculinity is
constructed differently according to each racial or ethnic group.
This means that women need to express the ways in which their
experience of their sexuality is mediated by their racial identity.
'Double consciousness' or double stigma describes the oppression of the
individual both as a woman and as a member of an ethnic minority. Historically
this has described the experience of blacks who are placed in a fixed subject
position by the racist white culture they inhabit. Black women describe the same
mechanism in operation when they deal with white feminists.

13. one of the most prominent Native theorists of this kind of
feminine empowerment, which she explores in terms of Native
spirituality, is Paula Gunn Allen. In the essay, 'Who is you
Mother? The Red Roots of White Feminism', Allen describes the
importance accorded to women tribal society:
Paula Gunn Allen was a Native American poet, literary critic,
activist, professor, and novelist. Of mixed-race European-
American, Native American, and Arab-American descent.
(1939-2008)
Femaleness was highly valued, both respected and feared, and all social
institutions reflected this attitude. Even modern sayings, like the Cheyenne
statement that a people is not conquered until the hearts of the women are
on the ground, express the Indians’ understanding that without the power
of woman the people will not live, but with it, they will endure and prosper
(Allen, 1990, p. 212)

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The construction of a feminist 'voice' for women of colour, a voice
with which to speak to white women as well as men, is an urgent
issue.
Gloria Anzaldúa explains the manner in which Chicanas are
oppressed by the cultural imperative that women remain silent,
unquestioning, invisible. 'Break the women with their own
tongues!'. (Kingston, 1975, p.49).
Some of the most pressing questions facing ethnic women writers
are: how to speak in such a way as to be listened to seriously by
white women and by men within one's own racial group?
Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa was
an American scholar of Chicana
cultural theory, feminist theory,
and queer theory. (1942-2004)

15. Third-WorldFeminism in Praxis
Takes four keys of American ethnic women's writing, representing
four important areas of American ethnic literature:
- Black
- Chicana
- Native
- Asian
this discussion focuses on two areas: first the development of a
distinctive feminine ethnic or racial voice in this texts, and
secondly the strategies by which elements of an ethnic cultural
tradition are reworked so that they become expressive of a
feminist voice instead of expressing traditional patriarchal values.

16. Third World Feminist Left during the 1960s and 1970s. This
movement saw ending imperialism and colonialism as a necessary
part of their fight against racism, sexism, and capitalism in the
United States and beyond and drew inspiration from Third World
feminism and decolonization activities. Third World feminism posits
that women's activisms in the Third World do not originate from the
ideologies of the First World and specifically centers Third World
women's radicalism in their local/national contexts and struggles.

17. Alice Walker
THE COLOR PURPLE (1983)
Alice Malsenoi Tallulah-Kate Walker
February 9, 1944 in Eatonton, Georgia, United States
(age 78 years)
American novelist
the first African-American woman to in the Pulitzer
Prize for Fiction, which she was awarded for her novel
'The Color Purple'

18. The Color Purple (1983)
the narrative structure of feminist epistolary novel
provides a starting point for a consideration in
feminist terms of Walker's dominant themes: the
concept of God; the interconnectedness of race and
gender oppression; racial politics; sexuality:
incestuous rape, lesbianism, 'womanism' versus
feminism; writing and self-expression.

19. Walker's vision for the role of the woman writer is defined in her graduation
address at Sarah Lawrence College in 1972.
She stresses that the task confronting educated women is nothing less than
the transformation of the world. Walker continues to write in support of
equality for Blacks and women.
Walker faces the problem of how to represent a complex black woman when
all available literary forms mitigate against this.
There are two related formal problems: distrust of a predominantly white
readership which may misinterpret the text and read it on white terms rather
than its African-American terms.
In The Color Purple, Walker's solution is to create a feminist epistolary
mode, adapted to Black women's experience. Biographical or diary
element of the form places the self in a prominent position, it asserts the
self, and so it is an effective strategy for foregrounding black female
subjectivity.

20. The result showed that black woman oppression can be seen in some
aspects just like in social relations, education, job and legal protection.
Oppression brought negative impact not only to the black woman but
also to societies. Oppression caused by negative prejudice to the black
woman. They taught that black people are sub human, evil and cursed
people. This oppression brought serious impact to Celie, she lost her
identity, being uneducated and isolated by the society. But finally she
could find her voice, stop believing that she is ugly, can’t do anything
properly, and has no dignity. She realized that she needs to step
forward for a better life. (Lasambu, 2019)

21. DENISE CHÁVEZ
The Last of Menu Girls (1986)
Denise Elia Chávez is a Chicana author, playwright, and
stage director.
Born: August 15, 1948 (age 73 years), Las Cruces, New
Mexico, United States
taught classes at New Mexico State University.
The Last of the Menu Girls is a series of connected
stories that can be read either individually or in series.
Chávez represents the acquisition of an effective literary
voice in the structure and substance of the text. The
structure of the narrative represents the fragmentation
of identity under the twin pressures of racism and
sexism.

22. Chávez situates Rocío's experience within the context of the
oppression of women within their own ethnic group as well as within
the dominant patriarchal racist culture.
Images of women appear in the narrative in succession; old and
young, white and Hispanic, from the past and the present.
this images of femininity are linked, negatively, with the imagery of
the narrative which emphasizes the body, especially the female body,
but in the terms of death, dying and disease.
La Llorona represents as an image of the dispossessed Hispanic
woman, the victim of oppression and exploitation who bears the
blame for her own suffering.

23. Maxine Hong Kingston,
'The Woman Warrior'
Born: October 27, 1940 (age 81 years), Stockton, California, United States
American novelist
Professor Emerita at the University of California, Berkeley,
written three novels and several works of non-fiction about the experiences of
Chinese Americans.

24. Like The Last of the Menu Girls, The Woman Warrior
represents a hybrid form, comprised of autobiography,
biography, myths and legends, historical reconstruction.
In each of the five sections of the narrative, there is offered a
feminine character or a feminine role (daughter, student,
warrior, writer).
The narrative necessarily explores the misogynistic practices
that her mother has overcome in traditional Chinese patriarchy.
Maxine recalls that as a child, 'I might as well have said, "I'm
not a bad girl" '.
The author tries to understand the conflicting demands made
of her by her Chinese ancestry and American childhood.
'Nobody in history has conquered and united both North
America and Asia' - Maxine

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en.wikipedia.org
Lasambu, Amalia S. Black Women Oppression in
Walker's 'THE COLOR PURPLE'. Manado State
University. 2019
Madsen, Deborah L. Feminist theory and literary
practice. Pluto Press, 2000
https://www.amherst.edu/academiclife/department
s/courses/2021F
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