Womanism
Womanism is a term originating from the work of African American author Alice Walker in her 1983 book In Search of Our Mother's Garden, denoting a movement within feminism, primarily championed by Black feminists. Walker coined the term "womanist" in the short story Coming Apart in 1979.[1][2][3] Her initial use of the term evolved to envelop a spectrum of issues and perspectives facing black women and others.[4][5]
Not to be confused with Feminism.
Walker defined "womanism" as embracing the courage, audacity, and self-assured demeanor of Black women, alongside their love for other women, themselves, and all of humanity. Since its inception by Walker, womanism has expanded to encompass various domains, giving rise to concepts like Africana womanism and womanist theology or spirituality.
Womanism can be applied as a social theory based on the history and everyday experiences of Black women. According to womanist scholar Layli Maparyan (Phillips), womanist theory seeks to "restore the balance between people and the environment/nature and reconcil[e] human life with the spiritual dimension."[1]
Theory[edit]
Womanist theory, while diverse, holds at its core that mainstream feminism is a movement led by white women to serve white women's goals and can often be indifferent to, or even in opposition to, the needs of Black women. Feminism does not inherently render white women non-racist, while womanism places anti-racism at its core. Both the empowerment of women and the upholding of Black cultural values are seen as important to Black women's existence. In this view, the very definition of "the feminine" and "femininity" must be re-examined and contextualized.[4] While third-wave feminism shares this concern with the more recently coined term, intersectionality, the two concepts differ in the valuation they place on intersectionality within their respective theoretical frameworks.[6] Womanism supports the idea that the culture of the woman, which in this case is the focal point of intersection as opposed to class or some other characteristic, is not an element of her identity but rather is the lens through which her identity exists. As such, a woman's Blackness is not a component of her feminism. Instead, her Blackness is the lens through which she understands her feminist/womanist identity.[7]
Womanist theory grew in large part out of the perceived indifference of the feminist movement towards the concerns of Black women. Early feminist activism around suffrage (first-wave feminism) in the United States largely excluded non-white women, as non-white women were not seen as feminine/female in the same ways as white women and therefore did not merit full inclusion.[8]
The rise of second-wave feminism brought greater inclusivity of non-white women within the movement. However, white feminists equated this inclusion with "colorblindness" and preferred to deemphasize racial issues in favor of focusing exclusively on gender concerns. An inability to reconcile this division ultimately hampered the ability of white and non-white feminists to create a functional interracial movement. As a result of this disconnect between the groups, a third-wave feminism began that incorporated the concepts of intersectionality and womanism.[9]
The historic exclusion of Black women from the broader feminist movement has resulted in two interpretations of womanism. Some womanists believe that the experience of Black women will not be validated by feminists to be equal to the experience of white women because of the problematic way in which some feminists treated Blackness throughout history.[10] As such, womanists do not see womanism as an extension of feminism, but rather as a theoretical framework which exists independent of feminist theory. This is a departure from the thinking of Black feminists who have carved their own space in feminism through academia and activism.[11]
However, not all womanists hold this view of womanism as distinct from feminism. The earliest conception of womanism is expressed in Alice Walker's statement "womanism is to feminism as purple is to lavender".[12] Under this rubric, the theories appear intimately tied, with womanism as the broad umbrella under which feminism falls.
Phases of the theory[edit]
Womanist (1979)[edit]
Author and poet Alice Walker first used the term "womanist" in her short story, "Coming Apart", in 1979,[1] and later in In Search of our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose (1983). Walker defined a "womanist" as a Black feminist or feminist of color. The term comes from the Black folk expression of mothers to female children, 'You acting womanish', referring to grown-up behavior.[13][14] The womanish girl exhibits willful, courageous, and outrageous behavior that is considered to be beyond the scope of societal norms.[12] She goes on to say that a womanist is also:
Critiques[edit]
A major ongoing critique about womanist scholarship is the failure of many scholars to critically address homosexuality within the Black community. Walker's protagonist in Coming Apart uses writings from two African-American womanists, Audre Lorde and Luisah Teish, to support her argument that her husband should stop consuming pornography,[3] and posts quotes from lesbian poet Lorde above her kitchen sink. In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens states that a womanist is "a woman who loves another woman, sexually and/or non-sexually",[12] yet despite Coming Apart and In Search of Our Mother's Gardens, there is very little literature linking womanism to lesbian or bisexual issues. Womanist theologian Renee Hill cites Christian influences as a source of this heterosexism and homophobia.[50]
Rev. Kelly Brown Douglas also sees the influence of the Black church, and its male leadership, as a reason for the community at large having little regard for queer women of color.[51] Black feminist critic Barbara Smith blames this lack of support on the Black community's reluctance to come to terms with homosexuality.[19] On the other hand, there is also an increase in the criticism of heterosexism within womanist scholarship. Christian womanist theologian Pamela R. Lightsey, in her book Our Lives Matter: A Womanist Queer Theology (2015), writes, "To many people, we are still perverts. To many, the black pervert is the most dangerous threat to the American ideal. Because the black conservative bourgeoisie has joined the attack on our personhood, black LGBTQ persons cannot allow the discourse to be controlled such that our existence within the black community is denied or made invisible."[52]
An additional critique lies within the ambivalence of womanism. In African womanism, the term is associated with Black nationalist discourse and the separatist movement. Patricia Collins argues that this exaggerates racial differences by promoting homogeneous identity. This is a sharp contrast to the universalist model of womanism that is championed by Walker. The continued controversy and dissidence within the various ideologies of womanism serves only to draw attention away from the goal of ending race and gender-based oppression.[25]