美国黑人女性主义初探

Contents

Acknowledgements

摘要 (3)

Abstract (4)

Introduction (6)

Chapter One Origins of the Black Feminism in the United States (12)

1.1Black Women’s Experience under Racism,Sexism and Classism (12)

1.1.1Black Women in Slavery (13)

1.1.2Black Women in Reconstruction Era (16)

1.1.3Working Class Black Women (18)

1.2Black Women in the Civil Rights Movement and Second Wave Feminism

20

1.2.1Sexism in Male Dominated Civil Rights Movement (21)

1.2.2Racism in Feminist Movement (23)

Chapter Two (27)

The Development of the Black Feminism in the United States (27)

2.1Early Stage Black Feminism (27)

2.2Black Feminist Movement in the Civil Rights Era (31)

2.3Black Feminist Thought and the Black Feminism in the Post Civil Rights Era

(34)

Chapter Three Black Feminism and Mainstream Feminism (41)

3.1Black Feminism (41)

3.2Black Feminists’Criticism on Mainstream Feminism (43)

3.3Criticism of Black Feminism (46)

Chapter Four Influence of Black Feminism in the United States (49)

4.1The Improvement of the Social Status of Black Women (49)

4.2Black Feminism’s Contribution to Race and Gender Studies (53)

Conclusion (56)

Bibliography (58)

Introduction

Amid the surging waves of the Civil Rights Movement in the1960s and the feminist movement in the1970s,black feminism emerged from African American women’s long-cherished intellectual and activist traditions as a distinctive school of feminist thought.By highlighting the uniqueness of African American women’s social status and experience and by challenging the stereotypical representations of black women in the white-dominated American society,black feminists have effectively raised the identity consciousness of the special group and significantly empowered them in their tenacious fight for equal rights.

There is no doubt that the raging liberation movements of blacks and women in the middle of the20th century acted as a great catalyst for the birth of black feminism, but the seeds of this new feminist school had been planted in American soil centuries before the1960s,the most volatile time in American history.Long before independence of the country,black women had been victims of multiple oppressions. As blacks,they lived through three dark centuries(the16th to19th century)of slavery, bandaged in harsh servitude like their male counterparts and denied almost every human right—personal freedom,property right as well as the right to vote;even after their legal emancipation,they were still far from being equal to the dominant whites due to both institutionalized racial segregation and entrenched racist ideologies.As women,they have been subject to rigid sexual discrimination and constant sexual harassment like their white sisters,kept out of higher education and the so-called “men’s jobs”and activities and deprived the right to live equally with the male. Impoverished as most of them always are,they have been frequently forced into the workforce for bare survival,subject to ruthless economic exploitation in the capitalist America.The black women,though differing in terms of cultural background and life experience,all share this multiple-layered identity of being black,female and working class,and the“multiple jeopardy”it brought about.Those are the very origins of their feminist consciousness.