ABSTRACT
By the end of Chapter 5, you will be able to:
Discuss the politicisation and sexualisation of black womanhood
Draw on black feminist thought and intersectionality to examine the relationship between capitalism, patriarchy and racism
Consider how sexual and gender-based violence works as a tool of oppression in capitalist societies
Evaluate the impact of the past on the devaluation of black womanhood in the present
Apply your understanding to case studies
We return to black feminism and intersectionality in this chapter to discuss the politicisation and sexualisation of black womanhood in America. Black feminist theory-work has had a profound and lasting impact on intellectual, public and social life in the United States. Black feminists have created a range of safe spaces and multiple communities of resistance despite the suppression of black womanhood (Hill Collins, 1990). This chapter examines the relationship between knowledge, representation and power in the construction of black womanhood in America. The classed, gendered and racialised body is central to our discussion. It goes without saying that African American women are a heterogeneous group differentiated by class, colour, gender, religion and sexuality – among other phenomena. Like all women, no one black woman’s experience of oppression or privilege is the same as the next. However, black women have been systematically oppressed as a social group in America. We begin with African American feminist, writer and civil rights activist Audre Lorde’s (1934–1992) erotic, that is the creative resource of power and energy that lies within women. The erotic is an important feminist tool and a source of empowerment for all women.