Womanism vs Feminism: What’s the Difference?

RODNAE Productions, Pexels, https://www.pexels.com/photo/road-man-people-woman-6257699/

Student Ambassador Weekly Check-in: Hi everyone! Back to school season is in full swing and the month of September has really been about setting the scene for The HistoryMakers takeover of Wellesley College. This week I co-taught once again and did a demo in a Wellesley class about how to do research in the archives. I also had an interview with The Wellesley News, our student run newspaper on campus and the article is set to come out in the next few days! Now I am shifting to finalizing a thorough and concrete Black History Month Contest as well as designing our first large-scale on campus event.

This week’s blog post topic is: Black Feminism. The search terms that I used included: “Kimberle Crenshaw,” whose name I thought to search since she coined the term intersectionality and is considered very central in women’s and gender studies academia and “Womanism,” as I was unfamiliar with the term and wanted to learn more about it’s historical significance and comparisons to feminism. I wanted to search for terms beyond the general “feminism” to garner more intriguing and unique narratives, I was able to find numerous informative anecdotes!

HistoryMaker Barbara Ransby, The HistoryMakers, https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/barbara-ransby-42

HistoryMaker Dr. Maisha Handy, The HistoryMakers, https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/reverend-dr-maisha-handy

HistoryMaker Barbara Ransby (1957-), a History and African American studies professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, makes note of the importance of the intersectionality of race and women’s issues. In the context of discussing Anita Hill, HistoryMaker Ransby states, “I think we had been talking about some of the issues that came out with Anita Hill. I mean, one of the issues was also the way in which race and gender get dichotomized. Sometimes in the press they were saying there are people who support Anita Hill as a woman and there are people who support Clarence Thomas… as a black man... So there was the idea that there were black issues and then women's issues… where does that leave black women? And part of our statement was of course--there's an intersection, as Kimberle Crenshaw [Kimberle Williams Crenshaw] and others have said, there's an intersection between race and gender and class and sexuality, and that we need to understand the relationship of all these things to each other rather than pitting them, you know, against each other, or falsely dividing the categories.”[1]

HistoryMaker Dr. Maisha Handy (1968-), a religion professor and minister who also served as a teaching assistant to Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, explains to us the origins of Womanist Theology. She informs, “[HistoryMaker Reverend Dr.] Jacquelyn Grant actually studied with Dr. Cone, [HistoryMaker] James [H.] Cone, for her Ph.D. work… And what womanist theology does is… I think it critiques two main movements, meaning one, it offer a critique back to Dr. James Cone in saying, in his articulation of black theology and of his understanding of the black church, he was very sexist and did not include the sisters, if you will, and their contributions to theology and to the church in some of his analysis. And, you know, he has since, of course, evolved in that, but when his books, 'God of the Oppressed' [James H. Cone] and 'Black Theology & Black Power' [James H. Cone] and all those books were coming out in the 1970s, it still maintained a lot of the sexism that was found largely in the black church. The second movement that I think womanist theology speaks to is the feminist movement.”[2] She further clarifies that, “Womanism and feminism are not the same. The feminist movement… emerged, again, around the 1960s and '70s [1970s] when women were wanting equal work for equal pay and… really interested in getting involved in the public sphere and in the job force. And, of course, black women felt that a lot of the concerns around the feminist movement largely again centered around white women and their concerns. And the issue of race, particularly, was not addressed. And so what womanist theology says is that you can't talk about sexism and gender issues without also talking about racism…. So whereas black theology dealt only with race and feminist theology largely only dealt with sex and gender, womanist theology deals with racism, with sexism, with classism, with homophobia and with all of those different types of oppression simultaneously… for the purpose of liberating everybody and not just one particular group.“[3] Admittedly, I was still left wondering about the concrete distinctions, if any, between womanism and feminism or if they were synonymous: this is where the focus of my research turned.

HistoryMaker Reverend Dr. Jacquelyn Grant, The HistoryMakers, https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/reverend-dr-jacquelyn-grant

HistoryMaker Ruby Nell Sales, The HistoryMakers, https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/ruby-nell-sales-39

HistoryMaker Reverend Dr. Jacquelyn Grant (1948-), the founder of the Center for Black Women in Church and Society and author of “White Women’s Christ and Black Women’s Jesus,” provides a different perspective about womanism and it’s origins. When asked, “Would a black feminist be the same as a womanist?” she responds, “I would say yes. We use the term black feminism when I began doing gender work. Feminism, of course, was the term that was in vogue. But much of our time, back then in the early '70s [1970s], in the mid '70s [1970s] was spent differentiating between black feminism and feminism… And so at that point, we black women used to call themselves black feminist. But it was not a term that was comfortable. We were not comfortable there, black feminist, you know. You know, what does that mean? Okay, you take the best of black movement and the best of the feminist movement, what does it mean to be a black feminist… It was not until, I think, around 1984 when Alice Walker published her book, 'In Search of My Mother's Garden: Womanist Prose' that she reacquainted us with an experience that I would say the majority of black women experience, that womanish tradition…”[4] She later emphasizes the intentions of Alice Walker’s terminology, “what [Alice] Walker's referring to is, you know, that the strength of the black woman. She actually defines that word womanist is a feminist of color, you know… a woman who is courageous, audacious, outrageous, you know, it refers to a person who is grown before her time, you know. Like mothers would say to children, you know, girl, you trying to be grown, you know, meaning, you know, acting like you know more than you supposed to know.”[5] Additionally, HistoryMaker Grant gives historical context in the academic context, “black sociologist used to call that strong black woman tradition, you know, that tradition that a group of black female artists refers to as women who could hold the sky up with a broomstick or it refers to that tradition that Cheryl Townsend Gilkes a sociologist, Colby College [Waterville, Maine], says black women who could hold the ocean back with a broom, you know. It refers to that strong black traditional church lingo, you know, women who could make a way out of no way, you know, women like my mother who can take a little and make a lot, you know. It's that strong black woman tradition.”[6] Addingly, HistoryMaker Grant connects the issue of women’s rights to depictions of God: “I mean, there's no accident that in a patriarchal society God is male… Most sophisticated and intelligent persons would when backed up against the wall, you know, would basically argue that God is spirit, but in reality the way it is manifested in our lives, God really, essentially patriarchal society is male. There's no accident that in a racist society, in a society that where white supremacy is ideology of the day that God essentially is white… You're not going to define God in ways that you perceive to be negative. And if in a racist society it's black, if anything, it certainly is negative, you know. So all of these theologies, black womanist, mujerista, Asian American, Latin American, African, Asian theologies, all of these theologies challenge that status quo theology that we've all been given as normative. You know, they're not normative, they come out of your experiences and you deem historically that your experiences have been normative.”[7]

Contrastingly, HistoryMaker Ruby Nell Sales (1948-), who launched a nonprofit organization for community organizing and spirituality, stated a disinterest in the term “womanism”: "“It's a trick because no matter what you say… neither one of those two things are authentic because womanism really is a response to racist feminism and it's a conversation between elite black women with white women about who black women are and the racism. It's not a conversation where ordinary black women have access to the conversation or the symbols. It really is a conversation that grew up in the academy. It's not a community conversation.”[8]

HistoryMaker Pearl Cleage, The HistoryMakers, https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/pearl-cleage-39

HistoryMaker Frances Frazier, The HistoryMakers, https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/frances-frazier

HistoryMaker Pearl Cleage (1948-): a playwright and author of “What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day” that was on Oprah’s Book Club and a New York Times bestseller as well as involved in the Pan-Africanist Movement, the Civil Rights Movement and Feminist Movement, details her personal interactions with feminism. She shares, “For me as a person who was already conscious and radical about race, once I really got it, the gender was the same thing, I was in heaven. Because I already understood what oppression was. I already understood how devastating it can be and how subtle it can be and all the different ways that it can manifest around race, so that when I understood about gender, I applied all of those things to my thinking about gender, and was able to with great struggle, and continue to have great struggle, to make black men take their racial experience, and apply it to what they need to understand about gender, but it's very difficult because it changes their role. For us as black women I think it's not so difficult, because I'm a victim because of race and I'm a victim because of gender so that it's the same thing. I understand that I'm oppressed. For men, if they are being oppressed by race but they're oppressing when it comes to gender, it changes the role completely, and many of the progressive black men that I knew were not prepared to say that they oppressed anybody. They were so used to being the victim of oppression that they fought tooth and nail against the fact that they could be oppressors as well.”[9] When asked, “What is your response to womanism?” HistoryMaker Cleage responds, “I like the word. I love Alice Walker and as far as I know that's her word, the womanist is a feminist of color. I like that in the sense that many black women are not comfortable calling themselves feminist. So that if they're more comfortable saying, I'm a womanist, but what they're really talking about are the same issues that I identify as feminist issues but they can't use the word, then I say fine. Call yourself a womanist, that's fine. Call yourself a free black woman. Call yourself an Amazon warrior. Whatever it is we call ourselves, as long as we're dealing with the feminist issues and with those kinds of things, it's fine with me. I do think we give up something when we throw away the word feminism, because I love the word. It connects us to a history. It connects us to a world of people who have been trying to do things for years and years and years. So that for us to say because we met some racist white American women who call themselves feminist, the word is tainted and we're not gonna use it. I think it's throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I think it's a great word. I think that feminism has a noble wonderful history, and I think that we have been a part of it and we have a right to claim it. If people are uncomfortable with it, you know I say name yourself what you will, but continue to be involved in what the struggle requires.”[10]

Lastly, for this post, HistoryMaker Frances Frazier (1948-), the principal investigator for the ground-breaking research on trauma and resiliency in African American girls in Ohio, “Rise Sister Rise,” insightfully shares why she prefers the term womanist: “Oh, no, I think that I am probably more of a womanist than I am a feminist… we did have Alice Walker back then, probably in the middle '80s [1980s]… Right, in the middle '80s [1980s] because she had written 'In Search of our Mothers' Gardens.' And it's in that book that she coins… the term womanist… I would definitely be a womanist… '85 [1985]… I was also learning more and more about the self-agency of a woman who begins to feel her own power about how she can create change. And so I think these discussions and the work with A Quality of Sharing just kinda gave me more energy… a sense of my own womanist power that, not single-handedly, I don't think you can do anything by yourself, but if you have the vision and the energy, you can make it contagious enough that other women will want to join you in creating change. And so I think I was coming into my own sense of power about that.”[11]

Notes:

[1] Barbara Ransby (The HistoryMakers A2012.016), interviewed by Larry Crowe, January 19, 2012, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 5, story 5, Barbara Ransby describes her experiences with the African American Women in Defense of Ourselves

[2] Reverend Dr. Maisha Handy (The HistoryMakers A2005.200), interviewed by Larry Crowe, August 22, 2005, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 4, story 4, Reverend Dr. Maisha Handy describes womanist theology

[3] Reverend Dr. Maisha Handy (The HistoryMakers A2005.200), interviewed by Larry Crowe, August 22, 2005, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 4, story 4, Reverend Dr. Maisha Handy describes womanist theology

[4] Reverend Dr. Jacquelyn Grant (The HistoryMakers A2003.183), interviewed by Larry Crowe, August 12, 2003, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 4, story 9, Reverend Dr. Jacquelyn Grant explains womanism, pt. 1

[5] Reverend Dr. Jacquelyn Grant (The HistoryMakers A2003.183), interviewed by Larry Crowe, August 12, 2003, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 5, story 1, Reverend Dr. Jacquelyn Grant explains womanism, pt. 2

[6] Reverend Dr. Jacquelyn Grant (The HistoryMakers A2003.183), interviewed by Larry Crowe, August 12, 2003, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 5, story 1, Reverend Dr. Jacquelyn Grant explains womanism, pt. 2

[7] Reverend Dr. Jacquelyn Grant (The HistoryMakers A2003.183), interviewed by Larry Crowe, August 12, 2003, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 5, story 6, Reverend Dr. Jacquelyn Grant challenges the notion of white theology as being normative

[8] Ruby Nell Sales (The HistoryMakers A2003.226), interviewed by Larry Crowe, September 15, 2003, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 5, story 5, Ruby Nell Sales talks about becoming a feminist, her organizations, and her opinions on the differences between womanism and feminism

[9] Pearl Cleage (The HistoryMakers A2004.177), interviewed by Jodi Merriday, September 23, 2004, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 3, story 2, Pearl Cleage remembers how she came to join the feminist movement in the 1970s

[10] Pearl Cleage (The HistoryMakers A2004.177), interviewed by Jodi Merriday, September 23, 2004, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 3, story 2, Pearl Cleage remembers how she came to join the feminist movement in the 1970s

[11] Frances Frazier (The HistoryMakers A2012.078), interviewed by Larry Crowe, May 10, 2013, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 2, tape 8, story 2, Frances Frazier explains her definition of womanism and how it informed the activities of her women's group, A Quality of Sharing