Alice Walker: proponent of womanism
As a Latina living in a society in which white privilege is very real, I have come to understand the importance of colored feminism. It turns out that while the fight against racism and the feminist movement are similar movements in many ways, it’s important that the feminist movement lives up to these ideals and features the voices and perspectives of women of color.
There are many ways in which sexism and racism in this culture create unique situations that only women of color experience and these experiences deserve to be addressed. Take for example the various racist and sexist ways porn depicts women of color. Many people assume Latinas are “spicy” in bed and that Asian women are quiet and submissive because this is the way these groups are depicted in porn and pop-culture generally. Women of these identities aren’t considered human by many viewers of porn so much as they are genres or living fetishes.
Beyond sexuality, women of color also face specific beauty standards based on the intersection of race and gender. Feminists as a group have addressed unattainable beauty standards for years because we all agree that they tend to be toxic and harmful, but we often fail to discuss the dynamic in which beauty standards are also racialized. Specifically, our culture dictates that all women should try to live up to a white standard of beauty. I am not blaming white women or saying they aren’t aware of this, but the reality is that little white girls aren’t under the added oppression of thinking their darker skin tone is unappealing or being told that their hair looks “unprofessional” (as black women are told). They won’t be told their ethnic names are “ghetto” or have their bodies fetishized in quite the same way. These are experiences that need to be addressed and changed.
Feminism must go beyond sexism because racism impacts many women just as detrimentally. So, to any white feminists who think that having specific spaces for and other movements of colored feminism “divides” the bigger feminist movement, I have to argue that it does not. Women of color are creating our own branches of feminism because we experience things that you never will. I truly mean it when I say I am happy that there are women who don’t have to endure these types of oppression, but the reality is that plenty do. Women of color want your support but as long as we have to experience particularly racialized sexist stereotypes, we must create our own mechanisms to protect ourselves.
