PART FIVE: Feminism, difference and identity: Chapter 27: BLACK FEMINIST THOUGHT.

This chapter argues on the need to explore the intersections between gender, race and class in structuring the position of African American women. The term Black feminist has also been used to describe selected African American women who possess some version of a feminist consciousness. This usage of the term yields the most restrictive notion of who can be a Black feminist. Biologically deterministic criteria for the term black and the accompanying assumption that being of African descent somehow produces a certain consciousness or perspective are inherent in these definitions. By presenting race as being fixed and immutable these approaches mask the historical construction of racial categories, the shifting meaning of race, and the crucial role of politics and ideology in shaping conceptions of race. In contrast, much greater variation is afforded the term feminist. Feminists are seen as ranging from biologically determined to notions of feminists as individuals who have undergone some type of political transformation theoretically achievable by anyone. Though the term Black feminist could also be used to describe any individual who embraces Black feminist ideas, the separation of biology from ideology required for this usage is rarely seen in the works of Black women intellectuals. Sometimes the contradictions among these competing definitions can be so great that Black women writers use all simultaneously.