Fear of isolation deters black women from publicly embracing feminist politics

Evidence

Why is it that some women experience their subjectivity and fi nd in this experience a resource for resistance to the forces that alienate them from their subjectivity? Why is it that other women either lack this experience of authentic subjectivity or do not fi nd it grounds for resistance? Attending to these questions brings us to Beauvoir’s concept of the appeal. For at least part of her answer is that it is women’s isolation from each other that isolates them from their experienced subjectivity— that for these individual experiences to be felt as something other than an individual aberration, a woman must discover that her experience of subjectivity is shared by other women. Th is discovery is essential for political action; for if it is the case that it is as individuals that we are responsible for unmasking the structures of oppression, it is also and necessarily the case that undoing these structures requires collective action— the appeal. — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 73 (#expands, via linked claim)

Contemporary black women who supported patriarchal dominance placed their submission to the status quo in the context of racial politics and argued that they were willing to accept a subordinate role in relationship to black men for the good of the race. They were indeed a new generation of black females—a generation that had been brainwashed not by black revolutionaries but by white society, by the media, to believe that woman’s place was in the home. They were the first generation of black women to face competition with white women for the attention of black men. Many of them accepted black male sexism solely because they were afraid of being alone, of not having male companions. — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 537 (#expands, via linked claim)

In those days no one really imagined there to be an audience for a work about black women. In general, black folks then were far more likely to denounce women’s liberation, seeing it as a white woman thing. As a consequence, black female individuals who eagerly embraced the movement were often isolated and estranged from other black folks. We were usually the only black person in predominately white circles. And any talk of race was viewed as shifting the attention away from the politics of gender. No wonder then that black females had to create a separate and distinct body of work that would bring together our understanding of race, class, and gender. — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 17 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Fear of being alone drove black women to accept black male sexism — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 537; The matriarchy myth suppresses black women’s collective political organizing — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 234; Early black feminists were isolated from both black communities and the white feminist movement — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 17 (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Women’s isolation from each other blocks recognition that their subjectivity struggles are shared #expands (0.86) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 73
• Fear of being alone drove black women to accept black male sexism #expands (0.85) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 537
• Early black feminists were isolated from both black communities and the white feminist movement #corroborates (0.82) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 17
• Suffrage politics trapped black women between racist feminists and sexist black men #exemplifies (0.80)
• Black women’s rising gender consciousness strengthened rather than split racial solidarity. #contradicts (0.80) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 251
• The matriarchy myth suppresses black women’s collective political organizing #corroborates (0.78) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 234
• Racist, sexist socialization conditioned black women to devalue femaleness and identify only with race #expands (0.78) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 24
• Black women’s silence on sexism stemmed from socialization that devalued their femaleness #qualifies (0.75)
• Exclusion from electoral politics drove black women to build their own representative bodies. #complicates (0.74) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 690
• Black women theorizing together occupies a terrain long denied them #complicates (0.72)
• Defensive interventions diverted black women from building black-centered feminist scholarship #qualifies (0.72) — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 223