When we think of feminism, often times the images of "equal pay now" signs and flaming bras in the street cross our overactive minds. As someone who is very involved and inspired by the many social justice movements that happen in our country every day, there is one movement that I have always been reluctant to join. Yes, I'm talking about the feminist movement. I often times wondered why I felt like this, but it was not until recently that I really dug down and started to discover. Feminism is like the continual "new" pair of jeans. It never really goes out of style and pops up every time a new generation grows up and reaches social conciseness. Yet, one thing that regrettably has stayed the same is the lack of visual feminist of color representation.
This is the so-called "fifth wave of feminism". As a woman of color, I have seen that we have achieved so many great strides in the past century when it comes to gender equality, but often times that so called "equality" is one sided and only one sub-group of the female gender. White feminism has been at the forefront of the movement since it began and during many of it's earlier waves were known to exclude feminist and suffragettes of color from taking leadership roles. This is often when intersectionality is brought in the discussion between white feminist and women of color. Intersectionality is a theory that an individual can face multiple threats of discrimination when their identities overlap in multiple minority classes. The lack of understanding from many White feminist that women of color are not only marginalized gender wise but when it comes to their race as well creates a divide within a group that has never really truly come together as one.
There has been countless of instances of racism through the history of the feminist movement, but it has often times been muddied over and overlooked. White women leading the equality campaign movements in the early twentieth century would often times ask black suffragettes to march in the back of parades. Many refused to attend concluding that this was just another form of segregation. The tension between white feminist and feminist of color has been raging for over a century. It is because instances like this, that many women of color avoid claiming themselves as feminist. It is in this that many believe that a lot of White feminist acknowledge that we want our voices, but choose to ignore taking steps to help the movement become more equal.
Just two generations removed ago, women could not get their own credit card, serve on a jury, go on birth control without their husband’s consent, and get an Ivy League education (Harvard did not start accepting women until 1969). We have made many strides socially since then. Women are more likely to earn a college degree compared to their male counterparts, yet still, are paid 79 cents less than their male co-workers for doing the same job. Unfortunately, that pay is even less for women of color. Black women above all other groups have the highest college enrollment, yet we still aren’t seeing our hardworking displayed external in our society. This is why we need to unite all of our sub-groups of feminist. To promote the empowerment of women regardless of anything else.
