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BLACK CIVIL RIGHTS, FEMINISM AND POWER
Abstract: Liberal feminism was strongly influenced by the strategies and vision of the black civil fights movement. Similarly, radical feminism was shaped by the strategies and visions of the black power movement. This article offers a comparative perspective of the strategies and visions of feminist, civil rights, and power movements.
Keywords: liberal feminism, black power, civil rights, radical feminism
The visions and strategies of liberal and radical feminism find their roots in the black political theories and social change movements of the 1960's. Liberal feminism paralleled the black civil fights movement in an analysis which minimized the differences between men and women (blacks and whites); a vision of equal opportunity and integration in the public sphere; and strategies which worked within the existing system to make legal changes in government and business, and to educate men and women about mistaken cultural ideas.
In contrast, the analysis, vision and strategies of radical feminism drew from the black power movement. Parallels include: an analysis framing the differences between men and women (blacks and whites); a vision of global liberation and selfdetermination; design to dismantle the existing system, and to create autonomy through self-education.
The visions and strategies of liberal feminism and radical feminism were flawed in that they were based on an analysis that reduced all oppressions to the dimension of gender, and more narrowly, gender as defined by white middle class heterosexual experience. Similarly, black movements did not always take perspectives other than race, and at times, class, into account. The complexity of multiple identities was not consistently present in any of these movements, although African American women were addressing concepts concerning multi-faceted oppressions during this time period, providing an important body of critical writing.
Feminist theory describes the status/position of an oppressed group, i.e., women. Charlotte Bunch, in her article "Not By Degrees", argues that feminist theory plays a critical role in, as Bunch states "naming reality". (Bunch 1979). The theory provides a vision of how society should be structured. Once this vision exists, with an analysis of what has gone wrong, feminists can develop strategies with which to address the current reality.
The contemporary women's movement developed as an outgrowth of the black civil rights movement of the...