Black Feminist Standpoint Theory Essay

For a very long time Black women have argued that there is indeed a Black feminist standpoint based on theoretical understanding of black women 's everyday lives and experiences (Reynolds 591). This theory is about the shared general knowledge that comes from shared lived experiences, specifically experiences of oppression. Black feminist standpoint is made up of a lot of different ideas. It is very interesting as it focuses on both the differences and similarities of African American women from different places in time and how these things all tie into each other to result in a common motivation. Authors like Patricia Hill Collins and Tracey Reynolds break down this idea of Black feminist standpoint in ways that make it simplest to understand, highlighting things like individuality and collectivity, identity, and more; but in order to really understand Black feminist standpoint it is important to first know what standpoint theory is in general.
To begin, standpoint theory all started with the Karl Marx, a German philosopher and sociologist. Marx argued that people from an oppressed group have special access to knowledge that people from a privileged group don’t have. This “special” knowledge all comes from experience. This makes sense when you …show more content…
The answer is yes it can be altered. According to Reynolds, “Changes are required so that black feminist standpoint theory is able to promote a more inclusive model of black womanhood. Black feminist standpoint must take a more contextual, more reflexive, fluid and locally based approach to understanding black women’s live so that the scope, complexities and diversity of black women’s lives can be successfully captured. By doing so it will also avoid much of the criticisms levelled against it” (Reynolds 603). In order for Black feminist theory to paint a better picture of itself it is going to take a lot more