Out of all groups of people distinguished by race and gender, black women are the most oppressed and face the most discrimination in our white male dominated society. The struggles of which black women face has been present for centuries and has only recently become a more talked about topic in general discussion. Black women have had a long history of oppression and while at least now the subject is being addressed more many women of color face oppression and discrimination, both racist and sexist, everyday. While black women face a great oppression each day in their lives, that oppression can be separated into different types of oppression. There are three types of oppression which are known as triple oppression in Black Women’s Studies
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While many other demographics face racism as well, black women are confronted with it in the feminist movement and Women’s Studies, a movement founded on the advancement of women in society but which continues to disregard the needs of black women and focuses primarily on the plights of white women. At the beginning of the women’s rights movement, many women of color were at the forefront of social change and the embetterment of women’s lives and status(Hill-Collins, pg. 213-214). However, the current Eurocentric ideology of Women’s Studies and the feminist movement are likely a result of the increased involvement of white, middle class women during the 1950’s, who did not have to work as much as their black counterparts and could thus devote more time and money to social change and reform, albeit in their best interests(Hill-Collins, pg. 214-215). As a result, not only did Women’s Studies and the feminist movement as a whole become inherently racist, but also classist as it catered to the needs of middle class women rather than those at a lower economic standing. And thus, black women were unable to find solace in a movement which they considered themselves a part of and helped …show more content…
Statistically, women of color make far less than white males, white women, and black men, therefore placing them at an economic disadvantage. Because of this, women of couple are often viewed and depicted as holding menial wage jobs and there are some who do hold such jobs but usually because they are not given many opportunities to advance in employment or receive better work. This coupled with stereotypical idea that people of lower economic standing and class are intellectually inferior causes a great deal of prejudice against black women. This prejudice is ever present in the novel Light in August by the supposed “great” American novelist William Faulkner(Hull and Smith, pg. 187). For example, in one passage Faulkner depicts a black female domestic worker as unintelligent and subsequently beneath him with the words, “that vacuous idiocy of her idle and illiterate kind”(Hull and Smith, pg. 187). While Faulkner’s description is both racist and sexist, it is also classist and extremely rude and unbecoming of a “great” American author. These classist views against women are felt elsewhere in academia as black struggle integrate into academics and to prove that they are not the intellectual inferior of the misogynist white males which rule over our
While many other demographics face racism as well, black women are confronted with it in the feminist movement and Women’s Studies, a movement founded on the advancement of women in society but which continues to disregard the needs of black women and focuses primarily on the plights of white women. At the beginning of the women’s rights movement, many women of color were at the forefront of social change and the embetterment of women’s lives and status(Hill-Collins, pg. 213-214). However, the current Eurocentric ideology of Women’s Studies and the feminist movement are likely a result of the increased involvement of white, middle class women during the 1950’s, who did not have to work as much as their black counterparts and could thus devote more time and money to social change and reform, albeit in their best interests(Hill-Collins, pg. 214-215). As a result, not only did Women’s Studies and the feminist movement as a whole become inherently racist, but also classist as it catered to the needs of middle class women rather than those at a lower economic standing. And thus, black women were unable to find solace in a movement which they considered themselves a part of and helped …show more content…
Statistically, women of color make far less than white males, white women, and black men, therefore placing them at an economic disadvantage. Because of this, women of couple are often viewed and depicted as holding menial wage jobs and there are some who do hold such jobs but usually because they are not given many opportunities to advance in employment or receive better work. This coupled with stereotypical idea that people of lower economic standing and class are intellectually inferior causes a great deal of prejudice against black women. This prejudice is ever present in the novel Light in August by the supposed “great” American novelist William Faulkner(Hull and Smith, pg. 187). For example, in one passage Faulkner depicts a black female domestic worker as unintelligent and subsequently beneath him with the words, “that vacuous idiocy of her idle and illiterate kind”(Hull and Smith, pg. 187). While Faulkner’s description is both racist and sexist, it is also classist and extremely rude and unbecoming of a “great” American author. These classist views against women are felt elsewhere in academia as black struggle integrate into academics and to prove that they are not the intellectual inferior of the misogynist white males which rule over our