Alice Walker's Essay On Womanism

Register to read the introduction… Feminism fought for suffrage rights for white women, but never got involved in the civil rights movement to help guarantee black women social equality. So womanism looks out not only for women but also for the rights of women of color, who are sometimes a step behind white woman when it comes to social equality. Alice Walker in her first collection of non-fiction “In Search of our Mother’s Gardens: Womanist prose”, referred primarily to African-American women, but also for women in general. In her own words, she says: “A womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender.” She defines a womanist in her literary work as: A woman who loves other women, sexually and/ or non-sexually. Appreciates and prefers women’s culture, women’s emotional flexibility (values tears as natural counterbalance of laughter), and women’s strength. Sometimes loves individual men, sexually and / or non-sexually. Committed to survival and wholeness of entire people, male and female. For Walker, a “Womanist” is one who is “committed to the …show more content…
Black Feminism is still a deriative of Feminism, which is female- centered. Womansism as defined earlier is centered around the natural order of life, family and a complimentary relationship with men and women. It is all inclusive and universal Black Feminism tackles the social, political, and educational struggle of African-American women in the United States but it does not address all the global issues that women in the African Diaspora are dealing with. Infact, there are many elements in Black Feminism that are many elements in Black Feminism that are considered womanists values, such as the recognition of African roots, the pattern of defining a Black women’s stand point and the struggle to rectify sexist