Black Feminist

According to Oxford English Dictionary, Black Feminist can be defined as a movement consisting of African American women advocating social, political, legal, and economic rights for women equal to those of men (Oxford English Press). Black feminism argues that sexism, social class oppression, and racism are inseparably bound together (Collins). The feminist movement has been around since the 1880s when the word “Feminism” appeared in the French language (Collins). The word found traction in Britain in the 1890s, and the United States in 1910, feminism sought to influence popular culture by its very presence and by its persistent demands to be recognized as the official voice of all women (“What is Feminism”). Although the Black feminist movement allowed many achievements for the African American woman, throughout the years, sexism, social class oppression, and racism played significant roles in the inequality of the African American female. Sexism seems to be the main issue when addressing Black Feminism. Sexism is discrimination based on gender. This includes cases in which women as a whole are obviously targeted by certain rules and regulations, but also includes cases where the practice affects women due to a history of prejudice. For example, if women are deprived an education and are named illiterate. And if under these conditions, you are only allowed to vote if you are literate. Then it is safe to say women, as a whole, are being disqualified, which clearly shows a form of sexist oppression because the major reason for women not being able to vote is because they were deprived an education for being a woman (O’Brien). The commonality among the issue of sexism is found in the role of gender in the explanation of the injustice rather than the specific form the inequality takes (O 'Brien). Overall, there are disagreements among feminists about the nature of sexism, in particular, the specific kinds women suffer and the group that should be the primary focus