Gender Roles: The Rise Of Feminism

Third World feminism, global feminism, Socialist feminism, and Black feminism are just a few of the “many feminisms” (Many Feminisms, March 2) that exist as a result of mainstream feminism prioritizing the experiences and voices of privileged white women and excluding marginalized groups. Under those circumstances, multiple feminisms emerged to represent minorities such as Black women, Chicanas, and lesbians. However, unlike “traditional” feminism, these feminisms’ goal is not only to achieve gender equality, but social justice as well, along with proving that “feminism is for everybody” (Many Feminisms, March 2), regardless of race, ethnicity, or sexuality. Black feminism is a school of thought that focuses on intersectionality and addresses not one or two fronts of oppression, but a “whole range of
Such forms of oppression include poverty, which affects people of color more severely than white people. A sign held by a black protester reads, “Poor say ‘we have no bread to eat’ -- N.Y.C. says ‘let them eat cake’” (Many Feminisms, March 2), which is an historical allusion to Queen Marie Antoinette’s famous, yet unconfirmed, response to learning that the peasants in France had no bread. As the eighteenth century aristocrats disregarded the peasants, the twenty-first century wealthy white elites are similarly indifferent to the conditions of the black poor. Other forms of oppression originate from white feminists themselves. Radical feminist, Audre Lorde, attacks the underlying racism within feminism in her article, “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House.” She asserts that feminists advocate the “mere tolerance of difference” between women instead of addressing or even caring about the