OVERVIEW

Womanism has had a lasting impact on on the black community and an even bigger impact of the community of black women. While most contemporary theorist have decided that womanism is almost obsolete. During its development and after its initial impact it seemed as though womanism wasn’t going to catch on. By the 80’s many black women became avid participants in the general fight for feminism. Bell Hooks gave an excellent explanation in Everyone can be a Feminist, “Simply put, feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression. This was a definition of feminism I offered in Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center more than 10 years ago. It was my hope at the time that it would become a common definition everyone would use.” The aftermath of the civil rights movement seemed to have died down and the American people were finally ready for unity. Feminism was a way of uniting different groups of women together to fight.

 

 

 

 

 

The intentions of feminism had no ill intent, but the theory only ended up applying to one group of women, white women. While I can’t say that that particular wave of feminism did much for black women. “This wave unfolded in the context of the anti-war and civil rights movements and the growing self-consciousness of a variety of minority groups around the world.” (Rampton, par. 5) The second wave of feminism, which lasted from 1960-1980, was meant to be more inclusive, but ultimately fell short. The idea is was that the civil rights movement was over and women of all classes and races wanted to be equal, but the minority race was still dealing with the effects of the civil rights movement and other forms of discrimination. It brought up friendly conversations of race within feminism. After the conversation came up, there was a slight divide between the two races. It wasn’t serious enough to drive a huge wedge, which is where womanism came into play. There are countless ways that womanism changed our society. Every aspect of black culture was impacted, from theology all the way to hip hop culture.