Gender Differences in Attitudes toward Black Feminism among African Americans
Many black academics, feminist scholars, and grassroots activists argue that African American women are doubly disadvantaged in the social, economic, and political structure of the United States. Black feminists and criti cal race theorists, in particular, suggest that African American women are sta tus deprived because they face discrimination on the basis of both race and gen der. Building upon prior research, I posit that black feminist consciousness arises from an understanding of intersecting patterns of discrimination. Be cause the totality of black female experiences cannot be treated as the sum of separate parts, they must be analyzed together. If race and gender are studied as separate categories, one cannot explain how attitudes might change as a re sult of cross-pressures to subordinate the interests of black women so as to pro tect black men from racism. This article responds to the limitations of existing research, which tends to focus on either race or gender. From this point on, understanding that African American women have been theoretically erased from the literature on group consciousness is essential. Here, I argue that the choice of data that have been analyzed and the interpretation of those data rest upon a narrow and exclusive definition of group consciousness, which effec tively conceals the political orientations of African American women.