Lavender and Purple: Feminism and Womanism

Like4086
Post
Image
Quote graphic

This blog post is a collaboration between Yeshna and Hannah

Imagine a young lady. She has just finished university. It was a challenging time for her. Now that she has her diploma, the search for a job begins. She’s ambitious, always has been. At the same time, she is fully aware that finding the job of your dreams, making your passion your living is not easy by far. It is not easy for anyone. It is even less easy for a woman. They could get pregnant you know! Or perhaps they’ll quit the job once they become a mother! And let’s just not talk about the other stereotypes women have to deal with. But there is progress, lot’s of progress. Without feminism, she probably would not have been able to go to university for starters. Not only being a woman is disadvantaging her. Is she the kind of woman that feminism is fighting for? She is not the average, middle-class, white woman. She is black.

Womanism: Rooted in the term ’womanist’ created by author Alice Walker. She defines womanism as a form of feminism that highlights women’s natural contribution to society. Some feminist movements apparently fight for only white women while womanism fights for all women; including black women and those from other minority groups. Basically, womanism is a subset of feminism and was also called black feminism, Africana feminism or intersectional feminism. Alice coined this term because she thinks that womanism has to act when feminism is not enough. The feminist movement traditionally was a middle-class white women movement. Although feminism addresses and fights for gender equality, it rarely addressed equality and justice for black women. The white women of the white feminist movement failed to recognize the fact that black women were not also suffering from political and social segregation due to their gender but they were also racially oppressed due to their skin colour and ethnicity. It’s indeed hard to imagine how life was for these people. These women fought courageously against sexism and racism and that’s how the term ‘womanism‘ was born.

Clearly, feminism has some loopholes and is subjected to a lot of controversies. Few Feminists sometimes take men as their enemies and try to make equality shift to superiority. Added to that, feminists tend to exclude black women and due to some people; feminism lost its true value and sense. But feminism is not bad in itself, it’s a struggle towards equality and womanism aims also at equality. Alice states that womanism is just a darker shade of feminism

“Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender” - she says.

How can we fight for gender equality when we have two separate groups? To make gender equality a reality, we should all let go of our differences and come together to fight for a common cause. It doesn’t matter if you are black or white, brown or grey, tall or short, young or old, we should embrace our differences and work together. Some white women tend to oppress black women and on the other hand, expect equal treatment from men? They are themselves not promoting equality and are expecting equality in return when they clearly don't believe in it? Please remember that united we stand, divided we fall. We all go through this endless battle of being a woman, and we all share the same race, the human race, so why this difference? If we want gender equality, we cannot fight among ourselves. We need to stand united and stay together. We should all fight for equal right for everyone.

It’s never too late to include black women in the movement and balance the equation feminism= Womanism =equality

To us, it is equality for everyone that matters. Not just between women and men but also within these groups. Every single human being is equal. It doesn’t matter if you identify as a feminist, womanist or something else. What matters is that we all work together to fight inequality and make sure not a single person in this world will be excluded, not for his/her gender, race, colour of skin or any other reason. We are all human.



- Hannah and Yeshna

Blog