2002/01/01 by Becky Thompson · 5 citations
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Asian American and Pacific Histories #Feminism #Gender studies #Music History and Culture #Race, History, and American Society #Sociology
paper · doi:10.2307/3178747
openalex publication_date 2002/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/15
In the last several years, a number of histories have been published that chronicle the emergence and contributions of Second Wave Although initially eager to read and teach from these histories, I have found myself increasingly concerned about the extent to which they provide a version of Second Wave history that Chela Sandoval refers to as feminism.' This feminism is white led, marginalizes the activism and world views of women of color, focuses mainly on the United States, and treats sexism as the ultimate oppression. Hegemonic feminism deemphasizes or ignores a class and race analysis, generally sees equality with men as the goal of feminism, and has an individual rights-based, rather than justice-based vision for social change. Although rarely named as hegemonic feminism, this history typically resorts to an old litany of the women's movement that includes three or four branches of feminism: liberal, socialist, radical, and sometimes cultural feminism.3 The most significant problem with this litany is that it does not recognize the centrality of the feminism of women of color in Second Wave history. Missing too, from normative accounts is the story of white antiracist feminism which, from its emergence, has been intertwined with, and fueled by the development of, feminism among women of color.'