Critique and Coalitions: Black and White Feminists Working Together in the 1980s

Abstract

Debates over race and ethnicity within the women’s movement grew ever more complex through the 1980s. An increasing level of interaction between Black and white women within the women’s movement resulted in these issues assuming a much greater importance within feminist discourse of this period. Therefore, this chapter moves away from examining how different ethnic groups within the women’s movement functioned separately, and towards a consideration of how instead they interacted and attempted to move beyond the problems explored in the preceding chapters of this book. The early and mid-1980s saw a blossoming of Black feminism, mixed race collectives and renewed activism on the part of anti-racist feminists. This is not to say, however, that all white feminists responded to the critiques that were mounted of them; many reacted defensively, or simply ignored them.