PT-P HEORETICAL DISCUSSION in African-American women's history begs for greater voice. I say this as a black woman
who is cognizant of the strengths and limitations of current
feminist theory. Feminist scholars have moved rapidly forward
in addressing theories of subjectivity, questions of difference, the construction of social relations as relations of power, the conceptual implications of binary oppositions such as male versus female or equality
versus difference-all issues defined with relevance to gender and with
potential for intellectual and social transformations.l Notwithstanding a
few notable exceptions, this new wave of feminist theorists finds little to
say about race. The general trend has been to mention black and Third
World feminists who first called attention to the glaring fallacies in essentialist analysis and to claims of a homogeneous "womanhood,"
"woman's culture," and "patriarchal oppression of women."2 Beyond
this recognition, however, white feminist scholars pay hardly more than
A number of people read earlier versions of this article. I am especially grateful to
the insights, suggestions, and probing questions of Sharon Harley, Paul Hanson, Darlene
Clark-Hine, and Carroll Smith-Rosenberg.
1 See, e.g., Teresa de Lauretis, Alice Doesn't: Feminism, Semiotics, Cinema (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984), and Teresa de Lauretis, ed., Feminist Studies,
Feminist Criticism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986); Toril Moi, Sexual/
Textual Politics (New York: Routledge, 1985); Joan W. Scott, Gender and the Politics of
History (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988); Judith Butler, Gender Trouble:
Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 1990).
2 By the early 1980s women of color from various disciplines had challenged the notion of a homogeneous womanhood. A few include: Sharon Harley and Rosalyn
Terborg-Penn, eds., The Afro-American Woman: Struggles and Images (Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat, 1978); Gloria T. Hull, Patricia Bell Scott, and Barbara Smith, eds.,
But Some of Us Are Brave (Old Westbury, N.Y.: Feminist Press, 1982); Barbara Smith,
ed., Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology (New York: Kitchen Table: Women of
Color Press, 1983); Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua, eds., This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (New York: Kitchen Table: Women of
Color Press, 1983); Bonnie Thornton Dill, "Race, Class, and Gender: Prospects for an
All-Inclusive Sisterhood," Feminist Studies 9 (Spring 1983): 131-50.
Explanation:
