The importance of Black feminism and the theory of intersectionality in analysing the position of afro descendants

Abstract

This article explains the connections between the postulates of black feminism and the theory of intersectionality. It reflects how, from social thought produced in daily life, hegemonic systems such as racism and patriarchy are reproduced and configure asymmetrical social relations. Therefore, it recognises black feminism as a critical theory and anti-hegemonic social movement in favour of women and men of African descent who have developed their life experiences in a context of social injustice sustained by intersectional oppression. Emphasis is placed on the theory of intersectionality as a development of black feminism, which has transcended its origins to become a relevant model of analysis for understanding and addressing contemporary social inequalities, as well as a theoretical tool and proposal for work in different fields of knowledge, among which Psychology is noteworthy as a science that privileges the analysis of subjectivity in the individual and social order, areas in which less progress has been made in addressing the harmful effects of cross inequalities arising from racism and patriarchy in today’s societies.

Keywords:

• Black feminism
• intersectionality
• racism
• psychology

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In the 80’s this remained latent, as reflected in the absence of the issue of racism in the political debates of the feminist movement in the Second Feminist Meeting of Latin America and the Caribbean held in 1983 in Lima, Perú.

2 Term used by Patricia Hill Collins to refer to the multiple oppressions that women go through in which class-race-gender-sexuality are interdependent variables.

3 African-American jurist who first used the term intersection as a metaphor to refer to different forms of discrimination for the legal case of black employees of the General Motors (GM) company, who had sued this company for sexual and racial discrimination against having been fired. Demands were rejected on the grounds that there was no discrimination based on sex, since the company had employed women and black people. Crenshaw showed that the hired women were all white and the black people had been men.

4 Located knowledge arises from standpoint theory, configured in North America between 1970s–1980s within black feminism, to point that all knowledge is produced in particular historical-social situations, rejecting the idea of universal/neutral scientific knowledge devoid of direct relations with certain political, cultural and social factors. The partial and situated condition of knowledge produced by certain social groups, such as women and other historically subordinate subjects, can grant them a epistemic privilege in accounting for their realities, which is considered a different form of objectivity.

5 In the recent presentation of his book in the Cabildo Quisicuaba, a community work project in the Centro Habana neighborhood, he refers to his reality today as a PhD student in Barcelona (Spain), where stereotypes are remarked and looked at as weird every day when sitting in the library with many books and not seeing him dancing and flirting.

6 On the outskirts of the city of Havana, its population of a high percentage of people of African descent. Here, despite the social work that has been carried out, there are conditions of social vulnerability.

7 Located in the Playa municipality, it has a significant population of people of African descent. The Martin Luther King Center does a great job of Popular Education, contributing to the work of the Integral Transformation Workshop of the neighborhood that exists there.

8 Also has a Transformation Workshop in the neighborhood that aims to contribute to the self-esteem and empowerment of women and eradicate violence against women and girls.