African American Women, Afrocentrism and Feminism

Abstract

Afrocentrism and feminism, ideologies born from resistance to racist and sexist oppression, spawned psychological theories that identify emotional and behavioral patterns of African Americans and women. Afrocentric psychology and feminist psychologies, however, have presented theoretical frameworks limited in their applicability to African American women. Problems include dualistic notions of race and gender, implicit norms for “correct” behavior and assumptions of universality in regard to personality traits. In this article, these problems and their impact on African American women are explored. Recent Black feminist, or “womanist” models, offering integrative approaches to working with African American women are discussed and implications for psychotherapy are considered.

Key Words:

• Cultural feminism
• Afrocentric psychology
• feminist psychology
• Black feminism
• “womanism”