History of Feminism

ismnotwasm

(41,996 posts) Fri Feb 1, 2013, 07:56 PM Feb 2013

Feminists We Love: Jamilah Lemieux

Last edited Fri Feb 1, 2013, 08:52 PM - Edit history (1)

ieux is the News & Lifestyle Editor for EBONY.com. In 2005, she created the award-winning blog, The Beautiful Struggler, where for more than six years, she published meditations on race and relationships. Jamilah has contributed to a host of publications including Essence, JET, Clutch, The Loop, Madame Noire, Black Enterprise Online, and Jezebel. She has appeared on a number of radio programs, including NPR’s “All Things Considered,” “The Michael Eric Dyson Show,” WBAI’s “The Spin,” and “Al B. In The Afternoon” on Philadelphia’s 900AM WURD. Jamilah is a Chicago native and graduate of Howard University.

From the end of the interview

TFW: Finally, who would you name as three feminists who have inspired you, and why?

JAMILAH: Michele Wallace, author of Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman. That book was life changing for me when I read it as a teen. It was the first moment that I felt that my suspicions about gender and race were valid. Like, “Oh…I’m not imagining this stuff?” Especially as it related to the sexism of so many of our ‘race men’ and the lack of attention paid to women’s issues during conversations around racial equality. bell hooks, who has so artfully broken feminism down to loving work that enhances the lives of all who dare to embrace the concept. Joan Morgan, for putting ‘hip-hop feminism’ in the spotlight and helping so many young women come forward and say “Yes, I am a feminist and I am Black and I love our men and our culture and none of those things negate one another.”

Edit to add link (thanks, Sea)

http://thefeministwire.com/2013/02/feminists-we-love-jamilah-lemieux/

4 replies

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Feminists We Love: Jamilah Lemieux (Original Post) ismnotwasm Feb 2013 OP

link? i did some reading on hip hop feminism. seabeyond Feb 2013 #1

Du'h! sorry ismnotwasm Feb 2013 #2

we hear the same on du. they really have their talking points down. seabeyond Feb 2013 #3

That's the thing a lot of people mzteris Feb 2013 #4

seabeyond

(110,159 posts)

1. link? i did some reading on hip hop feminism.

Reply to ismnotwasm (Original post)

Fri Feb 1, 2013, 08:46 PM

Feb 2013

interesting. and seems to be struggling with the same contradictions as feminism as a whole.

ismnotwasm

(41,996 posts)

2. Du'h! sorry

Reply to seabeyond (Reply #1)

Fri Feb 1, 2013, 08:51 PM

Feb 2013

http://thefeministwire.com/2013/02/feminists-we-love-jamilah-lemieux/

seabeyond

(110,159 posts)

3. we hear the same on du. they really have their talking points down.

Reply to ismnotwasm (Reply #2)

Fri Feb 1, 2013, 09:07 PM

Feb 2013

AMILAH: I was raised to believe that women were as capable, significant and valuable as men. That we were entitled to the same rights, access and agency. These are simple concepts, but every single day we are reminded that much of the world feels otherwise. The misconceptions about feminism are many: women feminists want to lord over men, we don’t want equality, we want domination—sounds similar to those paranoid White folks who accuse Black activists and even someone as conservative as a President Obama of being racist and interested in oppressing Whites, right?–that we hate men, we’re ruining the Black community. That feminism can only benefit White women. The list goes on and on and on.Meanwhile, women and girls across the world are being sold into sexual slavery, are being raped and blamed for being raped, are being denied access to educational freedoms, are working for lower wages than men performing the same work. I can’t recognize this as the truth of our world without challenging it and I am surprised by the number of people, particularly women, who feel otherwise.

who are quick to enforce these patriarchal standards that render Black women to second or third class citizen status. Ironic that these are the men (and their women supporters) who accused Black feminists of wanting to be or live like White women. These guys want to be White men! They want to lord over Black women and silence our concerns. They pay dust to the concerns of women and LGBT folk and pose the Black male struggle as the definitive Black struggle. Free the almighty Black man and we’ll get to your little girl stuff later, maybe.

excellent site. thanks.

mzteris

(16,232 posts)

4. That's the thing a lot of people

Reply to ismnotwasm (Original post)

Sun Feb 3, 2013, 12:26 PM

Feb 2013

don't get - you can't be for ONE set's equality, you have to support EVERY group's equality.

If we're aren't ALL equal, none of us are equal.

The hierarchy seems to go like this:

White hetero male at the top of course. They align themselves with men of any color to help in the oppression of women. They align themselves with white straight women to oppress anyone of color - or gay men.

So the 2nd place shifts between minority males and white women, based on which issue is in play.

Gay men of any color - well, it's hard to say since so many are in the closet - where they are aligned. We know whence they are maligned, but where they fall in the spectrum of white male supremacy falls, I suspect along those lines of whatever helps the white straight (or perceived straight) male.

Black women pretty much are at the bottom of the list. Black lesbian women? well dead last in any ranking in the white (straight) male supremacist capitalist patriarchy. It's unfortunate that the icons of the Black Equality movement also have very poor reputations where it concerns their treatment of women. (Granted it was a loong time ago when times were "different".) Black males need to support black women and black GLBT. All women and all GLBT, actually. The misogynistic and sexist machismo rampant in the black male culture needs to be eradicated.

I guess the only advantage black women might encounter is, with affirmative action, an employer gets to "kill two birds with one stone" to comply (I've actually heard that used as a rationale for hiring a particular person over another. NOT what Affirmative Action is all about, of course.)

Being a feminist helped me to recognize that I had to be for black rights and gay rights and minority rights and the poor's rights. If we all stood TOGETHER, we'd affect the system more quickly.

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