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Basically,
I think that multiculturalism
is inherent to feminism - i.e.
it's a movement made up of all
different types of people and
its goals are meant to liberate
all different types of people.
However,
certain brands of feminism put
a priority on certain
multicultural aspects - for
instance, The Black Women's
Health Project or the National
Latina Institute for Reproductive
Health. Both are focused on
specific groups of women, but
both groups and the individuals
involved with them are in the
women's movement rather than
being a separate branch.
—Amy
Below,
another reader responds to the
previous exchange between Keelan
and Amy
Hello Amy,
I found this link in doing my
research on multicultural
feminism, and I was interested
in what you told Keelan. I'd
like to add a few cents.
When
I think of multicultural feminism,
I don't necessarily think it
has been historically or is
in anyway inherent to most hegemonic,
mainstream, most talked about
feminism in the U.S.. Radical
women of color feminists have
been working on a strident critique
for centuries now, have faced
all kinds of marginalization
in the "women's movement,"
and the multicultural feminist
project has largely been marginal
to most mainstream, white, liberal,
and in many cases, "third
wave" feminist concerns.
Multicultural
feminism is a vision, a set
of conceptual frameworks, a
set of priorities for activism
and feminist movement. Ella
Habiba Shohat is pioneering
the conceptual frameworks for
multicultural feminism, and
she is doing some amazingly
radical work for feminism overall.
21st Century Feminist politics
are transnational politics and
involve shifting borders, nations,
groups, races, constituents.
I am sorry to still see that
much of feminist activism and
thought in the U.S. is not a
part of this transnational vision/understanding
of women's liberation. Ella
Shohat works off of what was
previously termed "transnational
feminism" by M. Jacqui
Alexander, Chandra Mohanty,
Inderpal Grewal, Caren Kaplan,
and others, and is informed
by U.S. women of color feminist
thought and Third World feminism.
Though
most of these cutting edge feminist
works are super academic, some
of us are working to make these
ideas more accessible to activists.
Along with these feminist elders
who have been working to broaden
the scope of the women's movement,
there are young women of color
activists and writers who have
been putting out a multicultural
vision of feminism, including
Daisy Hernandez and Bushra Rehman
in their anthology Colonize
This! among many others.
All of this to say that multicultural
feminism is connected with but
moves beyond the limited scope
of feminist thought found primarily
in the U.S., these limitations
being found even among those
of the generation who want to
claim that feminism is multicultural.
Multicultural
feminism is exciting, it's historically
grounded, it's liberating for
women and feminism, and cannot
be ignored.
Check
it out! Tell Keelan!
Mirangela
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