英语论文网

As contemporary feminism progressed, as women realized that males were not the only group in our society who supported sexist thinking and behavior that females could be sexist as well, anti-male sentiment no longer dominated the movements consciousness. The focus shifted to an all effort to create gender justice. But women could not band together to further feminism without confronting our sexist thinking. Sisterhood could not be powerful as long as women were competitively at war with one another. Utopian visions of sisterhood based solely on the awareness of the reality that all women were in some way victimized by male domination were disrupted by discussions of class and race. Discussions of class differences occurred early on in contemporary feminism, preceding discussions of race. Diana Press published revolutionary insights about class divisions between women as early as the mid-seventies in their collection of essays Class and Feminism. These discussions did not trivialize the feminist insistence that "sisterhood is powerful," they simply emphasized that we could only become sisters in struggle by confronting the ways women—through sex, class, and race—dominated and exploited other women, and creating a political platform that would address these differences.

Even though individual black women were active in contemporary feminist movement from its inception they were not the individuals who became the "stars" of the movement, who attracted the attention of mass media. Often individual black women active in feminist movement were revolutionary feminists (like many white lesbians). They were already at odds with reformist feminists who resolutely wanted to project a vision of the movement as being solely about women gaining equality with men in the existing system. Even before race became a talked about issue in feminist circles it was clear to black women (and to their revolutionary allies in struggle) that they were never going to have equality within the existing white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.

From its earliest inception feminist movement was polarized. Reformist thinkers chose to emphasize gender equality. Revolutionary thinkers did not want simply to alter the existing system so that women would have more rights, we wanted to transform that system, to bring an end to patriarchy and sexism. Since patriarchal mass media was not interested in the more revolutionary vision it never received attention in mainstream press. The vision of "women’s liberation" which captured and still holds the public imagination was the one representing women as wanting what men had. And this was the vision that was easier to realize. Changes in our nation’s economy, economic depression, the loss of jobs etc. made the climate ripe for our nation’s citizens to accept the notion of gender equality in the work force.

Given the reality of racism, it made sense that white men were more willing to consider women right’s when the granting of those rights could serve the interests of maintaining white supremacy. We can never forget that white women begin to assert their need for freedom after civil rights, just at the point when racial discrimination was ending and black people, especially black males, might have attained e本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。