Black Women's Studies

Clark Atlanta University
Black Women's Studies: The Interface of Women's Studies and Black Studies
Author(s): Beverly Guy-Sheftall
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Phylon (1960-), Vol. 49, No. 1/2 (Spring - Summer, 1992), pp. 33-41
Published by: Clark Atlanta University
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By BEVERLY GUY-SHEriALL
Black Women's Studies:

The Interface of Women's Studies and
Black Studies
THE MOSTSIGNIFICANTREFORMSin American higher education
over the past two decades have come as a result of the Black Studies
and Women's Studies1 movements. Less well known but also
important has been the development within the past several years of
a new field of study -
Black Women's Studies -
which emerged in
part because of the failure of Black and Women's Studies to address

adequately the unique experiences of black women in America and
throughout the world. In the first publication on this newly emerging
discipline called Black Women'sStudies, the editors, all three of whom
were solid Black Studies scholars, attempt to define the new concept,
trace its development, and provide a rationale for its existence:
Women'sstudies courses ... focused almost exclusively upon the lives of
white women. Black studies, which was much too often male-dominated,
also ignored Black women.... Because of white women's racism and
Black men's sexism, there was no room in either area for a serious
consideration of the lives of Black women. And even when they have
considered Black women, white women usually have not had the capacity
to analyze racial politics and Black culture, and Black men have remained
blind or resistant to the implications of sexual politics in Black women's
lives.'
It is important to understand the context out of which this first

interdisciplinary anthology in Black Women's Studies emerged and
without which it could not have been produced. The most noteworthy
developments in Black Women's Studies (though this designation was
not in use) came from a relatively small but ever expanding group of
women scholars who had been teaching and doing research on black
women for at least twenty years. Many probably would have
considered themselves Black Studies scholars. The pioneering work of
educator Anna J. Cooper,who wrote The Voiceof the South By A Black
Woman of the South in 1892, has the distinction of being the first
'For a comprehensiveexaminationof women'sstudies generally, see MarilynJ. Boxer, Forand AboutWomen:The

Theoryand Practiceof Women'sStudies in the United States,"Signs, 7 (Spring 1982):660-96.
*GloriaT. Hull, PatriciaBell Scott, and BarbaraSmith, eds, Al the WomenAre White,All the BlacksAre Men,But
Some of Us Are Brave:Black Women'sStudies (Old Westbury,New York,1982), pp. xx-xxi. Subsequent references
will refer to this sourceas But Some of Us Are Brave.
33

34
PHYLON
scholarly publication which now we would call Black Women'sStudies.

The publication of Toni Cade's The Black Woman in 1970, the first
anthology of writings by and about black women, was significant
because of the value it attached to hearing the distinct voices of black
women themselves as they analyzed a number of contemporaryissues.
Two years later, Gerda Lerner's documentary history Black Womenin
White America (1972) underscored the importance of treating the
experiences of Afro-Americanwomen as distinct from those of white
women and black men.3
Several other pioneers in the newly emerging field of Black
Women's Studies were historians Rosalyn Terborg-Penn and Sharon
Harley, whose anthology (also a first) The Afro-American Woman:
Struggles and Images (1978) contains original essays which treat black
women's experiences from a historical perspective. Terborg-Penn's
bibliographic essay "Teaching the History of Black Women"contains
an exhaustive listing of the secondary sources available in black
women's history.4 Similarly, the work of La Frances Rodgers-Roseand
Filomina Chioma Steady, both of whom edited the first social science
anthologies on black women, has been critical as far as sociological and
anthropologicalapproachesto the study of black women are concerned.6
Attempts to celebrate the existence of a distinct black female
literary tradition in America, which can be traced further back in time,
also fall under the rubric of Black Women's Studies because they
acknowledge the politics of sex as well as the politics of race in the
texts of black women writers. This celebration has taken place in two
phases. The first phase is characterized by efforts to document that
such a tradition exists. Frances Collier Durden's master's thesis,
"NegroWomen in Poetry from Phyllis Wheatley to Margaret Walker"
(Atlanta University, 1947), is probably the first work that falls into
this category. One of the earliest doctoral dissertations to analyze the
black female literary tradition (which is different from examinations
of images of black women in literature) is Beatrice Horn Royster's "The
Ironic Vision of Four Black Women Novelists: A Study of the Novels of
'Recent publicationsin black women'shistoryare DorothySterling, ed., WeAre YourSisters: Black Womenin the
NineteenthCentury(New York,1984);Paula Giddings,Whenand WhereI Enter:TheImpactof Black Womenon Race
and Sex in America(New York,1984);JacquelineJones, Laborof Love,Laborof Sorrow:Black Women,Work,and
theFamilyfromSlaveryto the Present(NewYork,1986);Bettina Aptheker,Woman'sLegacy:Esays on Rae, Sex, and
Clamin AmericanHistory(Amherst,1982);AngelaY. Davis, Women,Race,and Clam(New York,1981);and Deborah
GrayWhite,Arn't I A Woman?FemaleSlaves in the Plantation South (New York, 1986).
'The HistoryTeacher,13 (February1980):246-50.
'See La FrancesRoders-Rose, ed., TheBlack Woman(BeverlyHills, California,1980) and FilominaC. Steady,ed.,
The Black WomanCross-Culturaly(Cambridge,Mass., 1981).
Vol. XTIX, Nos. 1, 2, 1992

WOMEN'SSTUDIESAND BLACKSTUDIES
35
Jessie Fauset, Nella Larsen, Zora Neale Hurston and Ann Petry"
(Emory University, 1975). Sharyn Skeeter's "Black Women Writers:
Levels of Identity" (Essence, May 1973) is better known and reached
a broader audience.
The second phase was ushered in by the publication of Mary Helen
Washington's scholarly article "Black Women Image Makers" (Black
World,August 1974). Moving beyond the descriptiveapproachof
Skeeter, she argued that black women writers are a distinct group not
only because of their long history but because unique themes recur in
their works. The introduction to her pioneering anthology Black-Eyed
Susans: Classic Stories By and About Black Women(1975) contains a
more detailed analysis of these major themes. Alice Walker's essay "In
Search of Our Mother's Gardens: The Creativity of Black Women in
the South"(Ms., May 1974) is perhaps the most eloquent and poignant
account of the black woman artist ever written. It should be
mentioned also that Walker designed the first course on black women
writers, which she taught in 1977 at Wellesley College. Another
publication in the second phase was Sturdy Black Bridges: Visions of
Black Womenin Literature, edited by Roseann Bell, Bettye Parker, and
Beverly Guy-Sheftall (1979), which was credited with being the "first
book-length critical work devoted to a 'minority' literature.""
The second phase is distinguished also by the emergence of black
feminist literary criticism, notably Barbara Smith's and Deborah
McDowell's groundbreaking work7 and Barbara Christians's Black
WomenNovelists: The Development of a Tradition 1892-1976 (1981),
the first full-length study of the novels of black women. The
publication of Gloria Wade-Gayle'sNo Crystal Stair, Visions of Race
and Sex in Black Women'sFiction (New York, 1984) links her to a
small but productive body of black feminist critics who "analyze the
works of Black female writers from a feminist or political perspective."
Wade-Gayle's outstanding contribution to Black Women's Studies is
that she provides a coherent conceptual framework for understanding
what it has meant to be black and female as this experience is
portrayed in the literature of black women of the mid-twentieth
century. Her use of two central metaphors - the narrow space and
the dark enclosure - to illuminate the double burden of race and sex,
which is unique to black women, is stunningly perceptive. She
describes three circles, asserting boldly:
*CheriRegister,"LiteraryCriticism,"Signs, 6 (Winter 1980):270.
'See Barbara Smith, 'TowardA Black Feminist Criticism,"Conditions:Two (October1977):27-28 and Deborah
McDowell,'New DirectionsforBlack Feminist Criticism,"Black AmericanLiteratureForum, 14 (October1980):153.
*McDowell,"NewDirections,"p. 156.

36
PHYLON
In one circle white people, mainly males, experience influence and power.
Far removed from it is the second circle, a narrow space in which black
people, regardless of sex, experienceuncertainty and powerlessness. And
in this narrowspace, often hidden but no less present and real, is a small
dark enclosure for black women only. It is in this enclosure that black
women experience the unique marks of black womanhood.9
The most valuable theoretical work in Black Women's Studies is

Bell Hooks' controversial monograph,Ain't I A Woman:Black Women
and Feminism (Boston, 1981), which is a long overdue examination of
the complexity of black womanhood from the perspectives of black
women themselves. The major strengths of the book are its delineation
of the impact of sexism on the lives of black women; its analysis of the
devaluation
of black womanhood, both historically
and
its
of
the
racism
of
the
discussion
persistent
contemporaneously;
women's movement, and its careful treatment of the involvement of
black women in struggles to achieve equality for women even when
they were discouraged from doing so by various segments of the white
and black communities. Hooks' major contribution both to Black
Studies and Women's Studies, however, is the theoretical framework
she provides for analyzing what it has meant to be a black woman in
America. In her chapter on "Sexism and the Black Female
Experience," for example, she advances the thesis that slavery, a
reflection of a patriarchal and racist social order, not only oppressed
black men, but it defeminized slave women as well. Though scholars
have emphasized the impact of slavery on black men, which focuses in
large part on the theory of the emasculation of the slave male, Hooks
and other black feminist scholars argue that it is imperative that
historians and other researchers begin to pay more attention to the
impact of sexual exploitation on slave women. Furthermore, it is
important to point out that black women were not permitted to
conform to the dominant culture's model of True Womanhood in the
nineteenth century, just as the black male was unable to act out the
majority culture's definition of "true manhood." Hooks' more recent
book From Margin to Center: Feminist Theory (Boston, 1984) is a
brilliant critique of contemporaryfeminist theory from the perspective
of a black feminist and illustrates in a provocative manner how a
Black Studies and Women's Studies perspective can provide profound
insights about the nature of female experience.
'No CrystalStair, pp. 3-4.
Vol. XLIX, Nos. 1, 2, 1992

WOMEN'SSTUDIES AND BLACKSTUDIES
37
Until the emergence of Black Women's Studies, most of the research

on black women, excluding the work on black women writers, focused
on their roles within the black family, especially the role of the black
matriarch, a persistent theme in Black Studies scholarship.'1A second
area of research has focused on the public lives of notable black women
such as SojournerTruth, Harriet Tubman, Mary Church Terrell, and
Mary McLeod Bethune. Part of the motivation for this "great black
women" in history approach which characterizes much of the Black
Studies work on black women is simply to record the fact that black
women were indeed present in history. In her analysis of research
priorities in Black Women's Studies, Patricia Bell Scott has argued
that there should be "more examinations of the black and female
experience that are sensitive to the ways in which racism and sexism
bear upon black women."" While such approaches to the study of
black women are appropriate, a major problem that continues to
confront the Black Women's Studies scholar, whose primary challenge
remains exploring the intersection of race, gender, and class, is the
difficulty of arriving at theoretical frameworks which will enable one
to understand the complexity and diversity of the black female
experience throughout the world.
According to Gerda Lerner, the major conceptual framework for
studying American women has been providedby feminist scholars who,
using the women as minority group model (the minority group model
has been frequently used by Black Studies Scholars as well),12see
women mainly in terms of their oppression and their struggles to
overcome it. The shortcomings of this widely used minority group
model to explain the history of American women have been analyzed
by historian William Chafe, who has written both black and women's
history, and others. His major points concerning the problematic
nature of the analogy between race and sex are that the collective
oppression of blacks, especially the physical abuse they have suffered,
is substantially greater than that of white women; that there is
physical distance between whites and blacks, whereas white women
live in close contact with white men, which gives them greater access
to the sources of power than is the case with black women; and that
'See W.E.B.DuBois'The NegroAmericanFamily (Atlanta, 1908);E. FranklinFrazier'sThe NegroFamily in the

United States (Chicago,1939);and Daniel Moynihan'sThe Negro Family:A Casefor National Action (Washington,
D.C., 1966) for a discussionof the black matriarchtheory. Critics of this theory include RobertStaples, "TheMyth
of theBlack Matriarchy,"
TheBlac Scholar, 1 (January/February1970):8-16, and AndrewBillingley, BlackFamilies
in WhiteAmerica(EnglewoodCliffs, N.J., 1969).
uBut Some Of Us Are Brave, p. 89.
2The womenas minoritygroupanalogy was developedin 1951 by Helen Hacker. See her 'Womenas a Minority
Group,"Social Forces,30 (October1951):60-9.

38
PHYLON
white women as a group are not as conscious of their oppression as are

blacks.'3 The major weakness in this analogy between women and
blacks, which Chafe also argues, is that it obscures the critical
differences between black and white women, the major one being that
black women suffer the double burden of racism and sexism, which
makes them a unique group in American society. Moreover, black
women have not had the so-called benefits of being female; they have
not been sheltered, protected, or idealized by their men to the extent
that was possible for white women. More importantly, because of the
thoroughly entrenched and therefore persistent racial caste system
which defined relations between blacks and whites (and relegates
blacks to a subordinate position), the oppression of black women links
them to black men rather than to white women. Finally the economic
realities of the black community have forced black women to
participate in the labor force to a greater extent than white women.
This brief summary of the weaknesses of the blacks/women parallel,
which Chafe and others have discussed, points to a major problem that
confronts the Black Women'sStudies scholar which is not as thorny an
issue for Black Studies and Women's Studies scholars. If women do
form a distinct social group, as some feminist scholars argue, how does
one formulate a conceptual framework that takes into consideration
race and its interaction with gender (and class) in the case of black
women's experience. A number of conceptual issues arise when one
considers the race/gender nexus in this context. Is it possible, given
the rigidity of the racial caste system, to perceive American women as
a distinct social group? Since black women belong to a minority group,
can one reject completely the minority group model when
conceptualizing them as a group? What happens to the minority group
model when one considers that, despite their subordination to whites,
including women, black men are in a position to exercise power over
black women because of the benefits which accrue to them because of
their gender? Are the bonds of womanhood sufficiently strong to
counteract the racial barriers which separate black and white women,
or does race override gender in most interactions between these two
groups?
Though theoretical problems are inherent in Black Women's
Studies, scholars in this field are in a unique position because of their
ability to explore the intersection of race, sex, and class as experienced
'William Chafe, Womenand Equality(New York,1977), pp. 45-8.
Vol. XLIX, Nos. 1, 2, 1992

WOMEN'SSTUDIES AND BLACKSTUDIES
39
by black women in ways that are impossible for other segments of the
population. They are also in a position, as Black Studies scholars
always have been, to challenge accepted scholarship. The study of
black women, for example, renders invalid many of the generalizations
which abound in the historiography of American women and are
considered "universal." An example from the introduction to Root of
Bitterness, a documentary social history of American women, will
illustrate this point. Here Nancy Cott states that most of the latenineteenth-century women who initiated significant social welfare
activities in cities did their work while unmarried or widowed, and one
thinks immediately of Jane Addams and nods in agreement. Cott then
speculates that these educated women were unable to reconcile the
demands of the nuclear family with their newly defined roles so they
evaded the problemby remaining single. When one recalls the history
of black women during this same period (as one familiar with Black
Studies would), one thinks of Lugenia Burns Hope, Ida Wells Barnett,
and other middle-class, educated married black women who performed
pioneering social welfare activities when racial uplift preoccupied the
black elite. A critical question for the Black Women's Studies scholar
(which might not be raised by the conventional Black Studies scholar)
is why these black women were better able to juggle the roles of wife,
mother, and career than their white female counterparts. For
example, Ida Wells Barnett, determined not to give up her public life,
carried her baby Charles (and nurse) along with her to women's
conventions and political campaigns. He became such a fixture at the
National Association of ColoredWomen'smeetings that on one occasion
he was elected Baby of the Association."In order to explain why black
women's lives diverged from white women's lives in this respect, it
would be helpful to consider the special historical experiences of
blacks, the particulars of the women's lives, and the sociology of sex
roles.
Another generalization in women's history is that women can be
compared to other minority groups because their physical
characteristics make them easily identifiable and therefore they can be
"singled out from the others in the society in which they live for
differential and unequal treatment."'5 The case of Lucy Parsons
renders invalid even this seemingly indisputable fact. Lucy is the
relatively obscure "invisible"black woman who was married to Albert
Parsons, one of the anarchists accused of the Haymarket bombing in
"DorothySterling, Black Foremothers(Westbury,N.Y., 1979), pp. 97-8.
"Louis Wirth,'The Problemsof MinorityGroups,"in Man in the WorldCrisis, ed., Ralph Linton(New York,1945),
quotedby WilliamChafe, Womenand Equality,p. 4.

40
PHYLON
1886 and later executed." Because Lucy refused to acknowledge her

racial identity (she pretended she was of mixed ancestry, mainly
Indian) after her marriage, she becomes "invisible"as a black person.
That is, her name is mentioned on numerous occasions in histories of
working women (because of her life-long struggle to alleviate their
plight) and in histories of radical movements, but her race is ignored,
as Lucy would have preferred. She therefore is missing from black
history. She is missing from "general"histories because of her sex, for
it is presumed that her only significance was that she was the wife of
Albert Parsons. She is missing frequently even from women'shistories
because her anarchist activity was out of the mainstream of
nineteenth-century women's activities such as suffrage, settlement, and
club work, which have attracted more of the historians' attention.
Thus, despite Lucy Parsons' persistent and dedicated struggle to
improve the lives of the working class (before and after her husband's
untimely death), which can be documented because of her many
publications and because her activities were followed in newspapers
throughout the country, she mainly appeared in footnotes before the
publication of Carolyn Ashbaugh's study, which rarely appears on
Black Studies reading lists. That very little about her life prior to her
marriage (except that she was an ex-slave born in Texas) was
uncovered by her biographer is indicative of the "invisibility"of blacks
during slavery, one of the most difficult periods of study for the Black
Women's Studies scholar. Though Lucy is certainly easily identifiable
as a woman, she avoids the "differentialand unequal treatment"which
she would have experienced as a black by passing and denying her
minority group status. She, therefore, escapes the indignities which
members of her own race suffer even though she is female because, in
effect, she becomes white. As a member of the dominant race, despite
her gender, she does not suffer the differential and unequal treatment
which proponents of the race/sex analogy argue is universal among
blacks and women.
There is exciting and challenging work yet to be done in Black
Women's Studies.
Much more is needed in the area of
reconceptualizing Black Studies and Women's Studies so that the
history, experiences, and cultures of black women will be more
effectively taught and studied, thereby enabling both disciplines to
"e Carolyn Ashbaugh'sLucy Parons: American Revolutionary(Chicago, 1976), for the most comprehensive
accountof Parons' life.
Vol. XLIX, Nos. 1, 2, 1992

WOMEN'SSTUDIESAND BLACKSTUDIES
41
reflectmoreaccuratelythe diversityand complexityof experiencesof

blacks and womenthroughoutthe world. But Some of Us Are Brave
provided a needed shot in the arm for the expansion of Black Women's
Studies on college campuses throughout the nation. The birth of Sage:
A Scholarly Journal on Black Women in 1984, which is edited by
Patricia Bell Scott, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Jacqueline Jones Royster,
and Janet Sims Wood, and is housed at Spelman College's Women's
Research and Resource Center, is a concrete manifestation of the
"comingof age" of Black Women's Studies. Numerous periodicals and
journals are continuing to produce special issues on black women.
Approximately fifty dissertations on black women with a variety of
subjects are listed with University Microfilms since 1970 compared
with less than ten prior to that time. The ultimate challenge, however,
is for Women's Studies and Black Studies scholars to recognize that
black women's history is, in fact, women's history and black history.
Such a perspective would render Black Women's Studies unnecessary
or at the very least redundant over the long run.


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