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Black Feminist Thought

In “Learning from the Outsider Within: The Sociological Significance of Black Feminist Thought,” Patricia Hill Collins argues that oppression fostered a double consciousness in African American women in which they identify their roles as servants imposed by the oppressive structure, but at the same time, African American women developed a hidden consciousness about themselves that separated  from the external definition of who they are as human beings. African American women possess the characteristics of a “stranger”, and observant participant that is detached from within the group, and that detachment provides them with the framework of analysis to explain relations of power.

Black feminist consciousness and culture raises from their opposition to their imposed roles as servants. They identify  oppression, patriarchy, and tension on socially constructed definitions of race, gender, and social class. The thought of black feminist women denotes activism in itself, which rejects the definitions that subjugate their identities as women. Black women are outsiders because they do not want to conform to socially defined norms. They self protect their hidden “true self” identities, which are different from the objectified other.  Black women self -valuate their womanhood, the roles in the family, the churches and creative expression, which produces knowledge and  redefines culture within the “outsider” group.

However, the framework of analysis that black feminist posses is provided by their resistance to oppression, from the inheritance of their past as a subordinated group that was excluded from political right, deprived  from social participation in women’s movements, denied of economic freedom, and impeded intellectual development. Black feminist groups and their stand point reveal an important criticism to our culture and to the Sociology Science because privileged male have dominated the production of true, knowledge and reality, but the standpoint of the white privilege “insiders” is the standpoint of those who have the power. Nevertheless, the black feminist paradigm is a resource to any subordinated group to measure power relations and to identify its effects in society.