Comparing and contrasting Caribbean, African American and Black South African feminist strategies (PDF)

Essay from the year 2015 in the subject Gender Studies, grade: A, University of the West Indies (institute of Gender and Development Studies), course: Political Activism, language: English, abstract: This piece compares and contrasts Caribbean feminist strategies (past and present) to those employed by African American and black South African Women in their respective movements from a historical context.

For the last two decades women have organized movements against violent institutions that oppress them. They created simple strategies and bonds that brought them together through their shared and lived experiences and have come to challenge political, cultural and historical policies that oppress women. With the rise of different feminist branches worldwide such as; Caribbean feminism, African American feminism and Black South African feminism, women began to rely on each other for support and strength to challenge the institutional notion of patriarchy that they were subjected to.

Black feminism exploded in the 1960s in response to gendered issues and racism that stemmed from the civil rights movement. "Problematising race and exposing how racist practices complicate all other social relations of power is a central organising principle of black feminist theorising" (Barriteau, 2003). While these three branches of feminism developed in different time periods and differ in theory and objectives, the strategies used and implemented by women in these movements are quite similar.