Abstract
Statement of the Problem:
The concerns of white, middle-class women have historically dominated liberal feminist movements and scholarship, while an examination of the pressing racial inequality that negatively impacts women of color’s gendered experiences have been continually marginalized. This problem persists to the present day, fueled by a stubborn and deliberate racial ignorance among white feminists that keeps them from interrogating the bias and privilege inherent in their racial identity. This avoidance has sown mistrust among women of color, which undermines the collective’s ability to build an authentic and effective intersectional movement, thus preventing true liberation for all women. Especially in the wake of the racially charged events of 2020 and increasing threats to women’s bodily autonomy posed by the U.S. Supreme Court, the need for such a coalition has become ever more pressing.
Purpose of the Research/ Methodology:
Working out of a transformational paradigm, and using the methods of autoethnography and narrative inquiry, this study sought to explore the shift in consciousness a small sample of self-identified white feminists might undergo regarding their own intersectional identity and that of people of color by engaging with antiracist pedagogy that centered the voices, stories, theories, and lived experiences of BIPOC. Through the theoretical lens of critical race feminism, specifically Gloria’s Anzaldúa’s theories of Spiritual Activism and Path of Conocimiento, this study aimed to identify and contextualize the thoughts, feelings, patterns, and motivating factors for change that emerged as these women examined their intersectional relationship to whiteness, bias, power, and privilege as it was expressed in their internalized beliefs and lived experiences.
Conclusions:
White women are socialized into a culture of white dominance and gendered expectations of goodness that inhibit their ability to recognize their racialized identity or understand its inherent power, privilege, or impact on people of color. This socialization process is reinforced by the color-blind ideology prevalent in the public education system that masks the realities of systemic racism and cultivates white fragility, since opportunities for increasing racial literacy are foregone. Key to disrupting this racial myopia is explicit, extended exposure to antiracism curricula that centers BIPOC scholarship and stories of lived experience. Over time white women engaged in such learning move through identifiable stages of identity de-/re-construction that closely align with Gloria Anzaldúa’s Path of Conocimiento and theory of Spiritual Activism. They also come to view the difficult and vulnerable process to become authentically and actively antiracist as inherently spiritual work that deepens self-understanding and feelings of inter-relatedness with all beings.