Abstract
We explore the politics of naming for non-White women faculty in higher education as it relates to womanist theory. A discussion of these faculty experiences in general, and women faculty in particular are provided to illuminate the many challenges we face in the academy. One such challenge is how we come to identify our scholarship and align ourselves epistemologically. By not identifying as feminists or labeling our raced and gendered work as part of feminist theory, we are engaging in the politics of naming. Jain examines this issue of naming by interviewing eleven non-White women community college student leaders and exploring their relationships with feminism. This exploration provides context to how these women in the United States have critiqued the term feminist and the etymology of both feminism and womanism. At each of our career stages, Jain as junior faculty and Turner as senior faculty, we offer narrative and empirical examples of how we were introduced to womanism and the mentoring that took place while writing this article.