Keri Premmer

Gracie Johnson
pp. 574-582
Section B. Feminism and Anti-Feminism
Race and Essentialism in Feminist Legal Theory
By: Angela P. Harris
Being and women and a of color is a metaphysical dilemma
Describing the voice that speaks for the Declaration of Independence and The Pr
eamble of the United States Constitution James Boyd White argues they can be hea
rd in a universal and unified voice.
- Harris argues the despite his claim, this voice does not speak for every
one.
- The voice is a political faction trying to constitute itself as a unit o
f many disparate voices.
- The power of the documents only last as long as the contradictory voices
remain silenced.
The voice implies a speaker, Harris states that both voices come from “multiple
consciousness”
- Multiple consciousnesses means we are not of born with a self but are composed
of a welter of partial, sometime contradictory selves.
- Consciousness is never fixed and is never attained once and for all. It
is not a final outcome or biological given.
- It a process of constant contradictory state of becoming in which both s
ocial institutions and individuals wills are deeply implicated
- Propositions should be constantly put forth, challenged and subverted.
There is a need for multiple consciousnesses in a feminist movement.
- black women argue that their experience as women calls into question the
notion of a unitary “women’s experience”
- Feminist have adopted Multiple Consciousness as appropriate to describe
a world in which people are not oppressed solely on the basis of gender but on
race, class, sexual orientation and other categories
***
- Essentialism means a general characterization or creation of a set of ch
aracter traits that exist among a group of similar people. In this case, essenti
alism in feminist theory means that it gives women a single group of shared trai
ts and terms their experience the “women’s experience.”
- However, this approach to feminism ignores the single experiences of ind
ividual women from different races; specifically the black woman’s experience.
- Essentialist feminist theory has two characteristics that ensure black w
omen’s voices are ignored:
1. Issues of race are bracketed as belonging to a separate and distinct dis
course – a process which leaves black women’s selves fragmented beyond recogniti
on.
2. In removing race, black women are taken out of the movement and white w
omen now stand as the epitome of Woman.
- Feminist essentialism not only represents an insult to black women, but
a broken promise – the promise to listen to women’s stories, the promise of femi
nist method.
- In support of the essentialist feminist movement and “unity,” Robin West
argues that the biological and social implications of motherhood shape the onen
ess of all women. However, she makes two assumptions:
1. Everyone has a deep, unitary “self” that is relatively stable and unchan
ging
2. This “self” differs significantly between men and women but is the same
for all women despite class, race, and sexual orientation.
- There are at least three major contributions that black women have to of
fer post-essentialist feminist theory:
1. Recognition of a self that is multiplicitous; not unitary
2. Recognition that differences are always relational rather than inherent
3. Recognition that wholeness and commonality are acts of will and creativi
ty rather than passive discovery.
- Identity is always relational, not inherent. In other words, race comes
into play as a reaction to external situations. “I feel most colored when I am t
hrown against a sharp white background.”(author Martha Minow)
- Benefits of making race relational in feminist theory:
1. Men will cease to be faceless Others and re-appear as potential allies i
n a political struggle.
2. Reduce the notion of shared victimization and make creative action
3. Re-energize legal theory by including narratives, stories, accounts of t
he particular, the different, and the silenced.
- Conclusion: Gender essentialism is dangerous to feminist legal theory be
cause in its attempt to create a single female “self,” it ignores women perceive
d as different and merely variations on the white norm.