This past Monday, I went to the table talk about women of color feminism. It was an interesting chat with everyone around the table and I feel like I gained a lot from hearing about others’ perspectives–especially when we all went around and shared what was that “moment” where we decided that we were feminists. I thought it was really wonderful that the consensus at this table talk was that we definitely needed feminism. A lot of people say that we are in a post-feminism world, but there are so many obvious signs that we are not.

Another very important topic that came up was what women of color feminism meant. We didn’t mention a specific, exact definition, so I’ll talk a little bit about what women of color feminism means for me here after thinking about it for a week (I articulate thoughts better over writing anyways and though I shared my definition at the table talk, I feel like it wasn’t good enough/well developed). I feel like women of color feminism is inclusive feminism. We see “iconic” feminists fighting for women’s rights, but sometimes that doesn’t include women of color. Something I mentioned at the table talk was Susan B. Anthony, often thought of as a women’s rights icon. Though she fought for women’s right to vote, she failed to include African American women. In fact, in a notorious, racist, statement, she basically said that a woman’s right to vote is more legitimate than any African American’s. Modern day “women’s rights champions” include the likes of Taylor Swift and Amy Schumer. From Taylor Swift’s cultural appropriation and objectification of women of color in her Shake It Off music video, to Schumer’s parody of Beyonce’s Formation–these self proclaimed feminists are perfect examples of why white feminism is so problematic. White feminism essentially assumes white, cis, able-bodied, upper-middle class, thin, straight women as the “default.” The issue with that is that it ignores all the other -isms and -phobias that women from other backgrounds face every day–racism, classism, homophobia, xenophobia, etc–and instead of fighting for the rights of all women and taking in consideration the experience of all women, white feminism is limited to the experience of the “default” women, as I’ve described above. I mention white feminism as I feel like it is the complete opposite of the idea of women of color feminism. And though the term is explicitly ‘women of color’ feminism, I don’t feel like that feminism is exclusive to women of color. As in, because of the inclusive nature of women of color feminism, there is no ‘default’–which means white women aren’t excluded from this type of feminism. I see women of color feminism as feminism that considers all the voices, and supports everyone.

Something that was mentioned at the table talk was that can you just have one single women of color feminism? As in, are there more than one type–Asian American feminism, Latinx feminism, African American feminism, Indigenous feminism, and so on? I think the answer is yes and no–at the end of the day I think women just wants visibility. We want to be heard and we want people to pay attention to us. We want to be treated equally in the workplace and not have to fight so hard to have basic human rights, such as what we choose to wear or what we chose to do with our bodies. But, it’s also important to consider that each group may want different things–though we are all women, we still come from different cultural backgrounds. We have shared, overarching goals, as well as individualized ones. In that sense, I think there are more than one women of color feminism–one that focuses on the individualized goals. But at the end of the day, I think it’s also important to have one overarching women of color feminism to achieve that one big goal–gender equality. We can all take small steps to get there, but what is important is that everyone supports each other–one small victory can be everyone’s victory.