African Americans Doing Feminism

How might ordinary people apply feminist principles to everyday situations? How do feminist ideas affect the daily behaviors and decisions of those who seek to live out the basic idea that women are as fully human as men? This collection of essays uses concrete examples to illuminate the ways in which African Americans practice feminism on a day-to-day basis. Demonstrating real-life situations of feminism in action, each essay tackles an issue—such as personal finances, parenting, sexual harassment, reproductive freedom, incest, depression and addiction, or romantic relationships—and articulates a feminist approach to engaging with the problem or concern. Contributors include African American scholars, artists, activists, and business professionals who offer personal accounts of how they encountered feminist ideas and are using them now as a guide to living. The essays reveal how feminist principles affect people’s perceptions of their ability to change themselves and society, because the personal is not always self-evidently political.

Aaronette M. White is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of California Santa Cruz. She is the author of Ain't I a Feminist? African American Men Speak Out on Fatherhood, Friendship, Forgiveness, and Freedom, also published by SUNY Press.