Class-Race-Gender: Sloganeering in Search of Meaning. by Kathleen Daly

Social Justice Spring-Summer 1993 v20 n1-2 p56(16) Page 1 Class-race-gender: sloganeering in search of meaning. by Kathleen Daly The class-race-gender approach owes its birth to the black feminist movement of the 1960s and multiculturalism projects in higher education. June Jordan, Audre Lorde and Minnie Bruce Pratt are among the feminist writers who explored the class-race-gender framework in the 1980s. It is an important and necessary framework for understanding the complexity of social relations and their effects on social sciences and the justice system. © COPYRIGHT Social Justice 1993 society; of sexism in the civil rights and black nationalist movements; and of racism in a predominantly white What DOES IT MEAN TO DO A women’s feminist movement. The first wave of publications "CLASS-RACE-GENDER" ANALYSIS? IN THE PAST appeared in 1970; they focused on black women’s DECADE, such an approach has had an impact, albeit experiences in movement politics and on relationships with uneven, on the curriculum in higher education. It has also white women. Soon after, toward the mid-to-late 1970s, affected theories and research in the humanities and law, analyses became even more self-consciously focused on and to a lesser degree in the social sciences and the development of black feminist thought. criminology. Comprising the second source--that which consolidated In this essay, I sketch a history of the class-race-gender and popularized it --were curriculum-integration projects in construct.(1) Where did it come from? Then, I give higher education, virtually all of which were organized by examples of class-race-gender in action: I want you to women’s studies faculty members. These projects were hear how authors embody and express it. Finally, I formed to redress the lack of materials on women or consider its potential for social science and criminology.(2) gender relations in the disciplines (see Sherman and Beck, 1979; Spender, 1981; Lauter, 1983). It soon became My first step is to define terms. What is class-race-gender? apparent that women were not a unified group and that I do not think it is possible to have one definition because gender relations could not be explained in universal terms. those who use class-race-gender relate to it in different In the early 1980s, and at tiems reflecting partnerships in ways. For example, women of color -- whose experiences, women’s studies and racial-ethnic studies, faculty-run ideas, and activism generated the idea -- have a different curriculum integration projects emerged. There was money relationship to it than, say, white women, white men, or to support these efforts and several important centers men of color.(3) producing materials, such as the Center for Research on Women at Memphis State University. By 1985, at least 80 I would define class-race-gender as reflecting three related projects had been launched to examine how the social spheres: (1) social structural relations of class, race, disciplines should be "redefined and reconstructed to and gender; (2) social movements to change these include us all" (Andersen, 1987: 226).(6) relations; and (3) the knowledge or ideas produced from a consciousness, activism, and analysis of these relations. These projects has a swift impact on women’s studies Class-race-gender offers a way not only to theorize about programs and, to a lesser degree, on other campus units. social structure, but also to link social-movement politics Recently, we have witnessed a backlash to curriculum and struggles with a changed consciousness and analysis change, suggesting a measure of its success. Writers such of structure and process. A key element to as Allan Bloom (1987) and Dinesh d’Souza (1991) have class-race-gender is that social relations are viewed in decried the loss of the Western canon and raised the multiple and interactive terms -- not as additive (Spelman, specter of radicals and feminists taking over the university. 1982, 1989; King, 1988). This element has enormous Innovation in the curriculum has been belittled and implications for research in social science and criminology, trivialized as "politically correct." Publicized incidents of where analyses of inequality often consider the "separate" harassment and violence on college campuses have come or "unique effects" of class, race, or gender. to our attention more frequently -- again suggesting evidence of backlash--although we ought to explore History campus social relations, protest activity, and violence over a longer time frame. I would nominate two sources for the class-race-gender construct.(4) Included in the first -- that which inspired it -- Despite the conservative backlash, by the mid-to-late were the experiences of black women(5) in movement 1980s, the class-race-gender construct was widely known activities in the 1960s. From their experiences came an in women’s studies, black or African-American studies, analysis of racism, classism, and sexism in the larger cultural or multicultural studies, sociology, anthropology, - Reprinted with permission. Additional copying is prohibited. - G A L E G R O U P Information Integrity Social Justice Spring-Summer 1993 v20 n1-2 p56(16) Page 2 Class-race-gender: sloganeering in search of meaning. history, English, and American Studies. It became a analysis of the inseparability of these relations: frequent and popular buzzword to signal a way that theory and research ought to be done.(7) We believe that sexual politics under patriarchy is as pervasive in black Emergence of Black Feminist Thought women’s lives as are the politics of class and race. We Reflecting on their experiences in 1960s movement also often find it politics, black women were not of one mind (for reviews, see Giddings, 1984; King, 1988). Some argued for "rights difficult to separate race from class from sex oppression as Blacks first, women second," while others identified the because in our double or triple jeopardy of black womanhood.(8) An early example of black women’s independent organizing was lives they are most often experienced simultaneously. We Frances Beale’s forming of the Third World Women’s know that Alliance within SNCC in the mid-1960s. During this time, Beale edited a newsletter, Triple Oppression, its title there is such a thing as racial-sexual oppression which is referencing class, race, and gender oppression.(9) Key neither solely works at this time were edited collections by Toni Cade (1970) and Mary Lou Thompson (1970), essays by Linda racial nor solely sexual, e.g., the history of rape of black LaRue (1970) and Mae King (1973), Joyce Ladner’s women by white (1971) research on black female adolescence, among others. men as a weapon of political repression (p. 365). In 1973 Gerda Lerner published writings on and by black The Collective defined a set of political and theoretical women in the United States. The book began with alignments that were being developed by others such as documents announcing the sale and cost of slaves in the Bonnie Thornton Dill (1983), bell hooks (1981), Gloria early 19th century and ended with an address by Fannie Joseph (1981), and Angela Davis (1981). They argued that Lou Hamer to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund Institute in unless you consider all the key relations of 1971. This collection made black women’s words and inequality--class, race, gender (and also age and activities in the 19th and 20th centuries accessible to a sexuality)--you have considered none. Further, unless you wider audience (see also Lowenberg and Bogin, 1976). consider the inseparability of these relations in the life of Although black women had been analyzing their one person, you do not understand what we are saying. circumstances in the U.S. for over 150 years, their analyses intensified and deepened by the mid-1970s. Here let me inject my biography. I began as a graduate student in sociology in 1978. At the time, debate centered Consolidation of Black Feminist Thought on the possibility of linking Marxist theories of class with feminist theories of gender. Could these theories be In 1977, Diane Lewis noted that because feminist theories reconciled or were they in ontological conflict? Clearly, in of women’s inequality "focus[ed] exclusively upon the asking those questions, race was not on the agenda. Also, effects of sexism, they have been of limited applicability to around that time Audre Lorde came to the Amherst area to minority women subjected to the constraints of both racism give a speech. I remember then a confusion I felt--and one and sexism." Further, Lewis noted that "black she wished to teach the audience--about her multiple women...tended to see racism as a more powerful cause commitments. She discussed her participation in black of their subordinate position than sexism and to view the community groups, in women’s groups, and in gay and women’s liberation movement with considerable mistrust" lesbian groups, but she wanted to stress, she was a whole (Lewis, 1977: 339). Despite the lack of a race analysis in person, one person across these settings. I asked her, feminist theory and black women’s distrust of the larger nervously raising my hand in a large auditorium setting, movement, Lewis also pointed out that black women were how can you be and act all these things at once? My often more positive toward women’s rights than were white memory of her response to my question was that it didn’t women. make any sense to her. Another important contribution at this time was the Testifying to her power to engage multiple audiences, Combahee River Collective’s statement about black Audre Lorde challenged members of the black community feminism. The group stated its commitment against "racial, to consider sexism (1979a), and in the same year, she sexual, heterosexual, and class oppression" (1979: 362).

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