Linda Burnham | |
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Born | 1948 (age 74–75) |
Nationality | American |
Alma mater | Reed College |
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Linda Burnham (born 1948) is an American journalist, activist, and leader in women's rights movements, particularly with organizations and projects serving and advocating for women of color. [1] [2]
Burnham was born in 1948, to parents who were active in the Young Communist League, and then the Southern Negro Youth Congress, in the 1930s and 1940s. Her father was Louis E. Burnham, an activist and journalist. She grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and graduated from Reed College in 1968. [1]
As a journalist and political activist, Burnham has been a leader and member with the Venceremos Brigade, [3] the Third World Women's Alliance, [4] [5] [6] the Alliance Against Women's Oppression, the Angela Davis Defense Committee, and the Line of March. [7]
She co-founded the Women of Color Resource Center [8] in Oakland, California in 1990 and served as its executive director for eighteen years. Burnham is currently the National Research Director for the National Domestic Workers Alliance. [1]
Burnham led women of color delegations to the 1985 UN World Conference on Women in Nairobi, the 1995 UN World Conference on Women in Beijing, China, and the 2001 United Nations World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa. [9] [10]
Burnham is featured in the 2014 feminist history film She's Beautiful When She's Angry. [11]
She was nominated in 2005 as one of the 1000 Peace Women for the Nobel Prize [7] and was the 2007-8 Twink Frey Visiting Social Activist at the Center for the Education of Women, University of Michigan. [12]
Triple oppression, also called double jeopardy, Jane Crow, or triple exploitation, is a theory developed by black socialists in the United States, such as Claudia Jones. The theory states that a connection exists between various types of oppression, specifically classism, racism, and sexism. It hypothesizes that all three types of oppression need to be overcome at once.
Audre Lorde was an American writer, womanist, radical feminist, professor, philosopher and civil rights activist. She was a self-described "black, lesbian, feminist, socialist, mother, warrior, poet," who "dedicated both her life and her creative talent to confronting and addressing injustices of racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia."
Women's studies is an academic field that draws on feminist and interdisciplinary methods to place women's lives and experiences at the center of study, while examining social and cultural constructs of gender; systems of privilege and oppression; and the relationships between power and gender as they intersect with other identities and social locations such as race, sexual orientation, socio-economic class, and disability.
Postcolonial feminism is a form of feminism that developed as a response to feminism focusing solely on the experiences of women in Western cultures and former colonies. Postcolonial feminism seeks to account for the way that racism and the long-lasting political, economic, and cultural effects of colonialism affect non-white, non-Western women in the postcolonial world. Postcolonial feminism originated in the 1980s as a critique of feminist theorists in developed countries pointing out the universalizing tendencies of mainstream feminist ideas and argues that women living in non-Western countries are misrepresented.
Womanism is a social theory based on the history and everyday experiences of black women. It seeks, according to womanist scholar Layli Maparyan (Phillips), to "restore the balance between people and the environment/nature and reconcil[e] human life with the spiritual dimension." Writer Alice Walker coined the term "womanist" in a short story, Coming Apart, in 1979. Since Walker's initial use, the term has evolved to envelop a spectrum of varied perspectives on the issues facing black women.
Socialist feminism rose in the 1960s and 1970s as an offshoot of the feminist movement and New Left that focuses upon the interconnectivity of the patriarchy and capitalism. However, the ways in which women's private, domestic, and public roles in society has been conceptualized, or thought about, can be traced back to Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) and William Thompson's utopian socialist work in the 1800s. Ideas about overcoming the patriarchy by coming together in female groups to talk about personal problems stem from Carol Hanisch. This was done in an essay in 1969 which later coined the term 'the personal is political.' This was also the time that second wave feminism started to surface which is really when socialist feminism kicked off. Socialist feminists argue that liberation can only be achieved by working to end both the economic and cultural sources of women's oppression.
Materialist feminism highlights capitalism and patriarchy as a central aspect in understanding women's oppression. It focuses on the material, or physical, aspects that define oppression. Under materialist feminism, gender is seen as a social construct, and society forces gender roles, such as rearing children, onto women. Materialist feminism's ideal vision is a society in which women are treated socially and economically the same as men. The theory centers on social change rather than seeking transformation within the capitalist system.
Intersectionality is an analytical framework for understanding how a person's various social and political identities combine to create different modes of discrimination and privilege. Intersectionality identifies multiple factors of advantage and disadvantage. Examples of these factors include gender, caste, sex, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, religion, disability, weight, and physical appearance. These intersecting and overlapping social identities may be both empowering and oppressing. However, little good-quality quantitative research has been done to support or undermine the theory of intersectionality.
Patricia Hill Collins is an American academic specializing in race, class, and gender. She is a distinguished university professor of sociology emerita at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is also the former head of the Department of African-American Studies at the University of Cincinnati, and a past president of the American Sociological Association (ASA). Collins was the 100th president of the ASA and the first African-American woman to hold this position.
Transnational feminism refers to both a contemporary feminist paradigm and the corresponding activist movement. Both the theories and activist practices are concerned with how globalization and capitalism affect people across nations, races, genders, classes, and sexualities. This movement asks to critique the ideologies of traditional white, classist, western models of feminist practices from an intersectional approach and how these connect with labor, theoretical applications, and analytical practice on a geopolitical scale.
Black feminism, also known as Afro-feminism chiefly outside the United States, is a branch of feminism that centers around black women.
Chicana feminism is a sociopolitical movement, theory, and praxis that scrutinizes the historical, cultural, spiritual, educational, and economic intersections impacting Chicanas and the Chicana/o community in the United States. Chicana feminism empowers women to challenge institutionalized social norms and regards anyone a feminist who fights for the end of women's oppression in the community.
"Double Jeopardy: To Be Black and Female" is a 1969 Feminist pamphlet written by Frances M. Beal that critiques capitalism, reproductive rights, as well as social politicalization and its effects on the black women identity and community. Beal's essay talks about the misconceptions and troubles that occur when trying to analyze the role of a black woman in society. The pamphlet covers many different aspects of life and the levels of oppression placed upon black women in the areas of capitalism, race, and gender. Additionally, the pamphlet includes principles outlined by The Third World Women’s Alliance (TWWA). In 1970 the pamphlet was revised then published in The Black Woman, an anthology edited by Toni Cade Bambara in 1970. A revised version was included in the 1970 anthology Sisterhood is Powerful: An Anthology of Writings From The Women's Liberation Movement, edited by Robin Morgan.
Frances M. Beal, also known as Fran Beal, is a Black feminist and a peace and justice political activist. Her focus has predominantly been regarding women's rights, racial justice, anti-war and peace work, as well as international solidarity. Beal was a founding member of the SNCC Black Women's Liberation Committee, which later evolved into the Third World Women's Alliance. She is most widely known for her publication, “Double Jeopardy: To Be Black and Female", which theorizes the intersection of oppression between race, class, and gender. Beal currently lives in Oakland, California.
The Women of Color Resource Center was founded in 1990 by Linda Burnham and Miriam Ching Yoon Louie, who met at U.N. World Conference on Women in Nairobi, Kenya in 1985. They were joined at the WCRC by Caroline Guilartes, Jung Hee Choi, Angela Davis, Derethia DuVal, Chris Lymbertos, Genevieve Negron-Gonzales, Margo Okazawa-Rey and Cindy Wiesner. Burnham served as its Executive Director for 18 years. It includes five objectives: Women's Human Rights, Popular Education, Welfare, Peace and Justice, and Sisters of Fire.
The Combahee River Collective (CRC) ( kəm-BEE) was a Black feminist lesbian socialist organization active in Boston, Massachusetts from 1974 to 1980. The Collective argued that both the white feminist movement and the Civil Rights Movement were not addressing their particular needs as Black women and more specifically as Black lesbians. Racism was present in the mainstream feminist movement, while Delaney and Manditch-Prottas argue that much of the Civil Rights Movement had a sexist and homophobic reputation.
A variety of movements of feminist ideology have developed over the years. They vary in goals, strategies, and affiliations. They often overlap, and some feminists identify themselves with several branches of feminist thought.
Multiracial feminist theory is promoted by women of color, including Black, Latina, Asian, Native American, and anti-racist white women. In 1996, Maxine Baca Zinn and Bonnie Thornton Dill wrote “Theorizing Difference from Multiracial Feminism," a piece emphasizing intersectionality and the application of intersectional analysis in feminist discourse.
Queer of color critique is an intersectional framework, grounded in Black feminism, that challenges the single-issue approach to queer theory by analyzing how power dynamics associated race, class, gender expression, sexuality, ability, culture and nationality influence the lived experiences of individuals and groups that hold one or more of these identities. Incorporating the scholarship and writings of Audre Lorde, Gloria Anzaldúa, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Barbara Smith, Cathy Cohen, Brittney Cooper and Charlene A. Carruthers, the queer of color critique asks: what is queer about queer theory if we are analyzing sexuality as if it is removed from other identities? The queer of color critique expands queer politics and challenges queer activists to move out of a "single oppression framework" and incorporate the work and perspectives of differently marginalized identities into their politics, practices and organizations. The Combahee River Collective Statement clearly articulates the intersecting forces of power: "The most general statement of our politics at the present time would be that we are actively committed to struggling against racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class oppression, and see as our particular task the development of integrated analysis and practice based upon the fact that major systems of oppression are interlocking. The synthesis of these oppressions creates the conditions of our lives." Queer of color critique demands that an intersectional lens be applied queer politics and illustrates the limitations and contradictions of queer theory without it. Exercised by activists, organizers, intellectuals, care workers and community members alike, the queer of color critique imagines and builds a world in which all people can thrive as their most authentic selves- without sacrificing any part of their identity.
Feminism and racism are highly intertwined concepts in intersectional theory, focusing on the ways in which women of color in the Western World experience both sexism and racism.
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