African Women & Feminism. Reflecting on the Politics of Sisterhood

142 Pages·2004·104.452 MB·English

by  Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí (ed.)

T
he relationship between African women and feminism is a contentious one.
Embedded in this connection is the question of whechi:r sisterhood-a mantra
assuming a common oppression of all women and signi~·ing feminist internarion
al/cross-culrural relations--describes rhe symbolic and functional representation uf
Afric.an women. The contributors in this book are aware of the global discourse on women
as articulated by Western Feminists and interrogate the issues raised Ly the misinterpreta
tion ufAfril.an women ofborh black and white American feminists. The implications of
the dominance of Western men and women in the production of knowledge about Africa
are also explored.
This is one of the first collections written by African women who were born and raised in
Africa and are now reaching in the Un ired States. The papers here focus on a variety of
issues including the uses and abuses of female circumcision in global feminist discourse, the
problem of the criminalization approach to eradicating female circumcision. the effect of Reflecting On The Politics OJ Sisterhood
the image oft hevicrimized African woman on development policy, and gender imperialism
as a metascript ofd omination and oppression and as encoun rered by African women in the
academy. This volume also raises profound questions about rhe irle~ that a common anato
my can form the basis ofs ororal solidarity among women ofd ifferent colors, cultures, class
es, nations, and religions.
Oyen\nk~ Oyewl:imi is an associate professor of sociology at State University of New York
at Stony Brook. Burn in Nigeria, she was educated at the University of Ibadan and the
University of California at Berkeley. She is d1e author of The Invention ofWome11: Making
an African Seme of Wfstern Gmder Discourse, which won a 1998 Distinguished Book
Award of rhe American Sociological Associ;;uun and was a finalist for the Herskovitts
Prize of the African Studies Association in the same year.
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AFRICAN WOMEN AND
FEMINISM
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AFRICAN WOMEN AND
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REFLECTING
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POLITICS OF SISTERHOOD
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EDITED BY . :, I
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Copyright© 2003 Oyer6nke Oyewilm i Contents:
First Printing 2003
"Sisterhood" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Nkiru Nzegwu
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, 1. Introduction: Feminism, Sisterhood, and
recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher. Other Foreign Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Oyer6nke Oyewilmi
Book design: 'Damola lfaturoti
Cover design: Roger Dormann 2. The White Woman's Burden: African Women
Cover photograph: Nyokabi Muthama
in Western Feminist Discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
of Oyer6nke Oye1vitmi
Library Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
3. Feminism and Africa: Reflections on the
African women and feminism: reflecting on the politics of sisterhood I edited by
Poverty of Theory .... ... ........ ....... ....... .... .. . 45
Oyeronke Oyewumi.
p. cm. Oltifemi Taiwo
Includes bibliographicaJ.references and index.
ISBN 0~86543-627-4--(hc) --ISBN 0-86543-628-2 (pbk.) .
I. Women--Africa--Social conditions. 2. Feminism. 3. Feminist theory. I. Oyewum1, 4. What Women, Whose Development? A Critical
Oyeronke. Analysis Of Reformist Evangelism on African Women ... ': ... 67 ~ ~-..·
Mqjubao/U O/Ufunke Okome
HQ1787 .A372 2000
305.42'096--dc21
00-027033
5. 0 Africa: Gender Imperialism in Academia .... ............ 99
Nkirtf Nzeg1vu
6. Alice in Motherland: Reading Alice Walker on Africa
and Screening the Color "Black" ....... ....... .......... 159
Oyeronke Oyeivitmi
7. Possessing the Voice of the Other: African Women and the
'Crisis of Representation' in Alice Walker's Possessing the
Secret ef jqy ................................ .... :'. ... 187
Nontassa Nako
8. The Little Foxes That Spoil the Vine: Revisiting the Feminist
Critique of Female Circumcision ... ...... .... .. .. ....... 197
L Omede Obiora
9. Ectomies: A Treasury of Fiction by Africa's Daughters .... .. 231
"SISTERHOOD"
Chikwef!Je Okot!Jo Ogut!Jemi
white sister told me
10. In Search of Chains Without Iron: On Sisterhood, History
all women are one
and the Politics of Location ... ... ...... ... .. ...... ..... 257
united in de face
AbenaBusia
of chau'vism.
(pa'don my engilis)
Contributors ..... . ..... .... ... .......... ... .. ... .... 269
I smiled
Index ..... .... ... .................... .... . : .. .... · · 271
pa. .. paa
pa .. tri .. archy is the cross
women carry, she charged
we must unite
to fight it
with all our might.
I laughed ...
racked by spasm
my head jerked back
and crazily wobbled
from side to side.
pampered sister
titillates herself
to frenzy
with quixotic tales
of male 'xploitation.
I...
"dumb" black woman
laughed mirthlessly on
flicking away tears
of pain from eyes.
j .
. ...' ·
'
vi
,' ,'
AFRICAN \XI OMEN AND FEMINISM
I looked up
from my chore
on the kitchen floor
where, new found sister
had ordered me to be
1.
on knees
INTRODUCTION:
Feminism, Sisterhood, and Other Foreign
Relations
to scrub the floor clean
for the pittance she paid:
on knees
to scrub the floor clean
for sisterarchy.
Oyeronke Oyewilmi
NKJRU NzEGWU
..
,
Currently, feminism as an ideology if not as a social movement, '
28/7/90
is subject to many qualifications. Thus scholars .differentiate
between white feminism, black feminism, Western feminism, Third
world Feminism, and African feminism. These distinctiotl,s reflect the
contestations that have become very much a part of the history and worldwide'
development of feminist ideas. This book focuses on the. contentious'
relationship between feminism and African women. As its title indicates,
African women and feminism are at odds because despite the a~jectives used
to qualify feminism, it is Western feminism that inevitably dolninates even: ,: _
when it is not explicitly the subject under consideration. This feminism usually,".
1
travels without any qualifications but with a lot of baggage.
·-
The volume engages with Western feminism as it has been articulated in,
Europe and America and subsequently carried forward in an imperial march
across the globe. A distinction must be made between the noun feminism and
the adjective feminist. The term feminism usually refers to a historically recent
Europe and American social movements founded to struggle for female
equality. Feminism by this designation has become a global political project. But ., ·
the adjective feminist has a broader reach in that it need not be confined by ..
history; in fact it describes a tarige of behavior indicating fema:le agency and _
1
self-determination. In many traditional African societies, a certain measure of "
self-determination was a valu.e, and practiced as a matter of course and as a
way of life for all adults, male and female. In the 1980s, Filomina Steady
called attention to this African value when she wrote about Africa as the
viii
AFRICAN WOMEN AND FEMINISM Introduction: Feminism, Sisterhood, and other Foreign Relations
original home of feminist principles (Steady 1981). In this sense, then, Afri pense of local categories such as ethnicity, seniority, race, and generation that
can feminism is a tautology. may be more locally salient.
However, this very tradition of African self-determination-personal, The feminism that we engage extensively in. this book, then, is Western
cultural, and political-has been truncated by a series of successive global feminism, a feminism tlut is entangled with the history and practice of Euro
historical processes most notably the Atlantic Slave Trade and European colo pean and North American imperialism and the worldwide European coloni
nization. Over the past five centuries, these developments have made Africa zation of Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Since the fifteenth century, European
politically, economically, and culturally dependent on Western Europe and nations have been engaged in imperialistic ventures that laid the foundation of
North America. As a result, Africa has become the recipient of ideas and globalization. Thus global feminism forms a part of Europology-an elabo
goods of dubious and often harmful value. In order to transform the many ration of what is a distinctly European phenomenon into a human univer
types of degradation and dependency that Africans face today, we must be sal-which is then imposed on all cultures. Gender as essentialized ontology
cognizant of this complex histo1y and its enduring effects as well as the mul-· is one of these pseudo-universals deriving from Western culture that is being
tiple forms of oppression from which African peoples continue to suffer. exported worldwide. Thus feminism's role in the projection of Western cul
Feminism is primarily concerned with the liberation of women. Given ture and cultural forms in the contemporary period must not be underesti
the aforementioned historical occurrences and the fact that in many African mated.
societies the category woman cannot be isolated raises the question of the This volume therefore is also about imperialism-defined as a set of
relevance and value of Western feminism. In much of Africa, "womanhood" hierarchical relationships between and among nations, peoples, cultures, and
does not constitute a social role, identity, position, or location. This is because regions. The project addresses imperialism as a metascript of domination
each individual occupies a multiplicity of overlapping and intersecting posi and oppression, revealing itself variously in the realms of culture, nationality, .
tions, with various relationships to privilege and disadvantage. In addition, race, ethnicity, gender, and class. Imperialism is also manifested in interper
local situations are themselves in a state of flux, given the disproportionate sonal relationships. It incorporates, produces, and is constitute? by multiple
influence of external agents in African life. It would be counterproductive in axes of social relations, including race and gender. This anth~logy fundamen-
the African setting to single out gender, which thus far has been elaborated tally implicates cultural imperialism. Central to this introduction, which was
only as a biologistic category-a body-based identity-as the prima1y source written as a companion piece to the book, is the following question: What are
and focus of political agitation. As Oyeronl{e Oyewumi noted in her book ~e implications for Africans of uncritically adopting Western social catego-
The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses. ries, concerns, and interpretations of reality as their own? The erasure of.
despite the many feminist claims that gender is a socially constructed category, history and the discounting of cultural norms and institutions ar~ the issues at. . /
in reality "in Western conceptualization, gender [the purported soc;ial category]
stak~~:;·
i
cannot exist without sex [the biological category] since the body sits squarely the discourse of sisterhood-a mantra which assumes the com-,· .
at the base of both categories" (1987:8). Thus in the West, the distinction mon :'ictimhood of all women-we examine the effects of unthinkingly. -· 1
between gender and sex cannot be sustained. In many African societies how adopung Western language and cultural terms of discourse. Notwithstand-
ever, there are many social categories that do not rest on the bodily distinc ing the equality and homogenization of positions of women worldwide that'
tions of gender. A good example is the "female husband" of Igbo culture the concept of sisterhood is meant to convey, the reality is that women are
(Amadiume 1987). linked together in a variety of unequal relationships an idea eloquently ex- ~.
Yet, we cannot discount the growing presence of gender consciousness pressed in the preceding poem by Nkiru Nzegwu (see p. vii). Nzegwu re
and the ongoing establishment of male superiority which has been unleashed minds us that it is a myth tl1at sisters are ever equal because the sisterhood is, in
by Africa's encounter with Europe and the Arab world, and by the current fact, always a "sisterarchy." l.
gendered practices of institutions such as the World Bank, the United Na
tions, and various governmental and non-governmental organizations that Sisters in the Global Hood ' Ij
1;:
promote the tenets of Western feminism in the rest of the world. In its Sisterhood has emerged as the dominant model for feminist intercommunity · . .
l
" various guises and disguises, feminism continues to be the most avid manu relations. A term of political solidarity, "sisterhood" bespeaks women's activ:· ··
facturer of gender consciousness and gender categories, inevitably at the ex- ism. The meaning it carries for the white feminist who initiated its use in yet /.
2 3
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AFRICAN WOMEN AND FEMINISM Introduction: Feminism, Sisterhood, and other Foreign Relations
another wave of American feminism is one of shared oppression, solidarity, imagine and speak as if whiteness described the world" (Rich 1979:299) is
common victimization, community of interests and political activism. Whether ta~cen se:iously, then the concept of sisterhood itself, given that it originated
it refers to interracial, international, transglobal, or cross-cultural relations, the with white women, needs to be interrogated.
ideal promoted is couched in the rhetoric of kinship and family bonds. Nev At issue here are the politics of culture, the cultural meaning of sister
ertheless, many feminists have criticized this use of the term. African Ameri h~od, and the need to examine the viability of such a relationship given
can feminists have, for example, pointed out what they consider the hypoc diverse cultural experiences. We must question the very foundation of sister
risy and the dishonesty of white feminists in advocating an unconditional love hood, both as a concept and as a desirable relationship. Undoubtedly a cul
and solidarity amongst all women, even as they exercised their race and class tural understanding is expressed in the choice of "sisterhood" over other
privileges on the backs of non-white women. Given this insightful critique of terms to describe relations between white and black women. Race was the
sisterhood as a model for inter-racial relations, one is surprised that the term first border it had to cross before sisterhood went global. One must ask:
still has currency in certain feminist circles. Unlike the word "feminism," which What is sisterhood and how did it become an ideology through which inter
has engendered new concepts such as womanism for example, "sisterhood" racial, cross-cultural, and transnational relations are to be negotiated? Is the
has not generated alternative terms of political solidarity. African American term transcultural?
feminists, in particular, have pointed out the limitations of the term "sister The reason for the selection of sisterhood over other terms of solidar
hood," attempting to reformulate it to carry the weight of experiences be ity-such as friend, comrade, or compatriot-is not obvious. Even if we
yond' those of white women. Audre Lorde (1984) writes about the "sister grant that sisterhood had a head start over comrade and friend in that it is a
outsider," an oxymoron which suggests that the problem is not really the kinship term, suggesting family ties, unconditional love and loyalty, but what
notion of sisterhood but the way it has been used in the women's movement. about a term deriving from motherhood or its variant. I say this because
Another black feminist, bell hooks (1995), writes about "false sisterhood," there are two immediately apparent models of female solidarity deriving ,
indicating that the term's early meanings were not realized in the lives of from the family: one based on motherhood and the other stemming from
contemporary feminists. She writes: the bond between sisters. Western readers will be quick to respond that moth
erhood introduces a generation gap, which itself signals inequality, the very
Sisterhood became yet another shield against reality, another support system. thing that feminism was founded to wipe out. This reaction, 6.f course, is
Their (white feministsj version of Sisterhood was informed by racist and very much tied to the social context of motherhood in contemporary West-
classis.t assumptions about white womanhood, that the white "lady" (that is ern cultures, where it is a solitary experience, a social role that is p·erceived to
to say the bourgeois woman) should be protected from all that might upset or be occupied by one person at a time within the nuclear family. To an African
discomfort her and shielded from negative realities that might lead to con
reader (or even a Chicana), the model of motherhood is absohi.~ely natural,
frontation. (hooks 1995:296) I
I because if anything binds women together in collective experience, it is child
)
r bearing and the mothering of children, and consequently the nurturing of
Sisterhood amongst women of a racially and culturally diverse group, hooks
community. Because of the tradition of multiple mothers African "sisterly"
concluded, is possible, but only with a great deal of unrelenting work against
I ~elations are more likely to be found in co-mothering. Mothers were present
all sorts of divisions, most importantly, race. Thus, for_h ooks, the problem 1.
r m all generations within and without the household and the family, and moth
with the concept of sisterhood is that it takes political solidarity for granted
I erhood in a sense is a great leveler of women in that the experience is consid
rather than as -a goal to be worked at and achieved. ered to be an equalizer.
I
From its inception a recurrent criticism of white feminism, as manifested
Beyond the dichotomous cultural geography implicit in a comparison of , ,•:'
!II ·' also in the hooks quote above, is that white feminists have considered their African and Western cultures, however, the tradition of multiple and nonex- ; ·.,
experience of womanhood in their culture as the prototypic female experi
elusive mothering is also present within African American and Chicano cul
ence and have used it to define feminism. I contend that the articulation of
/' tures in the United States and in a number of Afro-Caribbean societies. Patricia .
sisterhood as a framework for cross-boundary feminist relations is very much
Hill Collins (1990) writes about the tradition of Other Mothers in African ;' .
tied to the use of white women's experiences as the basis for ferrlinist engage
American social practice. Sociologist Denise Segura points out that the term · ..
ments. If the danger of "white solipsism" that is the tendency "to think,
comadre-co-mother-is an expression of sisterhood amongst Chicanas. In a
4 5
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.... ··1
Introduction: Feminism, Sisterhood, and other Foreign R.efations
AFRICAN WOMEN AND FEMINISM
paper on Chicana/o family structure, Segura andJennifer Pierce draw atten nent to question whether the desired relationship apparent in the use of sister--
tion to multiple mothering figures as a feature of family life as mother and hood initiated by white women is matched by the desire of other women to
relate to them and others in that way.
aunts "work together both to make meals and to nurture the family and each
other" (Segura and Pierce 1993:62). In a number of the Caribbean Islands,
Sister~o.od: A Legacy of the White American Nuclear Family
including Trinidad, St. Lucia, and Haiti, the term macomere is used to express
The pnvilege of naming the model for a cross-border would-be relationship
friendship amongst women. This term essentially encapsulates a -particular
am on? wom~n regardless of race, color, culture, and geography fell to white,
kind of relationship amongst women that is founded on trust and an expec
American, rmddle-class women. Their very first invitation was extended to
tation of mutual support- material and otherwise- particularly with regard
~f~ican ~erican women. What kind of sorority were black women being
to the raising of children, which is the most important and lifelong charge of
uwited to Jmn? What was it in the family experience of white American women
women. In St. Lucia, a close friend is a macoum.
th~t privileged si.sterhood over other terms of political solidarity? Feminist
According to the prefatory note of the premier issue of Macomere (The
philosopher Maria Lugones questions why white American feminists would
Journal of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars), Macomere is a term
go inside the patriarchal nuclear family institution to select a model for female
so~darity. Lugones considers this odd behavior and questions whether any
widely used by women in the Caribbean to mean 'my best friend and close
confidante,' 'my bridesmaid or another female member of a wedding party of thing can really be salvaged from this oppressive institution. Lugones goes on
which I was bridesmaid,' 'the godmother of the child to whom I am also to suggest that perhaps the model of sisterhood that white; American femi
godmother,' 'the woman who, by virtue of the depth of her friendship, has nists were proposing did not derive from their family situation but instead
rights and privileges over my child and whom I see as a surrogate mother.' was borrowed from elsewhere (Lugones 1995:136).
I would however argue that there is nothing odd in the white feminist
Against this background, we must ask again: Why was "sisterhood" chosen as usage of sisterhood as a model for female solidarity. In fact, one of the
the basis of feminist alliances? Why not "co-mother"? The point is that there pla:es where the ~odel of sisterhood makes sense is within the social organi
is nothing inherent in the concept of sisterhood to describe interracial, cross ! zatio~ of the white American nuclear family and the ideologies that flowed
cultural, or any social relationships. The privileging of the ideology of sister- I from it. Gender distinctions are fundamental to the institutions' of Western
. hood over an ideology of shared nurturing embodied in the institution of cul~e. on _which the white American family is based, and the .family as an
motherhood, for example, must be sought within the specific culture and I. illstitution ls at the cutting edge of gender attribution and manufacture. With I
history of Euro-Americans. My goal in this essay is to examine the cultural l ~e dev~lopment in the United States of a distinct form of the n~clear family
basis of sisterhood as a kinship term, as a metonym for family, an ideology I ill the ~eeenth century, gender became even more important as the line of
.· ii
of solidarity, and a political model used as a bridge across communities. I fracture ill the family, given that the family became smaller and more isolated
Simply put, since sisterhood is a kinship term that emerges from the logic of and that the generational difference that was the hallmark of the European- '
the nuclear family, which is a specifically Euro-American family form, one ! type stem family did not transfer to the U.S. Thus, gender was the fundamen-
must. ask why Africans and other peoples whose family systems may have a tal ~rgani~ing principle of the nuclear family, and gender distinctions were the '
different logic and hence articulate and privilege a different set of kinship and basic sour~e of hi~rarchy and oppression within it. By the same t~ken, gender •
non-kin rs:lations should adopt the term. sameness ls perceived to be the primary source of identification and solidar- -
l
Sisterhood, just like the term feminism, need to be re-examined in the ity in this family type. Thus daughters identified as females with their mother
light of the fact that though its origins are very much tied to a specific culture, and sisters (Chodorow 1978).
its intended application is ultimately transglobal. \Vhat meaning does it carry !n ~act, the mother-daughter relationship is key to understanding the . "{
as it crosses boundaries, if indeed it ever does cross boundaries? Should it motivations of white women in the early part of second-wave feminism. :1
carry the same meaning? Can it carry the same meaning, given that its These feminists viewed the nuclear family in its most patriarchal dimension ,-_ . /'_..
conceptualization is informed by specific cultural assumptions and histories? focusing on the way in _':hich it had juvenilized their mothers and stripped'
What exactly are the implications of the cross-cultural use of sisterhood, ~hem of auton~r:r1Y· W~i~g about the mother-daughter relationship and its 1
given that the meaning shifts depending on a host of factors. It is also perti- impact on femmist activism for white women, Jill Lewis Ooseph and Lewis 1
1
I
!
6 7
Ci:
Introduction: Feminism, Sisterhood, and other Foreign Relations
AFR1CAN WOMEN AND FEMINISM
are bastardized, raped, and fragmented from their families, they have to create
1986) noted the sources of feminist negative attitudes towards motherhood:
family. Then it is a political act to call those who are not your blood, but who
are your people 'brother' and 'sister' (Rozelle 1995:139).
The fear of becoming our mothers, our refusal to emulate them, ... is a fear of
the specific conditions of motherhood and womanhood, which necessitate
Rozelle suggests that white feminism appropriated the term "sisterhood"
our oppression. It is a rejection of the nonviable patriarchal separation of
from the black experience following the participation of many white women
nurturance and autonomy, caring and achievement, loving and power. The
fear stems from our knowledge that, through our relationship with our moth in the Civil Rights struggle. It is well documented that the second-wave femi
ers, we are cyclically part of those conditions, ... (Joseph and Lewis 1986:139- nist movement derived from and developed within the black Civil Rights
140) movement. Rozelle argues that white women who had participated in the
movement, having had such a positive encounter in this community of resis
In the nuclear family, the gender identification of children with their mothers tance, naturally tried to borrow the language of the black experience of which
underscores the fact that the mother is first and foremost (even to children) "sister" was a part. She points out that because of their racism, however, they
the patriarch's wife. The gender-based division of power in the nuclear fam were unable to replicate the meaning and function which the term had in the
ily permanently cast the mother in the powerless role of a victim. It is not black community (Rozelle 1995:141).
surprising then that motherhood never ranked high in the kin relationship or A close examination of the ways in which these kinship models are used
role to which middle-class white American feminists aspired. They could, on in the black community and among white feminists reveal a gulf in what they
the other hand, identify with their sisters, who not only grew up under the symbolize and the meaning attached to them in these two settings. This differ
terrifying shadow of the patriarchal father but also shared the same difficult ence in usage .suggest that interpretation must proceed from differing cultural.
gender-identification with the powerless mother and the need to distance and historical experiences. The use of kinship terms in African American
themselves from her. Sisterly relations emerged out of their family heritage as communities differs markedly from their use by white feminists. For one
i
the only viable model: the mother-daughter relationship was hierarchical, but thing, African Americans make use of both kinship terms "brother" and "sis- I
sisters were equal. Sisterhood, which developed to signal the gender exclusiv i ter"-always the pair. On the other hand, "sisterhood," a collective,noun, is the· ·
I 1
ity necessary for white women to escape male control, also symbolized com r,_ predominant term used to express kinship in white feminism. Sisterhood is a I
mon victimhood and shared oppression, which made for equal relations and [h melit.aphdor, denthotingtha collectiv~ty, an~ it odperbatesthat a more abstbractkanAmgd e~-.. '..·.·__._ I
Ji •
·solidarity. Here in lies the historical and cultural roots of sisterhood. I era ze 1eve1 an e terms ' sister ' an " ro er" amongst 1ac en- •
f cans, which are most often used on a personalized, one-to-one b,asis. "
The African American Connection I More fundamentally, "sisterhood" or gender-specific kinshlp terms in j
I· ,.
Ap.y engagement with feminist interracial, cross-cultural relationships must feminism are deployed to signal an exclusive female community. For African .
start with the United States where black-white relations constituted the testing I· Americans, despite the fact that these terms are gender specific, both "brother'; -
~ound of 'difference' which proved to be a dress rehearsal for the global I and "sister" transcend gender solidarity and are used to signal racial com~
l'
sisterhood. As I mentioned earlier, some of the most astute interpreters of I munion. lr;t the black community, "sister" does not imply a desi_re for a fe-
the African American feminist experience do not jettison sisterhood, they
~ale ~xclusi~e .comm~ty (ofint~r~sts), which is precisely what is a.tits bas~ ·.. if :~
only seek to make it more honest by reformulating it. The refusal to subvert m white femtn1sm. It 1s not surpnsmg, then, that use of the collective noun ., I
the concept of sisterhood may be due to the fact that African American "sisterhood" is rare in the African American experience. Even when ''sisters',' · . i
feminists recognize themselves in its usage. The kin terms "sister" and "brother" in contrast to "brother" are shigled out in the black community for special f·
are central to the black experience in the United States. An enduring legacy of recognition, it is an acknowledgment of the gender-specific burden that black ··· I
plantation slavery, these are political terms that immediately establish solidar women have borne historically, way beyond the other forms of· oppression " j ·"
ity and a sense of connection and community among black people. Pat Alake that they share with black men. The sense of community that the use of . · ·
Rozelle points out: kinship terms was designed to convey represented one of the stfategies black . j
Americans employed in their efforts to resist white supremacy and its debili~-
The slave experien~e is the beginning of 'sister' and 'brother.' When a people tating effects on the psyche and the community during the period of enslave-
9
8