In 2002, historian Becky Thompson looked to challenge the typical timeline of second wave feminism in her paper Multiracial Feminism: Recasting the Chronology of Second Wave Feminism. Her main critique was on how the typical timeline of second wave feminism focuses too much on “hegemonic feminism,” which is feminism which is “white led, marginalizes the activism and world views of women of color, focuses mainly on the United States, and treats sexism as the ultimate oppression.”4 As a …show more content…
In most cases, hegemonic feminism implies that black feminist organizing was an afterthought, and only came after the prominence of white feminism.6 If anything, black feminism came before the mainstream white feminism, because it’s so intertwined with the civil rights movements of the era.7 Assata Shakur, leader of the Black Liberation Movement, noted that “the revolutionary struggle of Black people had to be against racism, classism, imperialism and sexism for real freedom…”.8 When historians analyze second wave feminism through the lens of white women, it discounts all of the struggles that women of color went through and the efforts they made to right the wrongs done to