Why Afro-Feminism Matters: Western Privilege, Intersectionality, and the Global South

Katelynn Landry

The lecture Why Afro-Feminism Matters: Western Privilege, Intersectionality, and the Global South was hosted on Wednesday, February 19th, 2025, by Dr. Eric Touya de Marenne, who received his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, and while teaching in New York was inspired by his African students to begin research into Afro-feminism. The panelists were Gugu Selela, who is in the final year of her doctoral studies and teaches courses on gender, sexuality, and African politics; Cecilia Kyaolo-Ogoti, a Fulbright Scholar and lecturer for Clemson in the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies; and Kathryn Wiley, Assistant Professor of Women’s Leadership and Global Black Studies at Clemson. The lecture discussed the importance of Afro-feminism, especially its importance in addressing Western privilege, creating decolonizing narratives, and improving intersectionality in the feminist movement. 

Gugu Selela began with her discussion of the inspiration of Afro-feminism from the Black feminist movement in the United States. In her view, Afro-feminism is largely rooted in the movement of Black feminism, and the two narratives are intertwined: the focus on intersectionality in both brings attention to the struggles of Black women, and decolonizing modern feminism is a critical point in both types of feminism. She continued with a story of her mother, an unmarried pregnant woman in South Africa. Selela’s mother risked her reputation, job, and potentially her life while pregnant with her, as the stigma surrounding pregnancy perpetuated by the colonist mindset during apartheid was strong and inescapable. Selela stated that stories like her mother’s are often not showcased in the media nor discussed in feminist circles, due to both the lack of representation of Black women in feminism and also the lack of real participation from Black women that is allowed in these circles. With this, she cited tokenism, stating that the false belief that there are an ample amount of Black women participating in feminism has resulted in complacency in working towards intersectional feminism. She stated that while tokenism can have its benefits of allowing Black women in these spaces, it isn’t enough to simply include them - they need to have a voice as well. She stated that a Black feminist's goal is to center Black women in the movement and close the many gaps that exist today in it. She offered her own story, describing her involvement in a student feminist organization. Her involvement was strained by her presence as a Black woman, with the struggles she experienced rarely a topic of conversation in the organization. She stressed that the sentiment of “feminism is for everyone” must be applied to Black and brown women, as many of the goals and achievements of the modern-day feminist movement fail to account for the struggles of women of color. She also emphasized the necessity of decolonizing narratives in feminism, quoting Ali Moritan Robinson: “decolonization is not a metaphor, but it is about land and power.” Selela herself made a powerful statement about feminism’s potential, that the “struggle for women's rights is not just about gender, but against systems that divide and dehumanize us.” She urged the audience to analyze what it means for Black and brown women to truly be able to engage in modern feminism, and highlighted that it is critical for these groups to not only be involved in the movement, but also involved in the making of goals, achievement-setting, and the general conversation of feminism. She discussed the pyramid of privilege that exists in the world, with white men on top and Black women at the bottom of the power structure, and how it is a key structure in the foundation of the Black and Afro-feminist movement; that the liberation of Black women is the liberation of all.

In Cecelia Kyaolo-Ogoti’s section of Why Afro-Feminism Matters, she discussed Kenyan women, the expectations placed onto them during treatment of the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa, and its roots in colonization. The purpose of her research is to understand how the categorization of women into special categories, particularly as ‘woman’ and ‘girl,’ affects the treatment of HIV/AIDS. She began by discussing how colonization changed the definition and expectations of gender roles in Kenya. She described how in the colonial past, Europeans and Africans were assigned different laws that dictated how they were allowed to act, and how they were treated. In order to “fix” the needs of Kenyans, schools were adopted from the United States model, which split women and men into separate categories and taught them according to certain gender norms practiced by Europeans. Women were taught that they were responsible for the health of their families, learning how to do domestic activities such as cooking, cleaning, and hygiene, and eventually going to professional schools in caretaking positions such as teaching or nursing. Beliefs like these represented the European mantra of “educate the women, educate the family,” which set the precedent for Kenyan women being the domestic ‘center’ of the home. Under this model, if women were taught skills such as hygiene and domestic tasks, then they could then take care of their home in a hygienic manner, and care for their husband and teach their children these tasks as well. While ambitious, this placed Kenyan women in a difficult place - they were simultaneously responsible for themselves, their families, and the future of Kenya as a whole - and yet were given little respect outside of these domestic tasks. Women received less freedom than their male counterparts, namely not being able to receive letters from males and being unable to attend work unaccompanied. This dichotomy represented the European desire to determine “what [Kenyans] were supposed to be,” which was in essence less Kenyan and more like the Europeans. Even as colonization receded, missionaries and local indigenous communities continued to perpetuate this model, further entrenching the colonist ideas of gender roles into the Kenyan way of life. Even as women began to exercise more rights and opportunities, the concept of the responsible, yet vulnerable woman is still perpetuated today. In Kyaolo-Ogoti’s work, she has studied how this standard has forced women to bear the brunt of labor in managing HIV/AIDS. Women and girls are expected to use condoms, be faithful, or simply abstain from sex to not spread the disease. This pressure does not help cure or solve for the spread of HIV/AIDS, but instead merely puts an unnecessary burden on women. Kyaolo-Ogoti stated instead that Kenyan women should be empowered, and that gender equality for both men and women does not come in the form of an overbearing responsibility placed onto women, but rather gender equality as a whole. She stated that Afro-feminism and her work often intersect, and that Afro-feminism is one of the many modes of uplifting Kenyan women. 

Kathryn Wiley ended the panel with a discussion of the intersection of Black feminism and its potential for shaping an understanding of the current political, social, and economic moment. She began with an in-depth discussion of Afro-feminism and described how in many places legal equality and democratic values exist, yet Black women face inequality based on gender, race, class, and sexuality. She continued by characterizing Afro-feminism’s uniqueness in uncovering Black women’s knowledge. By centering Black women in feminism,  Black women are able to share their unique perspectives and knowledge, which are often undervalued or entirely ignored. Black women are even less valued in economic conversations, which has contributed to issues in what she referred to as the gender-race gap. Wiley characterized wealth as an important determinant of life chances, such as pursuing an education, choice of housing, and debt management. Race and gender wealth gap severely hinder the breadth and depth of the choices Black men and women can make. She described how Black families have less than a tenth of the wealth of white families, and only 40-45% of Black families are homeowners. She emphasized the intersectionality of economic struggle and claimed that while white women have 55 cents of wealth in comparison to a white man’s dollar, Black women have just 5 cents of wealth. Her work focused particularly on middle-class Black women - characterized as mothers who are college-educated and homeowners - to reveal the financial issues that plague the Black community. She stated that this offered a particular case: Black women in the middle class have chances at economic and social mobility, and yet still struggle to move upward. She stated that this lack of mobility is present in the Black community, in addition to a lack of investment in financial avenues such as stocks. She stated that it is “difficult to obtain capital when you used to be the capital,” and how Black families do not have nearly the generational wealth that white families do. A solution is twofold: to acknowledge the role of Black women in the economy, and to understand the importance of mutual aid. Acknowledging the role of Black women not only “unlocks their perspective,” but gives the knowledge that they have more weight to it.  This is especially important considering financial knowledge is often passed down from generation to generation by the women in Black families. For mutual aid, she states that many Black communities have begun to participate in this, such as with the Magnolia Mothers Fund, but this needs to be a more prominent, meticulous act that considers Black women not just as caretakers, but as individuals with a critical perspective. She asserts that involving Black women more in the economy can aid Black communities and will allow Black communities to be uplifted and move past their financial struggles. She ended with a statement that is a common thread throughout the presentation: that Afro-feminism matters because to close the gap for Black women is to close the gap for all.

A throughline of this lecture is one of intersectionality: that intersectionality is something key that is missing from modern feminism, and that it must be remedied. Afro-feminism is the clear remedy to this. It is clear modern feminism’s moves towards simply including Black and brown women into the fold is insufficient, and instead, a meticulous movement that centers these voices is critical to empowering, uplifting, and ultimately liberating women.