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Patricia Hill Collins Black Feminist Thought Analysis

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Patricia Hill Collins’ “Black Feminist Thought” discussed the importance and power of the black feminist thought and black feminist critique, what she called the “matrix of domination”. Collins argued the critiques offered two main contributions: (1) they provided another way of looking at oppression through an intersectional lens, and (2) black feminist thought acknowledges and centers around the voices of black women, even in a field of predominantly white scholars. She argued that a subordinate group experiences a different reality than a dominant group and interprets that reality different than them; it is the connection of what a person does and what he or she thinks. This idea reminds me of how a dominant group, Whites, make assumptions about a subordinate group’s, Blacks, life experiences. Whites cannot explain those experiences of Blacks simply because they are the one group who caused the pain and suffering of Blacks, what they have experienced and are experiencing, from acts of discrimination, stereotyping, and prejudice. Also, in the article, “Black Feminist Thought”, Collins argued that African-American women …show more content…

Bifurcation, in its relation to standpoint theory, is divided or separated into two modes of being for women. One mode is knowing the situated in the body and the space where it is, and the other mode is knowing the situated in conceptual realm. Because sociology is a male-dominated field, women must fight to push past what is expected of them, to have roles as housewives and mothers, moving from the local realm to the “extra local” realm of society. I agree with Smith’s theory because society has this idea that women are supposed to have roles only being housewives and mothers. From experience, I have had conversations with men and majority of them believed that women are supposed to be stay-at-home mothers, caring for the home and

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