Discourse: The Grabbing Back podcast

Extracts on the roots of Intersectional Feminism (Part 1)

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This month we are focusing on the Roots of Intersectionality and instead of one big conversation, we wanted to really reflect the diversity of voices and opinions that emerged with early African American feminists. 

We have picked six extracts of text by some writers of the time, and invited on six guests to share their reflections on them. There’s so much richness of thought here and so we’ve divided this month’s episode into three mini episodes, so you can reflect on different pieces in your own time. 

This (part 1) reflects on extracts from the Combahee River Collective Statement and Angela Davis’ book ‘Women, race and class’.

  • The Combahee River Collective were a Black feminist lesbian collective, with socialist roots, who were active in Boston in the 1970s. They were vital in pushing the white feminist movement, and the Civil Right Movement, to recognise the specific needs of Black women, especially Black lesbians. The extract in the podcast grapples with the idea of multiple identities leading to multiple oppressions, and reflecting on this is Anna Spence, one of the team here at Grabbing Back.
  • Angela Davis is a radical African American academic and activist, who has been engaged in fighting racial injustice since the 1960s. She has written ten books, but our extract is taken from her first work, which is a history of the racial inequality in the feminist movement and women’s experiences from the abolition of slavery to the 1980s. The extract in the podcast examines the gendered roles that emerged for enslaved women as a result of white oppression and violence. Reflecting on this is Honesty, who works at the Runneymede Trust.

    • Trigger warnings for this episode: Includes discussion of experiences of sexual harassment and the physical and sexual violence and abuse suffered by enslaved people.

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    Discourse: The Grabbing Back podcastBy Grabbing Back