Womanist

Womanist. Taigi Smith uses this word as a replacement for “feminist”. Womanist, she explains, is a term first introduced to her in college by an African American women’s studies professor, and is used to refer to women of color exclusively. In class we have discussed First Wave Feminism and how early feminist progressions were carried out by wealthy white women. Black women were not represented and having attended a women’s college composed of mostly white women, Taigi Smith felt more comfortable referring to herself as a Womanist as opposed to a Feminist to stay true to her culture and diverse upbringing. She references the early Feminist movements where wealthy white women were fighting for the right to vote and trying to make their way into the workplace, leaving colored women to take care of their house and children. The more strides made by white feminists, the deeper colored womanists got stuck in a world of domesticity.

Taigi Smith defines gentrification as “the displacement of poor women and people of color” (Smith 58). She continues on to expand this definition a little further but stays consistent with the specificity of the effects on women exclusively. Gentrification is not actually only related to women, but in her case the women are the poor demographic that are being pushed out of their neighborhoods and taken over by the “imaginary bleach” she renames the rush of white developers and landowners making investments to build white neighborhoods.  This paragraph in her chapter really stood out to me and as I reread it, I am so impressed with the way she writes it. It is straightforward, harsh, and most importantly, honest.