Toward a More Just Feminism

Abstract

The history of the women’s movements and women’s involvement in civic causes and actions shows that commitment to women’s causes is no guarantee that other human rights issues will be supported. Instances of racism and other prejudices that have impacted women’s groups in the United States will be used to illustrate the contradiction, and corollary patterns from the present will be used to show that the disconnect between promoting women’s causes and other pressing human rights issues remains. I will use the exemplar of citation practices as one aspect of contemporary professional behavior that may contribute to the ongoing invisibility of accomplishments by women and scholars of color of any gender. I will also demonstrate some tools that, combined with better self-awareness, can improve the visibility of all members of underrepresented groups. The challenge we face is to convert awareness of the complex intersections between gender and racial issues into the application of feminist values across the full spectrum of human experience.