What is Womanist Therapy?
aka Black Feminist Therapy
📢The feminist are coming… the feminist are ..wait.. the angry Black women are coming…. Hide ya razors 🪒 (and body wax), hide ya makeup 💄, hide ya masculinity 💪🏾 but also hide your femininity 🎀 📢 😫
Seriously, the terms “feminist” and “feminism” seem to get a bad rap. Folks often wrongly assume feminism is about hating, men, marriage, nuclear families, babies and religion. This is Not The Case….annnd a quick google search could go along way in easing misconceptions.
As a public service, I shall provide a simple definition (from our friends Merriam and Webster).
feminism
fem·i·nism ˈfe-mə-ˌni-zəm
: belief in and advocacy of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes expressed especially through organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interests
So, yeah.. there’s that… advocacy and equality…Smh 🤦🏽♀️ …
Feminist therapy is a type of psychotherapy specializing in gender and examines the stressors that women experience due to biases, discrimination, and other areas that may affect one’s mental health.
It was developed in response to the previously male-dominated field of psychology so that women could have a therapeutic environment free from the misogyny and sexism common in the field until then.
Though it acknowledges societal causes and issues at play, feminist therapy holds individuals accountable for their own decisions and problems. Since this therapy began in the 1960s, it has evolved to include work with all genders.
Womanist Therapy offers needed Nuance to traditional Feminist Therapy. Where feminist therapy holds individuals accountable, Womanist therapy acknowledges the complicated interplay of autonomy and community… and pursues the optimal level of mental and emotional health for the individual and collective whenever and where ever possible.
Womanist therapy invites Black women and women of color explore and engage their complete identities experiences in a safe, validating, and culturally supportive environment. In this context, Black women are encouraged to examine and confront all messaging and constructs informing and or limiting their self concept. Womanist therapy offers a therapeutic space and opportunities for Black Women to consciously and continually choose themselves and align with their authentic identities and unique purpose.
I’d be sorely remiss to discuss Womanist Therapy or Womanism without acknowledge the incredible Author who coined the the term.
Alice Walker’s Definition of a “Womanist” from In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose Copyright 1983.
WOMANIST
From womanish. (Opp. of “girlish,” i.e., frivolous, irresponsible, not serious.) A black feminist or feminist of color. From the black folk expression of mothers to female children, “you acting womanish,” i.e., like a woman. Usually referring to outrageous, audacious, courageous or willful behavior. Wanting to know more and in greater depth than is considered “good” for one. Interested in grown up doings. Acting grown up. Being grown up. Interchangeable with another black folk expression: “You trying to be grown.” Responsible. In charge. Serious.
2. Also: A woman who loves other women, sexually and/or nonsexually. Appreciates and prefers women’s culture, women’s emotional flexibility (values tears as natural counterbalance of laughter), and women’s strength. Sometimes loves individual men, sexually and/or nonsexually. Committed to survival and wholeness of entire people, male and female. Not a separatist, except periodically, for health. Traditionally a universalist, as in: “Mama, why are we brown, pink, and yellow, and our cousins are white, beige and black?” Ans. “Well, you know the colored race is just like a flower garden, with every color flower represented.” Traditionally capable, as in: “Mama, I’m walking to Canada and I’m taking you and a bunch of other slaves with me.” Reply: “It wouldn’t be the first time.”
3. Loves music. Loves dance. Loves the moon. Loves the Spirit. Loves love and food and roundness. Loves struggle. Loves the Folk. Loves herself. Regardless.
4. Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender.
A Bit More on Feminism and The Black Community
Feminism and the Black community have a complicated relationship… to say the least. Feminism is often described as a tool of whyte supremacy, aimed at destroying the Black family. (Food stamps and feminism are often credited with dismantling all the work of the Civil Right’s Movement… 🙃🙄…but I digress. ) The work of Black feminists is often met with suspicion and derision. Simply acknowledging the existence sexism and misogyny in the Black community is often called “being divisive”. (Many believe feminism was created explicitly to divert the progress of Black people aka Black men reaching some Eurocentric patriarchal ideal (but more on that later… see the next blog post,“Why Womanist Therapy”).
Feminist and feminism are easy targets for those seeking to explain and blame long standing challenges and disparities experienced in and by the Black community. Such myopic oversimplification disregards how Black women’s labor and economic contributions have always been necessities in the Black home and community. (Hate for feminism will have folks longing for a time and reality that never was …at least not in these Americas….(again.. ya girls digresses).
So, is traditional Western feminism perfect? No… First and Second Wave feminism notoriously focused on the enfranchisement and “liberation” of middle class white women. Gender equality meant, equality between white women and their male counter parts. Does this mean Black and other women of color didn’t greatly contribute to the movements for greater gender equality? Of course not! The “American Feminist Movement” espoused appreciation for the SILENT labor of Black women. Like the Civil Rights movement, discussing how racism, classism, and Whyte supremacy persisted in western feminism was/ is considered divisive.
Soooo, should we just toss out the proverbial feminist baby with the sexist bath water? Nah, I think not. Especially when Black women’s fight for liberation in these Americas predates all the waves of feminism. It wasn’t until I was in college that I learned, the division between Black Liberation and Women’s Liberation is artificial and intentional.
A generic explanation of Third Wave Feminism is given credit for finally addressing intersectionality in the pursuit for gender equitability .(Thank you Dr. Kimberlé Crenshaw.) BUT liberators Dr. Angela Davis, Sojourner Truth, bell hooks, Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, Dr. Anna Julia Cooper, etc. are just some of the Black women who had BEEN doing the work of liberation… embodying what Author Alice Walker coined as a,“WOMANIST”.
For more on Dr. Crenshaw and intersectionality: https://time.com/5786710/kimberle-crenshaw-intersectionality/ https://www.law.columbia.edu/faculty/kimberle-w-crenshaw )
Learn more about the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Waves of Feminism here: https://www.history.com/news/feminism-four-waves#second-wave-1963-1980s
Learn more about Black Feminism:
Is Womanist to Feminist as Purple is to Lavender?: African American Women Writers and Scholars Discuss Feminism program
The Revolutionary Practice of Black Feminisms
The Best Books for Budding Black Feminists, According to Experts by: Tembe Denton-Hurst