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Multiracial Feminism
As Third Wave Feminism emerged in the 1990’s, feminism expanded to include new theories. One of those perspectives includes multiracial feminism, which revolves around women of color, diversity and difference among women.

Also known as “women of color” feminism, it offers a standpoint theory and analysis of women’s lives—from the lives and experiences of women of color. Until the Third Wave, mainstream scholarship feminist theory was developed mostly by white, middle class women and excluded women of color and their experiences. The concept of “woman” could not be universalized, however, without taking into consideration—and providing an analytical framework—for personal experience, intersecting identities, and differences in various racial, ethnic, and class contexts. The term “multiracial” was selected because race was seen as an already-established power system. Race had definite impact on women’s lives and the inequalities that resulted through social structure dimensions and multiple hierarchies of domination and oppression.

The multiracial feminism perspective was developed by Dr. Maxine Baca Zinn, who is known as one of the “foremothers of Chicana feminism” and a pioneer in the field of family, race and ethnic relations, especially ethnic families and Mexican-American women and Dr. Bonnie Thornton Dill, a sociology expert on African American women and family. Both are college professors and authors who have done extensive research on multiracial issues and written many articles and several books on related topics.

Their book, Women of Color in U.S. Society, for example, explored how the “ideals of feminine liberation differed between racial groups.” Minority women were most often victims of oppression and limited opportunities at various social levels.

Roots of Multiracial Feminism
Multiracial feminism stemmed from socialist feminist thinking and race and ethnic studies, especially where political and economic forces shape women’s lives. Social causes that affect ethnic women’s subordination, even among other women were also analyzed in these fields.

Through race and ethnic studies, multicultural feminism identified cultures like African American, Latino, Native American and Asian American and expounded on the cultural and racial differences between them and in relation to the white, middle-class woman. All intersecting identities and relationships involved hierarchal positioning which in turn affect opportunity and subordination at different levels.

Basic Argument Against Multiracial Feminism
The multiracial feminism perspective introduced new conflicts into feminist studies because of the focus on “difference” rather than commonality of women. Difference became a privileged status as well as a threat to traditional feminist viewpoints, which didn’t take into consideration race, class and ethnicity factors when analyzing women’s status in society. However, Baca Zinn explained that multiracialism should be looked at not as “individual characteristics but as a means to showcase location and group positioning within a society’s opportunity structures.” Studies and research in the field of multiracial feminism continue today.