Familial Influence in the Autobiographies of Black South African and African American Women Activists

Abstract

Feminist scholars have criticized social movement theory for its male bias in explaining and understanding resistance. This male bias leads theorists to focus on constructs such as organizational structure and networks, thereby ignoring women's methods of resistance and their participation in liberation struggles. As Kuumba (2001, p. 107) noted, "some resistance strategies engaged in by women as an outgrowth of their productive and reproductive labor are the very ones that are submerged and hidden," (see also Taylor, 1995; Foweraker, 1995; Aulette & Mills, 1988; Baver, 1989; Bookman & Morgen, 1988; Beuchler, 1993; Cohen, 1985). Such analyses challenge the false dichotomy between political and personal spheres of resistance, in which the male sphere of resistance is seen as the political structure and women are conceptualized less as activists because their sphere is seen to be the home. Women's resistance, critics have argued, is "masked by traditional categories used to assess political action" (Naples, 1991, p. 478). A feminist analysis of movement theory suggests that the focus on the public sphere, in which men are seen to exert power and efficacy, should be accompanied by complementary analyses of resistance and activism as they take place in the private realm.The family is a major private site in which activism occurs. Although the relationship between the family and activism has not been the subject of extensive research, two distinct literatures deal with the topic. One focuses on the nature of the family as a microcosm of the intersection of race, class, and gender that characterizes the public world; activism is seen to develop in response to this microcosm. Not only is the impact of these systems of oppression experienced at the level of the family but "ideas about the family also operate as a cognitive scaffold used to construct intersecting systems of oppression" (Hill Collins, 2000, p. 48). The family illuminates the convergence of social and gendered hierarchies in its struggle to access prestige, economic, social, and political power and serves as an important place for understanding the development of resistance strategies against intersecting systems of oppression.While some scholars view the family as a microcosm of oppression, others argue that the effects of imperialism and colonialism on the family structure can perpetuate progressive changes in male/female relationships and therefore challenge the assumptions of traditional gender role socialization. Caulfield (1974), for example, explored the non-Western family structure as it is impacted by imperialism. The family, she argued, is the most basic of institutions "involved in the culture of resistance" (p. 73). Through their "creativity and resourcefulness" (p. 69), families develop survival strategies that serve as "the cultural response to imperialism" (p. 69). She posited that families, "generally under the leadership of women, have fought back, defending subsistence production . . . cementing family bonds and building new networks of mutual support . . consolidating and developing cultures of resistance--cultures of resistance which, like the role of women and family life itself, have been devalued under imperialist ideology" (p. 74).Similarly, Baca Zinn (1975), focusing on Chicano families, examined political familism, defined as "the process of cultural and political activism which involves the participation of total family units in the movement for liberation" (p. 16). She argued that the Chicano family is the organizing structure for social justice. In addition to their efforts to end social and political oppression in the external society, Chicano families apply the demands and expectations of their liberation struggle to gender-role expectations internally. As a result, women's involvement in movement activities "transform[s] patterns of male exclusiveness" (p. 20).A second body of literature concerning the family and activism addresses another aspect of the relationship between the family and activism--the functions of roles as resistance. …