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A review by kevin_shepherd
We Were There: The Third World Women's Alliance and the Second Wave by Patricia Romney
4.0
When I picked up a chronology of the Third World Women’s Alliance (TWWA) I was not expecting it to be primarily about American women. In my mind the term “Third World” denoted places like Afghanistan and Botswana and Somalia. Instead Patricia Romney writes about the exploits and achievements of women from places like Oakland, California and Brooklyn, New York and Amherst, Massachusetts—women of color who were essentially marginalized and/or excluded from the activities of white, second wave feminists.
If you were to read Estelle Freedman’s The History of Feminism and the Future of Women (2002) you’d find very little written specifically about women of color. In fact, you’d probably come away thinking that all the waves of feminist activism were colorblind and inclusive. Not true.
"As long as women are using class or race power to dominate other women, feminist sisterhood cannot be fully realized." ~bell hooks
Through a series of incarnations, the TWWA evolved into a mechanism of intersectional activism. It represented an alliance of women oppressed under the yoke of “triple jeopardy”; those discriminated against by race, gender and class. In the 1970s, in the midst of the second wave and the fight for the ERA, TWWA became the primary voice for women of color.
The author herself was an activist, and thus so much of what she writes is from firsthand experience. This is an enlightening, albeit disheartening, read; disheartening only because so much of what the TWWA tried to accomplish is still undone. Here in the aftermath of the fourth wave, the struggle continues.
If you were to read Estelle Freedman’s The History of Feminism and the Future of Women (2002) you’d find very little written specifically about women of color. In fact, you’d probably come away thinking that all the waves of feminist activism were colorblind and inclusive. Not true.
"As long as women are using class or race power to dominate other women, feminist sisterhood cannot be fully realized." ~bell hooks
Through a series of incarnations, the TWWA evolved into a mechanism of intersectional activism. It represented an alliance of women oppressed under the yoke of “triple jeopardy”; those discriminated against by race, gender and class. In the 1970s, in the midst of the second wave and the fight for the ERA, TWWA became the primary voice for women of color.
The author herself was an activist, and thus so much of what she writes is from firsthand experience. This is an enlightening, albeit disheartening, read; disheartening only because so much of what the TWWA tried to accomplish is still undone. Here in the aftermath of the fourth wave, the struggle continues.