Ain't I a Womanist, Too?: Third Wave Womanist Religious Thought

Introduction: Ain’t I a Womanist Too?

Introduction: Ain’t I a Womanist Too? Third Wave Womanist Religious Thought Monica A. Coleman But what’s all dis here talkin’ bout? Dat man ober dar say dat womin needs to be helped into carriages and lifted ober mud puddles, and to have de best place every whar. Nobody eber help me into carriages, or ober mud puddles or gibs me any best place! And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed, and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man—when I could get it—and bear de lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have bourne thirteen chilern, and seen ’em mos’ all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman?1 In her now famous 1851 speech at the Akron, Ohio women’s rights gathering, Sojourner Truth critiqued the default understanding of womanhood with her poignant question, “And ain’t I a woman?” Sojourner Truth noted the ways that the work and lives of enslaved black women departed from the Victorian standards of piety, purity, submission, and domesticity—more commonly referred to as the “cult of true womanhood.” Having different experiences and perspectives from white middle- and upper-class women did not negate Truth’s womanhood. Rather, Truth calls for a redefinition, or more aptly, an expansion, 1 of what it means to be a woman. This refrain has served as a touchstone, first for black women, and eventually for women of all backgrounds, to ensure that no woman, no matter how different her experiences, was left oppressed. Likewise, there is a third wave of womanist religious thought that asks a similar question, “Ain’t I a womanist too?” In so doing, this movement redefines and extends, from within and without, what it means to place black women’s religious experiences at the center of theological activity and religious reflection. This introduction will address womanism in general, and issues of identity politics. It will discuss how third wave womanism dovetails with third wave feminism and will give some markers for what constitutes third wave womanist religious thought. The final section will note how the essays in this volume variously reflect third wave womanist religious thought. History of “Womanist” and “Womanism” ALICE W ALKER Within religious scholarship, Alice Walker’s description of “womanist” is often invoked as a definition, at the most, or as poetic inspiration, at the least, for the religious reflection by and about black women. Alice Walker initially uses the term “womanist” in her 1979 short story, “Coming Apart.” Almost parenthetically, she writes, “The wife has never considered herself a feminist—though she is, of course, a ‘womanist.’ A ‘womanist’ is a feminist, only more common.”2 Walker gives greater explanation in her 1981 article, “Gifts of Power: The Writings of Rebecca Jackson.” Ruminating on the writings of the nineteenth-century black female Shaker preacher, Rebecca Jackson, Walker reflects on Jean McMahon Humez’s editing of Jackson’s work where Humez refers to Jackson’s decision to live with a close woman friend as a relationship that, in modern times, would have been referred to as openly lesbian. Walker rejects Humez’s naming for many reasons with these concluding remarks: The word “lesbian” may not, in any case, be suitable (or comfortable) for black women, who surely would have begun their woman-bonding earlier than Sappho’s residency on the Isle of Lesbos. Indeed, I can imagine black women who love women (sexually or not) hardly thinking of what Greeks were doing; but instead, referring to themselves as “whole” women, from “wholly” or “holy.” Or as “round” women—women who love other women, yes, but women who also have concern, in a culture that oppresses all black people (and this would go back very far), for their fathers, brothers and sons, no matter how they feel about them as males. My own term for such women would be “womanist.” At any rate, the word they chose would have to be both 2 | Ain't I a Womanist, Too? spiritual and concrete and it would have to be organic, characteristic, not simply applied.3 There are hints to where Walker will go with the...