Anti-Racist Feminism

Featured here are items from the Women's Archives collections at the University of Ottawa Archives and Special Collections (ARCS). 

As a response to traditional (white, middle-class) feminists who assumed women's experiences were universal and did not look at the individual experience of women and the interconnection of racism and sexism, anti-racist feminism focused on challenging racism and patriarchy. Anti-racist feminists wanted to show how racism worked across the lives of women of color and that the experience of racism and that of being a woman cannot be separated.  Many groups were formed from communities of women of colour and focused on issues like racism that affected the daily lives of many women.  As time passed, issues of racism and the experience of women of colour, were brought into the larger conversation.  

The material shown here highlights some of the work that was done to bring attention to these issues.