Joan Morgan
Black & Latina FeminismConferenceJoan Morgan [Cultural Critic & Author]
Joan Morgan shares her thoughts on Black and Latina Feminism and the need for collaboration and an awareness of history in order to successfully challenge the war against women’s rights in America.
Hillary Crosley [Co-Founder and Editorial Director of Parlour Magazine]
As a Black woman and I think especially so as a Black British African woman who doesn’t go to Church as much as I should it’s difficult to find spaces that discuss womanhood in a manner I find liberating rather than limiting. This is one of the reasons why I wish I was in New York for the Women of Power Conference on Black and Latina Feminism presented by the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI) and Parlour Magazine. I can relate to Hillary Crosley when she says growing up Feminism was natural. However, now I am older and I look at the African women who instilled these values in me I have observed a paradox. Although these women are independent and have no time for gender inequality there is still a desire to be affirmed by patriarchy and patriarchal institutions. The most obvious example of this is the relationship African women of my mothers generation have with marriage. For me the worth of marriage is as a facilitator of partnership not its function as affirming a woman’s worth. Anyone raised in an African house knows that for women marriage can often be seen as a rights of passage that indicates worth. If I was at the Women of Power Conference I would be interested in hearing opinions on artfully constructing female agency within traditionally patriarchal institutions, whether this be at home or at work.