Feminist politics are most certainly a part of my worldview, but I don’t think I have ever called into question the fact that I never use modifiers when I discuss the type of feminism I practice. I think that when the term first came into my consciousness, I was in a very white environment, and because of that, I don’t think they put much thought into modifying the term to what they identify as or believe. These women, I believe, knew that If they were to have to put modifiers on their feminism, they would have to be honest with themselves and recognize their feminism as white. Because of its introduction to me as a more generic, all encompassing umbrella, the concept itself became really nebulous, and I struggled to understand why the women I was surrounded by were so outspoken about women-specific issues, but when students of color or queer students spoke up about microaggressions that made them uncomfortable, they were silent and therefore complicit. Even in spaces for women of color, discussing our solidarity and ways that we could care for and protect each other, these never took place in the framework of feminism or empowerment, but rather basic survival. This is a place where the concept of feminism could have been really driven home for the women who could have used that transformative power in empowerment to push past survival and towards active resistance. In taking some space from that specific environment and being asked to seriously call into question my sense of morality in another academic setting, it has always felt like a more distant and sterile discussion, a theoretical discussion about very real problems. Although the emphasis on intersectionality has shown me that there are so many ways to identify and do radical work for those communities, I have always struggled in picking one term as I always have felt in-between. Being biracial is an identity I have known and loved since birth, something that my parents always told me to be proud of. Although the duality of identities has provided me with many perspectives and experiences, there is a sense of discomfort in both predominantly white and exclusively black spaces between my peers and I. Even within my black identity, I have always felt the need to choose between identifying as black, which is how society will visually code my mother and I, and being Latina, especially one that was not raised speaking Spanish. The identifier of afro-latinx was one that I was completely unfamiliar with until I got to college, and the wide acceptance and use of the term showed me that there was a community of people that look like me, and might have some similar experiences.
When I discuss radical feminists in the 70s and 80s specifically, I aim to be as specific with my language as the women who I reference have asked me to. How these groups individually are called and what they call themselves is constantly evolving as our vocabulary and understanding around feminism expands and deepens. However, I think that at the heart of it, women within marginalized groups recognize the reality of the multiple oppressions they face, they recognize that their feminism must be intersectional to be feminism at all. Co-liberation is the kind of framework that intersectionality pushes us toward. I think the specificity of Third World or transnational feminisms can be, as I touched on in my presentation, tremendously empowering and clarifies specific membership and focuses. However, even though those two alone share many similarities, there were clear feelings of division on ideas like nationhood and borders. Therefore, I think intersectional feminism is the best catch-all phrase, but the narrower the identities that one can discern for themselves, the easier it is to find those with similar backgrounds, experiences, visions of liberation, and define oneself against generic feminisms like the second wave feminists of the 70s and the white feminists of present day.