Imagining Revolutionary Feminism: Communist Asia and the Women of the Black Panther Party. Issue 1 (2nd January 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Young, Benjamin R.
• Is Part Of: Souls. Volume 21:Issue 1(2019)
• Page Start: 1
• Page End: 17
• Publication Date: 2019-01-02
• Subjects: Asia -- Black Panther Party -- Black internationalism -- China -- feminism -- North Korea -- Vietnam; African Americans -- Periodicals; African Americans -- Social conditions -- Periodicals; African Americans -- History -- Periodicals; United States -- Race relations -- Periodicals; 305.896
• DOI: 10.1080/10999949.2019.1647126
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1099-9949

Abstract

Abstract : Using newspapers, autobiographies, and interviews, this article examines the ways in which women of the Black Panther Party imagined the women of Vietnam, China, and North Korea as radical archetypes during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Using Judy Wu's theory of "radical orientalism" in conversation with Ashley Farmer's concept of the "gendered imaginary, " I argue that the Panther women imagined the women of "the East" as pioneers in world revolution and women's liberation in order to protest against gendered injustices within the Party and broader U.S. society. This article also investigates the realities on the ground for the women of Communist Asia and the ways in which the patriarchy preserved itself despite the social revolutions of these three Marxist–Leninist governments.