Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Although the term “women of color” literally refers to all groups of women who share the attribute of being nonwhite, it was, for many years, synonymous with Black women because of their pioneering and leadership role in expanding the concept of feminist ideology beyond white women. Reflecting the general patterns of research on race and ethnicity in the United States, the small but budding present-day literature about the political status of nonwhite women continues to center on African American women and their experience of gendered racism of the socioeconomically disadvantaged. With the current experiences of U.S. women of color located in disparate socioeconomic and demographic strata, and with Latinas replacing Black women as the largest group of U.S. nonwhite women today, we question whether a scholarship based in large part on observations of Black women can still hold true now that the field is more diverse and larger. Another question is whether there exists a particular sociopolitical bond among “women of color” due to the discrimination and structural oppression many face that may have the potential for coalition building across race/ethnicity. In this paper, we attempt to move beyond a black-white dichotomy and expand knowledge about the content and political significance of the category “women of color” by examining the aggregate structural conditions and individual attitudes and opinions of four nonwhite groups of political women. Using both U.S. Census data and a first-of-a-kind survey that includes over 500 women of African American, Latino, Asian American, and American Indian descent (as well as over 800 men of color) who served as popularly elected officials at state and local levels nationwide in 2006–7, we consider if and how these women can be treated as a political category.