Female ethnic minority?academics sometimes do not identify as feminists because they feel it is a ¡°white¡± concept, according to research.

In her ¡°Gender, ethnicity and feminism: an intersectional analysis of the lived experiences [of] feminist academic women in UK higher education¡±, Kate Sang, associate professor in management at Heriot-Watt University, found that ¡°ethnic minority women academics feel marginalised as women in the academy¡± and ¡°further marginalised as black academics within academic feminism¡±.

She told Times Higher Education that some female ethnic minority academics felt that they ¡°couldn¡¯t be feminist and black¡± because the ¡°two things are contradictory¡±.

¡°Ethnic minority women spoke of feeling ¡®tagged on¡¯ to feminist scholarship,¡± her paper, published in the Journal of Gender Studies, states. ¡°It was felt that there were incompatibilities between feminism and certain ethnic (non-white) identities, with the experiences and scholarship of ethnic minority feminist women remaining on the margins of wider feminist discourse.¡±

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It adds that some ethnic minority academics felt that they were ¡°forced to choose between a feminist identity or that of their ethnic background¡± to progress.

¡°Ethnic minority feminist academics feel they need to pick a particular identity in a particular context,¡± Dr Sang explained to É«ºÐÖ±²¥. ¡°For the women in our study, feminism is seen as inherently a white project.

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¡°Some women would use ¡®womanism¡¯ or ¡®black feminism¡¯, but I also think there was a complexity in terms of which identity is most salient in particular contexts.¡±

These women, she added, ¡°may not label themselves as feminists¡± when ¡°they go back to their families or do research in those communities¡± because academic feminism has not ¡°taken on?intersectionality¡± ¨C the interaction of social identities including gender, ethnicity, sexuality and class.

¡°There¡¯s not just one feminism, there are multiple feminisms; but [academic] feminism is still the white, middle-class, able-bodied, heterosexual feminism of ¡®how can we get childcare¡¯ and those kinds of concerns,¡± she said.

Her paper used data from focus groups organised at a networking event for UK-based feminist academics. Participants were a combination of scholars involved with feminist research and others who were not.?In the wider academy, it found that feminist scholars raised concerns of ¡°hampered career progression as a consequence of being female and openly feminist¡±.

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Despite the issues that feminist ethnic minority academics faced, Dr Sang said that some ¡°used that double marginalisation¡± to their advantage.

¡°There was one woman who used those two conflicting identities to be able to develop a new syllabus at her university on feminism,¡± she said. ¡°Some of the women felt they were able to use being a feminist and an ethnic minority ¨C those two marginalised identities ¨C to challenge government practices.¡±

john.elmes@tesglobal.com