Womanist theology is a response to sexism in black theology and racism in feminist theology. When early black theologians spoke of “the black experience,” they only included the experience of black men and boys. They did not address the unique oppression of black women. Feminist theologians, on the other hand, unwittingly spoke only of white women’s experience, especially of middle- and upper-class white women. They did not include issues of race and economics in their critiques. Many womanists also feel that feminist theology operates in opposition to men and is anathema to the church. Womanist theologians want to maintain their connection to black men and remain faithful to the church traditions from which they come. The term
womanist allows black women to affirm their identity as black while also owning a connection with
feminism. Employing Alice Walker’s definition of
womanist in her 1983 collection of essays
In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens, womanist theology makes significant contributions to the fields of black and liberation theologies.
----
