This book makes an important contribution to the growing scholarship on intersectionality in political science. In it, Evelyn M. Simien takes seriously the questions raised by intersectionality scholars from across disciplines. She is particularly interested in the challenges to operationalizing this highly theoretical concept, making it more accessible to empirically based scholars. Simien confronts this challenge by focusing on the intersection of race and gender in politics, specifically focusing on blacks' attitudes toward black feminism. She strikes an artful balance between defining terms with theoretical rigor and empirically testing these constructs using public opinion survey research.
Black Feminist Voices in Politics begins by making a strong case for expanding the boundaries of traditional political science to include the interdisciplinary field of black women's studies. From the onset, Simien is clear about her purpose, stating that it represents a “conscious and deliberate effort to chart a course for black women's studies in political science” (p. 1). It is clear that her interest in creating this space for black women's studies is driven by the dearth of scholarship on black women and politics. As a public opinion scholar, not surprisingly she locates the discipline's most acute transgressions within the group consciousness literature.
Simien challenges this literature's binary construction of black women as either blacks or women without allowing for the multiplicative experiences generated by intersecting group memberships. She argues, “Because the totality of black female experiences cannot be treated as the sum of separate parts, they must be analyzed together” (p. 7). For Simien, such forced binaries contribute to ill-conceived approaches to measuring black attitudes and do not allow for intragroup variations. This produces limited frameworks for understanding the complexities of black women's political actions derived from the cross-pressures of multiple identities. As a result, political scientists have not devised adequate tools to account for the “politicized group consciousness of black women” (p. 8) that are informed, at minimum, by race and gender identities. It is here that the author leverages her strongest indictment of the discipline's shortcomings.
What follows is a detailed framework that accounts for the simultaneous effects of gender and race, which Simien argues is an approach that more adequately explains black women's lived experiences. She establishes the determinants of black feminist consciousness as emanating from: 1) black women's deprived status as a result of experiencing both race and gender discrimination; 2) recognition and awareness of this deprived status; and 3) the ability of black men to recognize the deprived status of black women and empathize with this status.
In the three core chapters of the book, Simien uses data from the National Black Political Study (1993–94) and the National Black Election Study (1984–88) to discuss the ways in which black feminist consciousness informs political action for both men and women. Much like Michael Dawson's discussions of the specificities of black public opinion (Black Visions, 2001), Simien directly engages the question of black community support for a specifically delineated expression of black feminism. She argues that support for black feminism differs in specific ways from what is traditionally known as feminism. In Chapter 4, she illustrates the shortcoming of using measures of “feminism” to capture “black feminism,” arguing that this applies to black women a construct that was devised only to measure white attitudes. This results in measuring black women's support of white feminism.
Simien establishes that support for black feminism exists among both black men and women, with black men expressing even higher levels of support than black women on some measures, a finding deserving of greater discussion and future analysis. Similarly, she finds that a black feminist consciousness does not always lead to greater political participation.
Though Simien relies on existing survey data, she is rather critical of the limitations posed by question wording and research designs. However, she does not go so far as to critique the underlying behavioralist assumptions at the root of public opinion research, which many interested in black feminist theory will find problematic. Instead, she conducted a national survey, the National Black Feminist Survey (2003–4), which focuses specifically on the relationship between black feminist consciousness and political behavior. Curiously, this extremely important contribution is relegated to the Epilogue, and would have made a stronger point if it had been woven into earlier core chapters.
An important argument of the book is that group consciousness is derived from shared lived experiences. Simien innovatively illustrates this point by beginning each chapter with a reflection on the life of an iconic nineteenth-century black woman activist whose story depicts the tensions that black women often experience as advocates of both race- and gender-based movements, particularly when these movements are at odds. Using these stories adds substantial texture to her analysis, forcing the reader to wrestle with real-life examples of the tensions depicted throughout the book.
Black Feminist Voices is an extremely important step toward advancing black feminism as a critical tool for empirical analyses. Scholars of intersectionality will benefit from this work, but they will need to engage more seriously the power hierarchies so central to black feminist thought and intersectionality. At the core of intersectionality is the fundamental understanding that some categories of one's identity can embody power while other aspects render one less powerful. This is a more critically nuanced understanding of power. Aspects of one's identity can be situated at conflicting positions in power hierarchies and may shift depending upon the context in which they are experienced. Black women's multiple identities in terms of race, class, gender, age, and so on can be both sources of power in some contexts and deprivation in others. Simien's articulation of black feminist consciousness is much more static, establishing it as a fixed state of deprivation. Without attentiveness to the variances in power associated with identity, the complexities of black feminist consciousness are not fully appreciated. Simien's work does well in situating black feminist theory within political science, but could benefit from a more critical analysis of such power differentials.
Despite this quibble, the author has produced a significant read that an array of scholars should find thought provoking. It is an ideal “how to” guide for those interested in taking a highly theorized concept and empirically testing it, making the book extremely useful in basic methods courses. There is no doubt that it will spark controversy among scholars who question the need for empirical testing of well-theorized constructs—a continually interesting debate. This book should become a cornerstone in race and gender politics. Simien has made a vital contribution to the interdisciplinary scholarship on black women's activism using the familiar tools of the discipline.
