Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower

by Brittney Cooper

I became a Ph.D. because I wanted that kind of life, one where “talking crazy”—playing with ideas that skirted the line between the radical and the absurd, the sacred and the profane—was the order of the day.

One of the biggest battles that second-wave feminists of the seventies had with third-wave feminists of the nineties was over the place of sex and beauty in feminism. Second wavers critiqued high heels and lipstick as oppressive expectations of the patriarchy. Third-wave white girls brought heels and fly red lips back into the mix. Black feminists gave the side eye to white girls and their feminist waves, because looking fierce and fly has always been a part of the Black-girl credo. (And also because Black feminism didn’t fit neatly within the historical trajectory of waves.)

I am saying that far too many women leave behind the freedom feminism offers because they want to stay on patriarchy’s dick, which is to say they want to secure their straightness and their options for getting chosen.

I love a penis attached to a man who knows how to use it, but I’m uninterested in femme-style battle royales over dick. That’s just so basic. Who has time? Feminism wouldn’t be feminism if it didn’t encode a healthy skepticism about the politics of getting dick. And feminism wouldn’t be feminism if it didn’t celebrate the power of pussy. It might be trite but it’s true. To be clear, and not transphobic, feminism is also not about the elevation of particular body parts. My trans-women comrades have taught me that you don’t have to have a vagina to have a pussy.

part of my success story involved having it all—the house, the car, the career, the pretty man, and the kids. It’s fine to want all those things. But it’s dangerous to get them in a context where you have no analysis of how and why those are your desires.

One of feminism’s biggest failures is its failure to insist that feminism is, first and foremost, about truly, deeply, and unapologetically loving women.