Learning from the Outsider Within: The Sociological Significance of Black Feminist Thought*

Black women have long occupied marginal positions in academic settings. I argue that many Black female intellectuals have made creative use of their marginality—their "outsider within " status—to produce Black femi-nist thought that reflects a special standpoint on self, family, and society. I describe and explore the sociological significance of three characteristic themes in such thought: (1) Black women's self-definition and self-valuation; (2) the interlocking nature of oppression; and (3) the importance of Afro-American women's culture. After considering how Black women might draw upon these key themes as outsiders within to generate a distinctive standpoint on existing sociological paradigms, I conclude by suggesting that other sociologists would also benefit by placing greater trust in the creative potential of their own personal and cultural biographies. Afro-American women have long been privy to some of the most intimate secrets of white society. Countless numbers of Black women have ridden buses to their white "fami-lies, " where they not only cooked, cleaned, and executed other domestic duties, but where they also nurtured their "other " children, shrewdly offered guidance to their employers, and frequently, became honorary members of their white "families. " These women have seen white elites, both actual and aspiring, from perspectives largely obscured from their Black spouses and from these groups themselves.