Prefaces Summary and Analysis

"Seeing the Light: Visionary Feminism" (Preface to the Second Edition - January 2000)

The author discusses the development of, and need for, her exploration of feminist theory from the perspectives of race and class as well as gender. She describes how her work, which examines feminist theory from exactly that perspective, was originally dismissed when first published by mainstream feminists, whom she describes as white women of generally privileged backgrounds. She adds that over time those same feminists came to regard the author's innovations as necessary and valuable. She suggests that the feminist movement "has created profound, positive changes in the lives of girls and boys, women and men, living in our society, in a political system of imperialist, white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy" - a system, she adds, that in spite of the social advances of the last few decades is still...