Before She Takes The Stage At Get Free 2025, Sesali Bowen Breaks Down What Black Feminism Needs Now [Exclusive] - Page 2

What ‘Mainstream Feminism’ Gets Wrong

Asked about how mainstream feminism continues to fail Black women, Bowen didn’t hesitate:

“I think the biggest lie is the idea of ‘mainstream feminism’ itself. Mainstream feminism just feels like an oxymoron to me because we live in a patriarchal culture. So if feminism were mainstream in any way, we would not live in a patriarchal culture. We would have a more feminist culture.”

“I think it is frustrating to see so many Black women, in particular, fall for that lie because they use it as an excuse not to engage in feminism at all. The truth is that Black women have also always been engaged in feminism and in feminist causes for as long as white women have. Some of our issues have looked different, but we’ve been engaged in the work of feminism for just as long. We do not need to look to white women to be the voice or be the engineers of a solution to what those issues are, because they are issues that are unique to us.”

Her insights were sharpened with analogy:

“I look at it like the example of hoteps,” Bowen said, alluding to the militant faux-philosophers known for worshiping pyramids, patriarchy, and poor relationship advice. “When we think about being pro-Black, which is like an umbrella statement for anybody who supports the liberation and advancement of Black people, hoteps often come in with all types of crazy conspiracy theories, toxic masculinity, flat earth—you know, whatever it may be. Even though that is [often] the visual image of pro-Blackness—somebody that’s very militant—nobody says ‘well, since the hoteps are so loud, I guess pro-Blackness isn’t it.’ We have such a lens to understand that pro-Blackness is an umbrella. Why aren’t we looking at feminism in that way?”

“Honestly, I am obviously a Black feminist ’cause I’m Black and I’m a feminist, but I usually just say I’m a feminist because that’s what I am. If a person doesn’t have the range to understand that I am approaching feminism from a unique perspective—as a Black woman, as a queer woman, as a fat woman—then like, okay, you know, those are the steps that you’re missing.”

Joy, Critique, and the Work of Liberation

Bowen doesn’t expect white women to hold space for her liberation. She expects that work to come from people like herself.

“I mean, I feel that way with white women all the time, but I also don’t look for them to include me. I don’t expect white women to have a feminism that relates to me and my struggles as a Black woman because they’re white. They’re not Black feminists.”

“When I walk into a room full of feminists that maybe do not share the same identity as me, it is my job to bring forth my identity in the way in which feminism works in my life with those identities into that space. I don’t always expect it to be there. I don’t believe in waiting on majority groups or privileged groups to help me or fix things for me. I feel that solutions for us have come from us.”

She also believes joy is inseparable from the work and from survival.

“That’s something I talk about with Trap Feminism a lot. I think that Black women in particular have always been very, very good at holding joy and struggle at the exact same time. I don’t always feel like I have to find a way to hold space for joy because that is a tradition of Black womanhood that comes very easily, comes very naturally, and that we get to be unapologetic about.”

“What I feel is to encourage folks who are in the struggle that they also still have room for joy, whatever that may look like for them.”

One of the biggest things Bowen says she had to release in order to move more freely in her own work was the idea that celebrating Black women meant never critiquing them.

“I think very recently I have had to let go of the deifying of Black women—this idea that to be in community with Black women is to never be critical of them, to never challenge, to never question, when there is also room for that. Because that’s what it means to really be in community with folks.” For Bowen, loving Black women means making space for honesty.

“ We also have to acknowledge that like any oppressed group, Black women also experience a lot of internalized misogyny that we have not addressed. Even from simple things, like how Black daughters are sometimes raised differently than Black sons, and what type of Black men are being raised and sent out into the world as a result of that. There are a lot of Black women, unfortunately, who’ll still center their heterosexuality, their desire for male companionship, male partnership, male attention, male validation…They lack an awareness of how that is influencing their work and how they’re able to advocate for Black women and Black girls. It’s not about demonizing those women. It’s not about saying ‘No,you can’t sit with us.’ It’s is not that, but we are at least allowed to call them in to say, ‘Hey, have you considered this?’

In A Better World

Asked what the world would look like if her work had full support, Bowen painted a picture equal parts practical and poetic.

“First of all, I think that we would be paid more. Black women would not be overrepresented in those of us who live below the poverty line. Black women would be able to take care of themselves and feed their families in ways that they are not always able to now.”

“Art would be so much better and richer. When folks are living under oppression, the amount of resources they have to commit to creative practices and crafts just aren’t there. How much music have we not heard? How much writing, how much literature have we not read yet just because there’s somebody who doesn’t have time to stop working long enough to create it?”

“I think the world would smell better,” she shared with an infectious chuckle. I just think that in general, people would live better because when Black women are able to experience liberation, that includes liberation for so many other people.”

Ready to connect, strategize, and mobilize with fellow Black feminists? Grab your ticket to “Get Free: A Black Feminist Reunion” in New Orleans here.

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