This article, published in African American Culture: An Encyclopedia of People, Traditions, and Customs (2020), gives an overview of womanism as a social theory developed by African and African American women. The theory critiques all forms of oppression (racism, classism, and sexism). Becoming popular in the 1980s, womanism grew out of a dissatisfaction with the white feminist movement’s focus on Eurocentric ideals and strict gender-based oppression, and the exclusion of men.