How does the short story "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker relate to the 1970s through feminist criticism?

"Everyday Use" is, perhaps, best understood through Walker's idea of Womanism. Walker developed the idea of "womanism" out of the Southern colloquialism of a black woman acting "womanish"—willful and outrageous. A womanist is a woman who loves other women—sexually or not sexually—and who is unabashed in her love for herself and her expression of her identity. In Walker's work, the character Shug Avery in The Color Purple could be characterized as a womanist.

In "Everyday Use," Dee, the narrator's daughter, renames herself "Wangero." She embraces the Afrocentric consciousness of the sixties and seventies, which inspires her renaming, as well as her clothing choices: "A dress down to the ground. . . . A dress so loud it hurts my eyes. There are yellows and oranges. . . . Earrings gold too. . . .  Bracelets dangling and making noises when she moves" 

Dee contrasts with her sister, Maggie, who is "homely" (or thinks she is) and "ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs." She thinks her sister has held always life in the palm of one hand; 'no' is a word the world never learned to say to her." Maggie seems defined by her perceived limitations: her awkwardness and thinner body, as well as the notion that her sister has "nicer hair and a fuller figure" and is "lighter than Maggie."

Dee (Wangero) has seemingly rejected the things that give her value in society. Her ability to find beauty and heritage in her mother's quilts is significant, but her appreciation of heritage does not create any desire in her to be more generous to her sister, who has been more forcefully impacted by racism and sexism than Dee. 

Dee, who is still discovering herself and her place in the world, has the external appearance of a womanist, but she lacks the consciousness exhibited by a character like Shug Avery, who is an exemplar of womanism due to her ability to acknowledge and express love to Celie, a woman Southern society has deemed insignificant. Maggie parallels Celie, not only in the ways in which she has been belittled, but, more importantly, in her ability to withstand abuses, including those inflicted by her sister.