Women also sing along to woman-hating lyrics, so that makes it ok for the artists to continue to produce those woman-hating lyrics. Too many women sing along to those woman hating because they allowed the men to decide which women are worthy of respect and which women are worthy to be called names. In the third division, Mclune exclaims,” as a black woman who views sexism as just as much the enemy of my people as racism, I can’t buy the apologies and excuses for hip-hop.” She is more concern about black men downgrading their own women and being appreciated for it. Sexism seems like the winning ticket to hip-hops mainstream today. This article is worthy of the top prize for persuasions to be awarded by the way she struck the audience with her argument and supporting details she had to back it up.
In the novel, Celie starts of as an abused, submissive wife, but is transformed into a confident and independent black woman, which goes against the ‘traditional’ values of that time. The male dominance in the novel is portrayed in several ways, sexual aggression being the main one. The novel itself is set between 1900-1940, in rural Georgia, where males often had power over their wives and children. The men were expected to control their wives and show superiority, this was commonly shown amongst the black community. Due to the daily humiliation faced by the ‘black man’ from the white people, the black men turned their frustration towards their women by beating them.
Furthermore, sometimes raped black women it leads them to be stressful, depression and sometime death. Black men were unable to help or defend their women because they were slaves themselves, therefore they had no power which means they just have to see and do nothing about it. Davis describe the important information about how badly is the black women being treated. “Many white men, who began by taking a slave girl in an act of sexual exploitation ended by loving her and the children she bore” (Davis, 1981:25). This shows that black women were treated like animal and treasure just for having high number of children.
She also talks about how categories such as gender, race and class are not “free standing distinct systems” but instead “mutually constructing” intersecting systems, which doesn’t play much to her favor since she is a black female. Being that our society is a patriarchy (male dominated) and has been for so long, (women started to get the right to vote in the US in the year of 1920) it may seem odd or even hard when people have to answer up to a woman in charge; because we are just simply not use to it. In Patricia Hill Collins’s article she makes it seem that poverty and low economic opportunities seem inevitable towards black women: “Black men’s lower income meant that the majority of Black women could not marry wealth nor could their mixed-race children inherit it”. It truly seem like an ongoing process since, even their children have to start from
Black men are capable of doing so many things to go against black women. This all leads to poverty, sexism, violence etc. Women grow up in an environment of poverty but they don’t create the negative view of black men as male rappers make of women. Hip-hop artists continuously write and rap about all the negative things that have happened in their environment but it is almost always directed towards black women, such as their mom’s when they were growing up, their sisters or any females that they had around them when they were growing up. The decent females they’ve had in their life, they always seem to give props to them through writing or their raps.
Here we see the first signs of racial and sexual tension that exists between the two women. Irene is upset at Clare not only for completely denying and neglecting her own race, but also for letting herself be drawn to a man who does not appreciate her for who she is. Although Irene sometimes passes herself as white for certain perks in life, such as eating in fancy restaurants or associating with high class people, she still has kept most of her African-American ties in tact by marrying a upper class black
Women worked similar jobs as the males within the plantations. Males were not the breadwinners of the families; therefore, the females and males both together had to provide food and shelter for their families. Gender roles were somewhat disregarded until the pregnancy of the woman came into the picture. “Gender norms in the quarters, therefore, tended to recognize black men and women as equal partners with similar abilities”. White plantation owners placed this equality amongst females and males because it allowed for a faster and greater production rate on the plantation.
Hostility toward feminism has been further encouraged by the myth of the emasculating “black matriarch” hampering the progress of Black men. Patricia Hill Collins’ article
The Fifteenth Amendment came into action to allow black African-American males to vote stating that the blacks needed it more than the entire women population. This increased the drive in the fight for women suffrage by the advocates. Men, who occasionally drank, opposed women's suffrage because they feared that women would use their voting prowess to regulate the distribution and overall consumption of alcohol. This fueled the opposition for women suffrage since women were not avid drinkers of alcoholic beverages at the time (Brinkley
Many african american males are socialized to be more macho. Many argue that that since black men were not allowed to be real men so gender roles have now become blurred betwern black males and females. Black women are now socialized to support themselves, and are taking on more of a prominent role in the workplace and the home. This socialization of gender roles has created strife in the black male/female relationship as well. Young black males are socialized to be powerful and rational beings.