In the book, Inequalities of Love by Averil Y. Clarke uses the personal narratives of college-educated black women in-order to describe the difficulties one faces when trying to date, marry, or have children. Clarke writes that all women, regardless of race, must give up romantic relationships and family in-order to obtain an advanced education and have professional careers. Clarke’s research reveals that educated black women have disadvantages in romance and starting a family because the system of racial inequality and discrimination. Throughout Clarke’s research, she notices that women of color return to their incompatible significant other as they lose hope of finding their ideal partner and reject the idea of having children before marriage because it seems to encourage a negative stereotype of black women’s sexuality. The book Inequalities of Love is based on 58 open-ended interviews with college-educated black women who are 50 years old and under. Clarke collects her information by using national survey data so she can compare the experiences of reproduction, romance, and family of college-educated black women to black women without a degree, as well as white and Hispanic women with degrees. Clarke discovers that black women with degrees are less likely to get married and have sex. However, they are more likely to have an unwanted pregnancy, abortion, and have a child before marriage than college-educated white and Hispanic women. Here one can see the comparison Clarke makes with college-educated women across racial lines and African American women across social class lines. Furthermore, Clarke writes that the inequities that black women experience in romance emphasizes the connections between the individuals’ sexual ... ... middle of paper ... ...in a degree as well avoiding racial stigmas. Furthermore, these experiences are in direct correlation to the contexts of other social and institutional hierarchies because they help influence and sometimes make their choices. Some social and institutional hierarchies are families and educational institution. Clarke goes into further detail by explaining the inequalities that affect African American women are based on the unequal access to love, marriage, and childbearing. Overall, Clarke explains that a class advantage does not necessarily lead to social power. Moreover, it is for black women who cannot separate themselves from the symbolism that is associated with their bodies as well as, gender inequities in the pursuit of love. In addition, she goes on in explaining that Class is not only gained through productivity but in addition to love marriage and family.
The text suggest from various studies that sexual freedom and expression is still limited. How women and men are taught to view their bodies, how they view their autonomy, how they view pleasure, and how marriage is perceived as respectability plays into the socialization of sexuality (49). These studies reminded me of the numerous reasons that many women especially black women conform to societal beliefs and limit their agency and pleasure in sexuality. These socializations of sexuality transcend into gender roles and how gender is considered in kin relationships. Robert Evans and Helen L. Evans suggest in their study Coping: Stressor and Depression among Middle Class African-American Men that men have become a critical group to understand in order to better understand the social and psychological climate of the African American community. They suggest that family issues, employment issues, environmental factors, and racism were the main causes of depression and emotional distress. Acknowledging these factors are essential to acknowledging a communities well-being. While reading numerous studies on the family structure from polygamy to motherhood to fatherhood to black female-black male relationship, I continued to consider the role that post-traumatic slave disorder takes. I so often refer back to the slavery, but I began to ask myself can we really blame everything on
In his essay, “On Being Black and Middle Class” (1988), writer and middle-class black American, Shelby Steele adopts a concerned tone in order to argue that because of the social conflicts that arise pertaining to black heritage and middle class wealth, individuals that fit under both of these statuses are ostracized. Steele proposes that the solution to this ostracization is for people to individualize themselves, and to ‘“move beyond the victim-focused black identity” (611). Steele supports his assertion by using evidence from his own life and incorporating social patterns to his text. To reach his intended audience of middle-class, black people, Steele’s utilizes casual yet, imperative diction.
More than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City (Issues of Our Time)
Developing friendships between black and white women has been difficult for many years. Although black and white women share common grey spaces, it is the effects of racism that caused one culture to be seemingly set at a higher level on the hierarchical scale. The perceived distance created limits on both races which as a result created a wall of silence and a lack of solidarity. Even though oppression and past hurts have prolonged the mending of what could become an authentic healing there are still positive views on what could be accomplished if women of all races came together to form a mutual bond. Based on the views of a white woman writer and culture I will discuss the limits placed on black and white women and how the two could form a place of reconciliation.
Collin thinks “race, class and gender represent the three system of oppression that most heavily affects African American women”. She also believes there are other groups than Black Women being affected by this oppression.
Yang, G. & Ryser, T. A. (2008). Whiting up and Blacking Out: White Privlege, Race, and White Chicks. African American Review, 42(3/4), 731-746. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40301264
The Author of this book (On our own terms: race, class, and gender in the lives of African American Women) Leith Mullings seeks to explore the modern and historical lives of African American women on the issues of race, class and gender. Mullings does this in a very analytical way using a collection of essays written and collected over a twenty five year period. The author’s systematic format best explains her point of view. The book explores issues such as family, work and health comparing and contrasting between white and black women as well as between men and women of both races.
...listic structure of America. Amongst the entire provided statistics one thing remained constant, the rank of the Black woman were almost always lowest; which unfortunately still remains the same in today’s society.
...of affairs with the white females ultimately exclude the black female from few of the only possible friends she can have and allows the majority, dominant “norm” to not experience these oppressions and loss of choices.
Davis employs this tool in order to explain and explore the interaction between race. and class within the context of the women's movement in the United States. those who are predisposed to reject Davis’ primary thesis. Chapter 12 titled "Racism, Birth Control and Reproductive Rights" meticulously examines another issue where tension and conflict is caused by the intersectionality of class and racial oppression. Davis asserts that there was great division.
After getting the apartment on 116th Street Lutie didn’t know what her next step would be. She didn’t know how long she would stay there. They had just enough money to pay rent, buy food and clothes. Being locked into poverty enables Lutie from seeing a future. “She couldn’t see anything but 116th Street and a job that paid barely enough for food and rent and a handful of clothes. “(147). This world she was living contrasts with places that were “filled with sunlight and good food and where children were safe was fenced off to African-Americans so people like Lutie could only look at it with no expectation of ever being able to have it.”(147). Lutie came to the realization as to why white people hate black people so much. It is because they are entitled to white privilege at birth. Take McIntosh’s “White Privilege-Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” into account. McIntosh describes white privilege as invisible things that we are taught not to see. For example Mrs. Chandler, who employs Lutie as her maid. Mrs. Chandler has an advantage over Lutie, which puts Lutie at a disadvantage. People of the dominant society like The Chandlers have a “pattern running through the matrix of white privilege” (McIntosh), a pattern of assumptions that were passed on to them as a white person. “[The Chandlers] are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and also ideal.”(McIntosh). In proportion as The
On Being Young-A Woman-and Colored an essay by Marita Bonner addresses what it means to be black women in a world of white privilege. Bonner reflects about a time when she was younger, how simple her life was, but as she grows older she is forced to work hard to live a life better than those around her. Ultimately, she is a woman living with the roles that women of all colors have been constrained to. Critics, within the last 20 years, believe that Marita Bonners’ essay primarily focuses on the double consciousness ; while others believe that she is focusing on gender , class , “economic hardships, and discrimination” . I argue that Bonner is writing her essay about the historical context of oppression forcing women into intersectional oppression by explaining the naturality of racial discrimination between black and white, how time and money equate to the American Dream, and lastly how gender discrimination silences women, specifically black women.
Rothenberg, P. 1998. Race, Class, and Gender in the United States. New York: St. Martin's Press.
Lareau’s main argument in the text is that when children grow up in certain environments, parents are more likely to use specific methods of child rearing that may be different from other families in different social classes. In the text, Lareau describes how she went into the home of the McAllisters and the Williams, two black families leading completely different lives. Ms. McAllister lives in a low income apartment complex where she takes care of her two children as well as other nieces and nephews. Ms. McAllister never married the father of her two children and she relies on public assistance for income. She considers herself to be a woman highly capable of caring for all the children yet she still struggles to deal with the stress of everyday financial issues. The Williams on the other hand live in a wealthier neighborhood and only have one child. Mr. W...
This form of education that the people, who have access to education, receive can then be understood as being obviously problematic. The perspective of class is an important viewpoint from McIntosh because as a privileged white woman, she is provided with more access to education and varying resources than many people. Again, the subject of education is brought forward. This access to the different educational institutions that she has had and her acknowledgement to her uneducated ideas on race show how the educational system had failed her. " As a white feminist, I knew that I had not previously known I was 'being racist ' and that I had never set out to 'be racist '" ( Frankenberg 3).