Ain't I a Woman

by bell hooks

  Surveys of groups of women from all races and classes who attempt to get child care payments from ex-husbands would provide ample evidence of the reluctance of men to assume provider roles. It is more likely that lower-middle and middle class black men who have absorbed standard definitions of masculinity would feel that it is important to provide economically for families and consequently feel ashamed, even de-masculinized if unable to assume the provider role. But at the time of the emergence of the matriarchy myth as popular social theory, the great majority of black men were working class. And among working class men, who are by definition the recipients of low wages and who almost always have difficulty providing for families, achievement of manhood or masculine status is not determined solely on the basis of economics.

  An ignorant person hearing an analysis of the black matriarchy theory might easily assume that the jobs black women were able to acquire which enabled them to be providers elevated their status above that of black men, but that was never the case. In actuality many of the service jobs black women were employed to perform forced them into daily contact with racist whites who abused and humiliated them. They may have suffered much more intensely a feeling of being de-humanized and degraded than unemployed black men who stood on street corners all day long. Being employed at a low paying job does not necessarily lead to a positive self-concept. It may very well be that unemployed black men were able to maintain a personal dignity that black women employed in service jobs were forced to surrender in their work arena. I can certainly remember lower class black men in our neighborhood commenting on the fact that some jobs were not worth doing because of the loss of one’s personal dignity, whereas black women were made to feel that when survival was the crucial issue, personal dignity should be sacrificed. The black female who thought herself “too good” to do domestic work or other service jobs was often ridiculed for being uppity. Yet everyone sympathized when unemployed black men talked about their inability to accept “the man” bossing them. Sexist thinking made it acceptable for black men to refuse menial work even if they were unable to provide for family and children. Many black men who deserted family and children were not regarded contemptuously even though such behavior on the part of black women would have been condemned.

  The argument that black women were matriarchs was readily accepted by black people even though it was an image created by white males. Of all the negative stereotypes and myths that have been used to characterize black womanhood, the matriarchy label has had the greatest impact on the consciousness of many black people. The independent role black women were obliged to play both in the labor force and in the family was automatically perceived as unladylike. Negative attitudes toward working women have always existed in American society and black men were not unique in regarding black women workers with disapproval. Robert Smuts, in his general study of female workers (a study that is primarily concerned with white women), Women and Work in America, discussed the types of attitudes toward working women that were once the norm in American society:

  In the decades before and after the turn of the century, the employment of women was a major public issue. Like the judges of the Wisconsin Court, many Americans felt that it was akin to treason for a woman to want to work. Most of the arguments advanced to support this position were based on a common conception of the nature and role of women. In physique, temperament and mentality, the argument ran, women are exquisitely specialized for their functions as mothers and guardians of the home. To employ a woman in other ways would endanger not only her essential female qualities but also her sanity, her health, and even her life. This view of woman implied a complementary view of man. As the man was deficient in the feminine ideals of “tenderness, compassion... beauty and the harmonies of grace” essential to the creation of a true home; but abundantly endowed with the masculine qualities of “energy, desire, daring, and forcible possession” necessary in the world of business, government, and war...

  While this is a perfect example of racist scholarship, in that the women that Smuts is talking about entering the work force for

  the first time are white women, it does provide an accurate picture of the negative attitudes toward women in the labor force.

  Just as white men perceived the entry of white women into the labor force as a threat to male positions and masculinity, black men were socialized to regard the presence of black women in the labor force with similar suspicions. The matriarchy theory gave the black male a framework on which to base his condemnation of working black women. Many black men who did not feel at all personally de-masculinized absorbed sexist ideology and regarded wage-earning black women with contempt. These men claimed that the female-headed household was a direct result of the matriarchal tendencies of black women and argued that no “real” man could remain in a household where he was not the sole boss. Using this sexist logic, we can safely assume that it was never the black female having so much power in the home that alienated some black men, but that she had any power at all. Those male scholars who label a domestic worker who slaves away forty hours a week and earns enough money for food, rent, and other necessary expenses as financially independent do her a grave disservice. For most men in sexist society, being the boss is synonymous with having absolute power. In patriarchal homes men are likely to feel threatened even if women have a babysitting job that provides them extra grocery money. Black men were able to use the matriarchy myth as a psychological weapon to justify their demands that black women assume a more passive subservient role in the home.

  Those men who accepted the myth that black women were matriarchs did regard black females as a threat to their personal power. Such thinking is not at all peculiar to black men. Most men in a patriarchal society fear and resent women who do not assume traditional passive roles. By shifting the responsibility for the unemployment of black men onto black women and away from themselves, white racist oppressors were able to establish a bond of solidarity with black men based on mutual sexism. White men preyed upon sexist feelings impressed upon the black male psyche from birth to socialize black men so that they would regard not all women, but specifically black

  women as the enemies of their masculinity. I have previously mentioned that historiographers who study black people’s history tend to minimize the oppression of black females and concentrate their attention on black men. Despite the fact that black women are victims of sexist and racist oppression, they are usually depicted as having received more advantages than black men in American history, a fact that cannot be substantiated by historical evidence. The matriarchy myth suggested that once again black women had been granted privileges denied black men. Yet even if white people had been eager to hire black men in service jobs to work as maids and washermen, such jobs would have been refused because they would have been regarded as an assault on male dignity. White sociologists presented the matriarchy myth in such a way that it implied black women had “power” in the family and black men had none, and although these conclusions were based solely on data concerned with economic status, they fostered divisiveness between black men and women.

  Some black women have been as willing to accept the matriarchy theory as have black men. They were eager to identify themselves as matriarchs because it seemed to them that black women were finally receiving acknowledgement of their contribution to the black family. Young black women interested in African history were attracted to the theory that a matriarchy existed in America because they had learned that woman-ruled societies existed in our mother land, so they claimed matriarchy as an African cultural retention. In general, many black women were proud to be labeled matriarchs because the term had many more positive implications than other labels used to characterize black womanhood. It was certainly more positive than mammy, bitch, or slut. If we were matriarchs, feelings of honor and pride would be in order, but as the social status of black women in the United States is far from being matriarchal, the motivation of white and black people who persistently label
black women matriarchs must be questioned. Just as whites used the myth that all black women were sexually loose as a way to devalue black womanhood, they used the matriarchy myth to impress upon the consciousness of all Americans that black women were masculinized, castrating, ball-busters.

  Yet black women embraced the label matriarch because it allowed them to regard themselves as privileged. This merely indicates how effectively colonizers are able to distort the reality of the colonized so that they embrace concepts that actually do them more harm than good. One of the oppressive tactics white slavers used to prevent rebellions and slave uprisings was the brainwashing of slaves to believe that black people were really better taken care of as slaves than they would be as free people. Black slaves who accepted their master’s picture of freedom were afraid to break the bonds of slavery. A similar tactic has been used to brainwash black women. White colonizers encourage black women, who are economically oppressed and victimized by sexism and racism, to believe that they are matriarchs, that they exercise some social and political control over their lives.

  Once black women are deluded and imagine that we have power we don’t really possess, the possibility that we might organize collectively to fight against sexist-racist oppression is reduced. I interviewed a black woman usually employed as a clerk who was living in near poverty, yet she continually emphasized the fact that black woman was matriarchal, powerful, in control of her life; in fact she was nearly having a nervous breakdown trying to make ends meet. Significantly, sociologists who label black women matriarchs never discussed woman’s social status within the matriarchal state, for if they had, black folks would have known immediately that it in no way resembled the lot of black women. Without a doubt, the false sense of power black women are encouraged to feel allows us to think that we are not in need of social movements like a women’s movement that would liberate us from sexist oppression. The sad irony is of course that black women are often most victimized by the very sexism we refuse to collectively identify as an oppressive force.

  The myth of the black matriarchy helped to further perpetuate the image of black women as masculinized, domineering, amazonic creatures. The black female was depicted by whites as an Amazon because they saw her ability to endure hardships no “lady” was supposedly capable of enduring as a sign that she possessed an animalistic sub-human strength. This belief was perfectly compatible with ideas about the nature of black womanhood that emerged during the 19th century. Like the matriarchy myth, the belief that black women were amazonic was largely based on myth and fantasy. Traditional Amazons were a collective group of women who joined together in an effort to promote female self-government. Unlike matriarchs, Amazons were interested in building societies in which the male figure would be present in only small numbers. Diner writes of Amazonic women:

  Amazons deny the man, destroy the male progeny, concede no separate existence to the active principle, reabsorb it, and develop it in themselves in androgynous fashion female on the left, male on the right.... Homer developed the right feeling for the Amazons when he called them anitianeirai, which may be interpreted as “man hating” or as “mannish.”

  The great majority of women interviewed for this book were eager to acknowledge the feeling that the most important aspect of a woman’s life was her relationship with a man. Perusal of Essence magazine reveals that there is almost an obsessive concern among black women with male-female relationships.

  Most black women have not had the opportunity to indulge in the parasitic dependence upon the male that is expected of females and encouraged in patriarchal society. The institution of slavery forced black women to surrender any prior dependence on the male figure and obliged them to struggle for their individual survival. The social equality that characterized black sex role patterns in the work sphere under slavery did not create a situation that allowed black women to be passive. Despite sexist myths about the inherent weakness of women, black women have had to exert a certain independence of spirit because of their presence in the work force. Few black women have had a choice as to whether or not they will become workers. And participation of black women in the work force has not led to the formation of a feminist consciousness. Though many black women entered the labor force in service areas, in agriculture, in industry, and in clerical work, most of them resented the fact that they were not being supported economically by men. In recent years, attitudes toward women entering the work force have radically changed. Many women either want to work or face the reality that they must be employed to make ends meet. The rise in middle class white women workers who enter the work force in ever increasing numbers indicates a change in attitudes toward working women. Until it was accepted that most women, black or white, would be in the capitalist work force, many black women bitterly resented the circumstances that forced them to work. It is interesting that white women were criticized and persecuted when they first entered the American work force in large numbers, but after the initial attacks ceased there was little protest. And there has been no discussion of them having become masculinized as a result of performing tasks traditionally done by men.

  When white women enter the work force today it is seen as a positive step, a move toward gaining independence, while more than ever before in our history black women who enter the work force are encouraged to feel that they are taking jobs from black men or de-masculinizing them. For fear of undermining the self-confidence of black men, many young college-educated black women repress their own career aspirations. While black women are often forced by circumstances to act in assertive ways, most black women I talked with as preparation for this book believed men were superior to women and that a degree of submission to male authority was a necessary part of woman’s role. The stereotypical image of the black woman as strong and powerful so dominates the consciousness of most Americans that even if a black woman is clearly conforming to sexist notions of femininity and passivity she may be characterized as tough, domineering, and strong. Much of what has been perceived by whites as an Amazonic trait in black women has been merely stoical acceptance of situations we have been powerless to change.

  While the matriarchy myth and the myth of the black amazon have as their core ingredient an image of woman as active, powerful being, the stereotypical image of Aunt Jemima depicted the black woman as passive, longsuffering, and submissive. Historian Herbert Gutman argues that there is little evidence to support the notion:

  ...that the typical house servant was an aged mammy who remained in her antebellum place out of loyalty to a white family or because whites had a special concern for such women.

  He suggests that the black female nanny in the white household was usually a young black woman with few if any attachments of her own. Gutman does not speculate about the origins of the black mammy figure, but she too was a creature of white imagination. It is not really important that there are black women who resemble the mammy stereotype, it is important that white people created an image of black womanhood which they could tolerate that in no way resembled the great majority of black women. If as Gutman argues the “nanny” in a typical antebellum white household was young and unattached, it is significant that white people have gone to such great lengths to create just the opposite image. It is not too difficult to imagine how whites came to create the black mammy figure. Considering white male lust for the bodies of black females, it is likely that white women were not pleased with young black women working in their homes for fear that liaisons between them and their husbands might be formed, so they conjured up an image of the ideal black nanny. She was first and foremost asexual and consequently she had to be fat (preferably obese); she also had to give the impression of not being clean so she was the wearer of a greasy dirty headrag; her too tight shoes from which emerged her large feet were further confirmation of her bestial cow-like quality. Her greatest virtue was of course her love for white folk whom she willingly and passively served. The mammy image was portrayed with affection by whites because it
epitomized the ultimate sexist-racist vision of ideal black womanhood—complete submission to the will of whites. In a sense whites created in the mammy figure a black woman who embodied solely those characteristics they as colonizers wished to exploit. They saw her as the embodiment of woman as passive nurturer, a mother figure who gave all without

  expectation of return, who not only acknowledged her inferiority to whites but who loved them. The mammy as portrayed by whites poses no threat to the existing white patriarchal social order for she totally submits to the white racist regime. Contemporary television shows continue to present black mammy figures as prototypes of acceptable black womanhood.

  The counterpart to the Aunt Jemima images are the Sapphire images. As Sapphires, black women were depicted as evil, treacherous, bitchy, stubborn, and hateful, in short all that the mammy figure was not. The Sapphire image had as its base one of the oldest negative stereotypes of woman—the image of the female as inherently evil. Christian mythology depicted woman as the source of sin and evil; racist-sexist mythology simply designated black women the epitome of female evil and sinfulness. White men could justify their de-humanization and sexual exploitation of black women by arguing that they possessed inherent evil demonic qualities. Black men could claim that they could not get along with black women because they were so evil. And white women could use the image of the evil sinful black woman to emphasize their own innocence and purity. Like the biblical figure Eve, black women became the scapegoats for misogynist men and racist women who needed to see some group of women as the embodiment of female evil. In an essay in The Black Woman, Perry and Bond describe Sapphire as she was and is depicted in American culture: