womanhood

Imagining Black Womanhood: The Negotiation of Power and Identity Within the Girls Empowerment Project

beth — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Imagining Black Womanhood by Stephanie D. Sears is a sociological account of the experiences of young African-American girls within the Girls Empowerment Project (GEP), an “Afri-centric, womanist, single-sex, after-school program” in Sun Valley, the largest housing development in Bay City, California. Set against the backdrop of a “nation’s collective anxieties” regarding Black women and girls, Imagining Black Womanhood is a well-researched and thoughtful interrogation of race, gender, and class and how the experiences of young Black girls struggling to resist stereotypes within and outside the GEP project speak to broader questions of power, privilege, and politics. Despite the (ironically) unimaginative title, Imagining Black Womanhood is a commendable effort by Sears to question, with equal academic rigor, discourses of empowerment, as well as oppression, in addition to showing how the biases that inform many of the stereotypes that these girls must struggle against come from across the political spectrum and across racial lines.

Sears sets the historical stage well, by tracing images of poor Black women and girls as “welfare queens” to the Reagan administration’s dismantling of the welfare state and its promotion of “trickle-down” economics, with its explicit finger-pointing at the “impoverished African-American female” as an undeserving recipient of benefits. By laying bare the racial and gender stereotypes that underlie these and other predominant images (such as “teen mothers”) of young Black women in the public imagination, Sears demonstrates how discourses from both Black and dominant communities have attempted to control the sexuality of young Black women—and have shaped the context for the growth of projects such as GEP.

Against this background, Sears describes how despite its aim to “empower” and enable Black girls to counter racial and gender stereotypes, GEP inadvertently reproduced many of these discourses in both its structure as an organization as well as its method of work. GEP’s explicit aim, when it initially conducted an assessment of problems such as teen pregnancy and poverty among Black girls, was to “challenge and change…unequal power relations and resource distribution”—that is, the structural issues underpinning Black girls’ social status in Sun Valley. However, despite this goal, GEP’s more pragmatic choice to try and effect change in areas where they could have most impact, meant that they ended up addressing the symptoms of discrimination rather than challenging the structures of power responsible for them. In doing so, GEP fell back on middle class cultural values and notions of “respectability,” attempting to erase what they viewed as the cultural markers of the “ghetto underclass”—such as the hypersexualization and objectification of young Black women—but with them, also the sense of self-hood and lived experiences of the young girls of GEP.

The above is illustrated most interestingly in the section entitled “Dance Lessons,” in which Sears shows how the struggle over sexuality, power, and identity between GEP and the young girls who attend it, is enacted through the “embodied politics” of dance. Prompted by the Afro-centric ideology of GEP, GEP staff’s attempts to encourage the girls to perform African dances (this bearing, in their eyes, the respectable currency of tradition) is countered by the girls’ desire to “express who they are” through contemporary hip-hop numbers. Sears stages the generational and class confrontation between the GEP staff and the girls through their conflicting perceptions of “appropriate” displays of sexuality, respectability, and respect, thereby asking the question that lies at the heart of Imagining Black Womanhood—what does “empowerment” mean, and to whom? How are notions of empowerment intertwined with class and cultural values? And what happens when processes of empowerment attempt to reconstitute the identity of she who is seen to be a “recipient” rather than an equal participant in this process? Sears’ book is a dense but rewarding read, not just for academics but for anyone interested in confronting these questions.

Written by: Kaavya Asoka, November 19th 2010

Entitled to the Pedestal: Place, Race, and Progress in White Southern Women's Writing,1920-1945

admin — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 20:37:00 +0000

By Nghana tamu Lewis

University of Iowa Press

I have to be honest. This was not the easiest book to read or absorb. It reminded me of a book that might appear on a required reading for a college literature course. The author covers a lot of ground in her analysis of the construction of “the myth of white southern womanhood.”

In her extensive analysis, Lewis reviews the works and autobiographical histories, private correspondences, essays and lectures of five female southern white writers over a period of twenty-five years (1920-1945).

The five authors Lewis shines a spotlight on are: Julia Peterkin, Gwen Bristow, Caroline Gordon, Willa Cather and Lillian Smith. Not being familiar with the works of female southern writers also placed me at a disadvantage in reading Lewis’s critique, but inspired me to add Willa Cather and Lillian Smith to my reading list.

In her painstakingly researched critique, Lewis offers a new perspective on the role these female authors played in the reinforcement of plantation mythology and the position of white women in the complex structure that was southern society at the time. In introducing her thesis to the reader, she writes: similarities and differences among these writers not only deconstruct the white southern womanhood monolith, they also lay bare in this myth and the Plantain mythology a yet unrecognized heterogeneity…it is obvious to me that without the presence of white southern women of means, the social economies and gender politics born out of the myth of White Southern Womanhood and Plantation Mythology neither happen nor endure.

Lewis ends her book with her last chapter “Old Sites of Authority,” in which she describes how the film industry and popular culture continue to reinforce and reinvigorate these myths and stereotypes with films like Bringing Down the House starring Queen Latifah and Steve Martin. She points out that the blockbuster hit earned an estimated $31,680,000 and a number-one rating in its premiere week at the box office.

Written by: Gita Tewari, June 6th 2007

Wild Mercy

admin — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 17:18:00 +0000

By Elizabeth Cunningham

Creatrix Books

Wild Mercy is a compilation of poetry that is directly inspired by the art of Tarot. It is artfully written and beautifully paced. Those unfamiliar with Tarot reading will definitely have their interest sparked and will appreciate Cunningham's exquisite execution of the collection. Wild Mercy had me spellbound from start to finish, with every poem being a unique spiritual endeavor. The journey of the compilation is unique in itself. Cunningham has divided the book into eight distinct parts, each part correlating with a specific Tarot card and are as follows: Empress, Hanged One, Moon, Judgement, Devil, Star, Hermit and Death. Cunningham imbeds some of her own life into each chapter. One I particularly loved was Devil, in which almost all of the poems were about her father.

The book possesses a free spirited feel of femininity and liberation. Each poem is definitely told from a woman's perspective and celebrates womanhood in all her moods, seasons and glory. Each themed chapter brings about a fresh new feel and mood which is perfect for different kinds of rituals or meditation. I have enjoyed my own journey with the book and feel doubly inspired. Cunningham approaches each poem from a position of strength, beauty and power, and each poem should inspire all who read them. Perfect for sharing or for leisurely reading, Wild Mercy is definitely for the free of heart.

Written by: Adrione N. Council, April 14th 2007

Color Me Pink

admin — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 22:03:00 +0000

By Color Me Pink

The other day I was walking through a department store when a scent stopped me in my tracks: my mother’s makeup, a lá 1978. I recognized the smell as one-part foundation and one-part lipstick, two contraband goods I spent hours poring over in a locked bathroom, dazzled by the possibilities of a new and improved me. At the time I was only ten, forbidden to wear the barest hint of blush or even paint my nails, as some of my friends did. My mother’s puritanical ways only heightened my desire to reap the rewards I imagined came with womanhood: pantyhose draped in all four corners, a river of high-heels streaming from the closet; a collection of laughs, all different, depending on who was around to hear them.

Maybe Mom knew what she was doing. Ear piercings were also off-limits—until I turned eighteen—and I somehow never got around to poking my lobes with a twin pair of holes. Similarly, I’ve since ditched my lust for cosmetics, no longer willing or wanting to “cover” my true appearance. If men have to be accepted ‘as-is,’ shouldn’t women?

The irony of running into my mother’s made-up scent, however, is not lost on me. You see, it wasn’t slacks or a jacket I was in search of, but a garment whose sole purpose is to make invisible my ever-burgeoning potbelly. For all my alleged “liberation,” why all the shame over post-baby flab?

Thankfully, I’d thought ahead and left my daughter, Lucy, at home. What would she think, watching her mother prance around a dressing room, exalting in the perfected artifice of a sucked-in gut? The last thing I want is for my baby girl to see herself as anything less than acceptable, just the way she is. Right now her favorite activity is delivering herself big, fat smooches with the help of a full-length mirror. What would happen to that special—and necessary—brand of self-love if she then witnessed Mama’s self-loathing grimace as she squished runaway folds of fat into a pair of jeans?

I grew up in an era whose message was all-too clear: in our natural state, women are not good enough. We had Nair to rid ourselves of unwanted body hair - if we “dared” to wear (gasp!) a bathing suit. There was Secret deodorant - “strong enough for a man, but made for a woman” -to keep us sweat-free and smelling clean. If that didn’t work, Love’s Babysoft - “because innocence is sexier than you think” - would take our natural odors all the way back to a time when we were so helpless we peed ourselves.

Now that’s the woman I want!

But these days, the messages of the '70s seem almost amusing, now that more and more college-aged girls are opting for cosmetic surgery, dieting to the point of sickness and deciding, already, to forgo a long-lived career in order to stay home and raise a family. All of this makes me wonder: what kind of commercial soapbox has Lucy inherited? It’s thirty years later and more women than ever populate our public domain—from missions to the moon to the race for president.

But have we really come all that far?

As I chug up the escalator in search of life-altering panties, one glance down the Easter aisle tells me maybe not. Or rather, it tells me that marketing teams across America haven’t caught on that women are, in fact, making great strides everywhere. According to these shrink-wrapped, skyscraper-sized baskets, someone somewhere still expects Girls to be Girls and Boys to be, well, athletic, mechanical and completely out of touch with the merits of pink plastic cell phones, dangling earrings and red lipstick. As well they might, but does that make these things suitable for girls? Do young girls really want nothing more than marathon telephone sessions and an artificially made face? As someone who grew up scaling trees, playing baseball and building go-karts, I say 'no.'

But I’m also the same person who, of the two-from-a-hundred childhood souvenirs I’ve managed to hold onto over the years, one is a red plastic lipstick, the other a matching perfume bottle. Despite countless moves, I’ve never lost those two things. You’d think that fact alone would have dictated a different fate for me and makeup, but the fact remains: I didn’t learn how to apply lipstick until well into my thirties. And my boyfriend taught me how to blot!

Maybe, then, sometimes play really is just play, and real life is real life. How else to explain the huge schism between what the marketers are selling us while two channels over Nancy Pelosi takes up the Speaker’s gavel on CNN?

Or maybe the message is this: we can do what we want, as long as we do it and look a certain way. And if that’s the case, I’m going to toss my stomach-shaping tights in the trash right now. But unlike my sisters who came before, I’ll hold onto my bra. For that’s the crux of it, isn’t it? What makes sense to you is the only thing that needs to make sense—as long as you have the tools necessary to make your most well-informed choice.

And that is my intention with starting this column, to take a good hard look at that space where culture meets psyche, from the perspective a new mother trying to raise a 21st-century girl. I’ll be critiquing everything from pink raincoats to Peter Pan to the concept of “mother’s helper” in my quest to unravel the mysteries of the “three-steps forward, four-steps back” world of women’s rights that has us pounding gavels both in the boardroom and the kitchen, but for far less money and respect than our male counterparts.

I hope you’ll join me!

Written by: Janet Freeman, April 4th 2007