Reconstructing Womanhood, Reconstructing Feminism

Writings on Black Women

Delia Jarrett-Macauley

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2005
• eBook ISBN: 9781134818754
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Health Care Delivery

Reconstructing Womanhood, Reconstructing Feminism is the first British feminist anthology to examine concepts of womanhood and feminism within the context of `race' and ethnicity. Challenging contemporary feminist theory, the book highlights ways in which constructions of womanhood have traditionally excluded black women's experience, and proposes a reconsideration of terms such as `feminist'. The research subjects and methods of many of the contributors have been shaped by the specifics of the Black British experience and context.
The collection brings together various ideas about `difference' and identity. It covers a wide range of social and cultural issues including the position of black women in the church, lesbian identity in film, contemporary African feminism, and British immigration law.

Part I

Introduction

These five essays are all grounded in the experiences of particular women—be they individual activists and writers or representatives of a wider contingent. But this is not a catalogue of personal life stories, nor a rhetorical burst on sexism and racism. The authors in this section use biography and autobiography, oral testimonies and interview material as a means of providing a panoramic description of the ‘realities’ of Black women’s lives within the theoretical frameworks constructed through their research. In the main, they are concerned with external barriers to Black women’s equality in Britain. Social and political structures which undermine Black women’s lives—in education, employment and social services— are rarely subject to detailed scrutiny. Without such analysis the development of Black British feminist thought, and related feminist activism, is inevitably hindered.

Explicitly or implicitly, these pieces refer to the historical continuum which began with chattel slavery, led to colonialism and finally to the migration of African and African-Caribbean peoples to Britain after the Second World War. Indeed, many of the contemporary experiences of Black British women are explained by that specific history. For example, African-Caribbean women are the most economically active group of women in this society and yet they have very low economic status: these linked precedents date back to the period of slavery itself. However, although this historical continuum must be constantly borne in mind, the task of unwrapping our knowledge of Black women’s lives is not the province of historians alone. Black feminism provides a method of working which enables these writers to come up with new answers to old questions and even new subjects for enquiry, and to make the experiences of Black women distinct from those of their ‘white’ female and/or Black male counterparts. From their various academic disciplines—art, literature, history, law and sociology, they imply that many textbooks need to be reviewed from a standpoint which is sensitive to the situation of Black women as a social group.

The subject-matter covered here is, of course, diverse. It ranges from considering religious participation within both ‘white’-led and Black-led churches, to discussing the ideologies that support racist/sexist discrimination within the immigration service. There is an analysis of how ‘external’ images of Black womanhood corrupt personal relationships and how anxieties about Black female sexuality feed into those relationships. In addition, two essays approach questions of identity by exploring how effacement, exclusion and denial have shaped Black women’s lives both historically and today.

Chapter 1
From sexual denigration to self-
respect: resisting images of Black
female sexuality
Annecka Marshall

The song Respect makes me think about the myriad of images that have been used both by ‘white’ people and Black men not only to deny us respect but to dominate us (Franklin 1967). Portraying Black women as sexually denigrated has been central to the ideological justification for systems of racism, sexism, heterosexism and class oppression. The historical development of representations of Black women as animalistic, diseased and licentious has contributed to our subordination in contemporary Britain. In this chapter I discuss the significance of the depiction of Black women as dirty, incapable of sexual morality and unable to control our lust. In particular I consider Black women’s own perceptions of being stereotyped as sensuous, bestial, good in bed, loose, promiscuous, breeders and prone to prostitution. The objectification of Black women as creatures of sex not only influences our identity and relationships but, I argue, is also used by ‘white’ people and Black men to legitimize our sexual and social exploitation. I conclude by discussing the creation of positive self-definitions as a powerful challenge to the ways in which derogatory myths have been oppressive for Black women. We resist negative images by asserting our right to define our identities and to control our sexuality.

SENSUOUS SLAVERY

Since slavery, images of Black women as hypersexual have been used to justify our sexual exploitation and, as such, have contributed to our inferior socioeconomic and political position in Britain. During slavery the belief that Africans were subhuman savages with uncontrollable sexual capacities was used to legitimate the exploitation of their labour. The image of the sexually aggressive woman has from the sixteenth century contributed to the institutionalization of efforts to control us. As Black women were relegated to the category of sensuous slaves this provided a forceful legitimation for their sexual abuse by ‘white’ men. I will later demonstrate that economic exploitation was evident in the ways in which Black women’s sexuality was linked to their fertility—since Black women were seen as possessing excessive sexual appetites, increased fertility was expected. In the modern era these images have been transformed to have new meanings and functions, which though obviously not as insidious as during the days of enslavement, nevertheless have similar effects.

The sexual overtones that have become embedded in ideas about racial difference are eloquently analysed by Winthrop Jordan. He argues that when English voyagers initially explored West Africa in 1550 they regarded the Africans they encountered as radically apart from and different to themselves. Jordan explains that by the middle of the sixteenth century English people believed that Africans were different in terms of their skin colour and associated this with an unChristian religion as well as libidinousness. I intend to assess the development of such stereotypes, and the ways in which it was taken for granted that Africans were carefree, lazy and lustful cannibals. Even before African slaves were brought to England from the 1570s onwards, the perception of their sexual degeneration was deep within the English psyche. Partly these impressions were for English people a means to interrogate themselves by means of comparison (Jordan 1982).

Jordan argues that from the middle of the sixteenth century four factors structured the English view of the African as a slave. First, the African’s skin colour was seen in a negative way. In England the concept of Blackness was equated with sin and flirtatiousness. Indeed Blackness was the antithesis of ‘whiteness’. ‘whiteness’ symbolized purity, virginity, virtue, beauty, beneficence and God. In contrast Blackness connoted filthiness, sin, baseness, ugliness, evil and the devil. Second, the African was considered to be a heathen and uncivilized. As such, extensive English involvement in the slave trade during the seventeenth century was rationalized as being a civilizing mission. Third, the African was viewed as a savage beast. In particular the English associated Africans with apes—a central idea to which I will return as it is quite pertinent to present-day imagery. This association is clearly shown by the notion of sexual unions between Africans and apes:

The sexual association of apes with Negroes had an inner logic which kept it alive: sexual union seemed to prove a certain affinity without going so far as to indicate actual identity which was what Englishmen really thought was the case. By forging a sexual link between Negroes and apes, furthermore, English-men were able to give vent to their feeling that Negroes were a lewd, lascivious, and wanton people.

(Jordan 1982:52–3)

Lastly, the African was perceived as being sexually potent. Linking Africans with animality was fraught with sexual connotations. In fact sexual indulgence was seen as a sign of inferiority and social backwardness. This is important because English people used Africans as social mirrors, and projected characteristics onto them which they had originally discovered in themselves. Jordan argues that as a result of the English reaction to their initial contacts with Africans—equating Blackness with aggressive sexuality and evil—it was maintained that strict discipline and moral control was necessary (ibid.). Moreover, the myth of the super-sexual Black is especially interesting in view of English society’s repressed attitude towards sexuality. The image of Black sexual deviancy was reinforced by and confirmed Western bourgeois standards for the control of sexual passions. Black women were differentiated from ‘white’ women in a sexual sense; the former were defined as sexually immoral and promiscuous, whereas the latter were elevated as chaste and passionless. Stereotypes of heightened sexuality were, as Barbara Bush explains in her brilliant analysis, used to justify the sexual abuse of Black women by ‘white’ men. ‘White’ men transferred the blame for their sexual improprieties onto the evil charms of Black women and so exonerated themselves:

With the rise of Christianity, sexuality came to be associated with the devil and the colour black to symbolise all the evil and sinful elements in life. As women in Europe were traditionally regarded as instigators of evil-doing, Blackness was also associated with femininity; hence the link between the delights of a forbidden sexuality would have easily (and possibly almost unconsciously) been made by European men during their initial contacts with African societies.

(Bush 1990:14)

Black sexuality was associated with earthiness, impurity, indecency and corruption and as such represented the antithesis of the ideal of English sexual mores. As I have previously mentioned Black people were compared to, and it was believed mated with, animals. Thomas Jefferson maintained that the combination of animal intelligence and human form in the Black ‘race’ was the result of sexual intercourse between the orangutan and the Black female (Fryer 1988). Similarly the French naturalist Buffoon claimed that the primitive, lascivious and ape-like sexual appetites of Blacks encouraged Black women to copulate with apes (ibid.).

In the same way as these images were used to justify slavery, from the late eighteenth century theories of biological determinism legitimated inequalities of status, power and wealth (ibid.). Pseudo-scientific arguments that identify and set apart Black people as not only physically distinct in terms of ‘race’ but also in terms of sexuality have supported ideologies of Black inferiority and the preservation of ‘white’ bourgeois domination. During the nineteenth century it was claimed that the inherent abnormality and pathology of Black female genitalia signified that Blacks were a separate and lower race (Gilman 1985).

Thereby the genitalia of the Black woman indicated that she was diseased, bestial and unapproachable. The contradictory sexualized figure of Blacks was linked to genitalia that were defined as complete yet damaged, diseased yet attractive, poisoning yet potent (ibid.). Consequently Black female genitalia represented sexual pathology, corruption and death. Sander Gilman asserts that the fear and fascination of Black difference ensured that Black women were despised, forbidden yet sexually exploited (ibid.). Hence sexual contact with Black women were regarded as debasing but also exciting, and it follows that Black women have been described as and ascribed the role of prostitutes. The female slave was considered to be governed almost entirely by her libido. Her sexual attributes were often sensationally exaggerated as offering the delights of illicit sex. Enslaved Black women were sexually objectified as loose, lewd and wanton. The argument that Black women were lascivious and immoral was used to rationalize their sexual abuse by ‘white’ masters and overseers. According to Alice Walker:

For centuries the black woman has served as the primary pornographic ‘outlet’ for white men in Europe and America. We need only think of the black women used as breeders, raped for the pleasure and profit of their owners. We need only think of the license the ‘master’ of the slave women enjoyed. But, most telling of all, we need only study the old slave societies of the South to note the sadistic treatment—at the hands of white ‘gentlemen’—of ‘beautiful young quadroons and octoroons’ who became increasingly (and were deliberately bred to become) indistinguishable from white women, and were the most highly prized as slave mistresses because of this.

(Walker 1981:42)

Under enslavement the endeavours of slave-owners to increase the fertility of Black women in order to maximize profits entailed the systematic control of the sexuality of female slaves. The actual breeding of slave women served to label them as animalistic as well as to maintain their treatment as less than human, since only animals can be bred against their will. Within the breeding system the exploitation of Black female reproductive labour was justified by sexually denigrating Black women. Thus the portrayal of Black women as libidinous was used to gratify the sexual and economic needs of ‘white’ male slave-owners and managers (Collins 1990). Patricia Hill Collins validates this point in her erudite analysis of the economic advantages that accrued to the image of the Black woman as a breeder. Collins asserts that:

controlling Black women’s reproduction was essential to the creation and perpetuation of capitalist class relations. Slavery benefitted certain segments of the population by economically exploiting others…. Under such a system in which the control of property is fundamental, enslaved African women were valuable commodities. Slaveowners controlled Black women’s labour and commodified Black women’s bodies as units of capital. Moreover, as mothers, Black women’s fertility produced the children who increased their owners’ property and labour force.

(Collins 1990:51)

The sexual violation of Black women by ‘white’ men symbolized a wider system of ‘white’ male domination. As Angela Davis argues, sexual exploitation under slavery was an institutionalized method of terrorism that aimed to demoralize and dehumanize slave women as well as slave men (Davis 1982)....

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• DEDICATION
• CONTRIBUTORS
• EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• PART I
• PART II