There was a time when women fought to have their voices heard, demanded to be treated as equals and not as objects, a time when feminist wasn’t a dirty word and meant more than “angry lesbian.” Those days are long gone. Today, women live to be the voiceless, un-opinionated, glamorous playthings of rich, high-profile men. There’s been a shift from women wanting to define themselves as human beings capable and autonomous, to women willing to accept that they are nothing more than sex objects defined by the length of their hair, the price of their outfit, the roundness of their behinds, and the attractiveness of their feet. Whereas, the 60s were the days of women asserting themselves and fighting for equality, the new millennium is the day of women showing off their midriffs and having men pay for their company.
Black women have been the targets of a very concerted effort to silence their voice, to stifle their growth. Thirty years ago, Black women were standing up for the right to be more than teachers, maids, and nurses. Today, sistas are striving to be the well-kept trophies of successful thugs and be rated on the sexist scale of attractiveness. Black women have been convinced that being a woman means having a man, and not having a man is a stigmata of shame, a lack or void that surely signifies that you aren’t good enough in bed, you aren’t beautiful enough, you don’t live up to your primary role in life of pleasing a man. Forget holding men accountable for their actions, forget having standards that fall outside of material possessions, to hell with asserting that being a woman is more than living up to a patriarchal model that feeds the distorted egos and libidos of men. Yeah, that crap is over. Today, women want to be objectified, complacent, and conform to the role of being seen (as beautiful) and not heard.
For a lot of women, they defend the notion that being a woman means how many men want you. It’s easy to do for the women that have light skin, that have long hair, that have a size six body with a size ten booty that look like a model and can pull the men that want to buy their souls in exchange for a roll in the hay. For the women that fit the profile, it’s all about maintaining that image and not rocking the boat. For the women who don’t fit that image, for the women with dark skin and hair that doesn’t flow in the wind, for women that don’t look like they stepped off the pages of a magazine or fresh from the set of a music video, they are left to deal with their self-esteem in a society that tells them that they are less than a woman. It’s a burden Black women don’t talk about because it’s shameful to admit that you don’t compare to the standard of beauty that Black men want and you feel like you’re fighting an uphill battle within yourself that you can never win, that’s beyond your control. What about the women that will never be able to wear the skimpy little halter tops and the five inch heels, and fling their shoulder-length hair and have men stumbling all over themselves to pay their car note? What if you look in the mirror every day and feel like you’ll never measure up? Those are the women that perpetuate the myth of the Strong Black Woman. They feel the need to suffer in silence and to endure a lifetime of abuse and pretend nothing hurts, to put up an impenetrable shell of distance and melodrama that leaves them perpetually emotionally drained. Convinced it’s an honor to be a strong Black woman, they hold onto the pain and feelings of inadequacy like a gold medal in the Depression Olympics.
9 comments:
Xenophile - A person attracted to that which is foreign, especially to foreign peoples, manners, or cultures.
I'm a xeonphile. Born into a bi-cultural marriage, I'm half cracker, half bagel, fell in love with tortillas, yo soy latino by virtue of wanting something different.
The intolerance of the cracker, the indifference of the bagel, rendered me vulnerable to the indescribable mysteries of mestizo culture, where the Spaniards came with weapons and crucifixes, but no women, and took the Indian maidens for themselves, producing the misbegotten.
Dominant influence in early years was the racist Southern maternal tribe, who had a large African American woman giving me the care and love that they themselves were too afraid to know. Stella Mae's love, unconditional and unconfined, can hardly be described - I sensed it was perfect.
Thanks to Stella Mae, I am black on the inside.
Sensual beyond belief are those women, most of them large, who know they have what it takes to be beautiful.
The small ones can never measure up to their skewed visions of themselves in the Madison avenue mirrors of magazined and televised sirens.
Hold me close, Stella Mae, hug me and smother me with your buxom love. Tell me again how one day I'll see you and introduce you to the wife I, at age five, swore I'd never have!
I would love to disagree with you on this, and yell and scream that I know plenty of Black women who are refusing to allow the behavior of objectivity to be applied to their persons, but the fact of the matter is, the pressure touches even the strongest of us at some point or another.
I admit to being close to submitting to the pressure of focusing on being attractive over being intelligent and capable. I think your blog was intended for my heart to absorb, right in the nick of time. The proliferation of hyper-sexual, hyper-shallow media images is really helping to push this trend to the limit, and those of us who did not and do not have the proper guidance or self-strength or intelligence to consider alternatives are buying it hook, line, and sinker.
There's nothing wrong with looking nice, or wanting your ladies to look nice (fellas). However, it is up to each and every one of us to fight to not allow ourselves (ladies) to be objectified and reduced to a value 1000% less than the real. Fellas, there is responsibility for you as well, to behave above what is easy, to allow yourselves to see well within us the treasures that you are so quick to toss away...
http://konnectivity.ning.com
"Black women have been convinced that being a woman means having a man, and not having a man is a stigmata of shame, a lack or void that surely signifies that you aren’t good enough in bed, you aren’t beautiful enough, you don’t live up to your primary role in life of pleasing a man."
I just wanted to quote this because I think that it's always been this way. The generations of Black women that are still alive today still believe, in my opinion, that women are nothing without a man. How many grandmamas and great aunties will say to a single woman in the family "You still ain't got nobody yet? When you gettin' married? You'll be happier with a man."
Good post.
@ VOD...this mentality is so ingrained in us, both male and female, that it's apparently too hard to shake. I was having a conversation with a friend of mine, a (then) married man, and he asked me about my love life.
I explained to him the trouble I was having, and he said, "You just need to find somebody that'll make you happy"...to which I replied, "I"m already happy. I need to find someone who will not make me unhappy. Therein lies the problem." I got silence as his response.
I'm sure his statement points to our global issue of the concept of self-love, but that's another post entirely, I'm sure.
http://konnectivity.ning.com
Dan, your cracker, bagel, mammy message has to be one of the most offensive, supposedly open-minded responses I've read in a very long time.
This sort of discussion reminds me of the days of old when we had the yahoo group. Let me chime in a little.
There’s a new breed of Black in town women who defend, coddle, agree with, support, and otherwise glorify the divisive, vitriolic filth that emotionally immature men spew and they sign on for it, lock stock and barrel. We’ve raised several generations of Black women to be enslaved to their own oppression. We, as a society, have taught women to conform to men’s impossible demands and to never question, speak out, or confront men. We’ve let them believe that being called a feminist is a far worse thing than being called a bitch.
We are in peril as a people as long as we let men define us and we as women follow along like hypnotized drones. Black men keep making the box smaller and smaller for what is acceptable for Black women and Black women keep redefining themselves to fit into that tiny box. As long as our value and worth is placed in appeasing the distorted perceptions of men, in feeding their grandiose egos, then we will perish as a people. If Black women can’t even identify oratory that is undermining to Black women as a whole, we are doomed as a mentally enslaved race and gender.
Men, in their never ending pursuit of the coveted “most disgruntled gender” status, always feel the need to tell me “You’re a woman. You can have any man you want.” There are 1001 reasons why I can’t have any man I want specifically. There are always going to be men who say I’m too tall, too dark, my hair is too short, I’m to opinionated, my nose is too wide, my lips are too big, I’m too fill in the blank. The men I want, the ones I’m attracted to, usually choose women who are far less demanding of them emotionally. I can’t just walk down the street and hmmm, “I choose him,” and have the man of my dreams fall at my feet. Women have to meet impossible standards of perfection before they can get “any man they want” and those standards don’t come any where close to what I bring to the table.
What men really mean when they say that is, “You have a pussy and you can have sex any time you want.” A woman supposedly can go out on any given night of the week and announce to some lonely bar dweller, “Hey, I’m horny, I want to have sex,” and he’ll say, “Bartender, check please.” Well, that’s nice for stanky women. What about women like me who have higher standards than just a person with a penis to share my bed? I want to have sex, TRUST me I do. I can’t just walk down the street and trip over a man I want. Suppose I want an intellectual equal? Suppose I want someone who is socially conscious and emotionally mature? Where do I go to find that man? I’ve gone to the grocery store, the gas station, the library, the coffee shop. I’ve hung out at the vegan soul food restaurant and the cultural center. I want a man who has integrity, I want a man who has relinquished his passive aggressive, patriarchal, misogynist behaviors. I can’t have him because they are few and far between and when I find them, they are married to some other lucky woman. I can’t have any man I want because the type of man I want don’t exist in great numbers.
Thanks for revealing to me what my comment meant to you. My view of the world is different from yours, no doubt, but can we share views and perhaps come to some form of mutual understanding?
It was not, nor is it, my intent to offend. I'm open to honest criticism, and am anxious to reflect on my own reality in order to understand it better and to the extent you'll allow me to, understand yours.
Stella Mae was in your mind a "mammy," and understandably, that stereotype seems an apt one.
My point is that she infused me with a sense of acceptance for who I was, something intolerant people cannot give, since they have no acceptance of who they are - they're lacking in love of self. Such was the condition I believe my maternal grandmother was forced to live in, perhaps from the same male stereotypes against which you now, justifiably, resist. My grandfather was a loving soul, born in 1888, on a small dirt farm in central Texas. He played with his closest neighbors and until they went to separate (but unequal) schools, he was color blind.
My love of self came to me late in life, when I reawakened my inner child to continue exploring the world with the naivete and unbridled enthusiasm for all the wonders this life has in store for him.
Watching the PBS show, African American Lives 2, I was impressed by Don Cheadle's remark, after being shown that his DNA comprised about 17% Eurpoean ancestry. He said we are that which we have to defend, and in his reality, that means he's forced to defend himself against the dominant culture's views.
Thanks to your reply, I can sense what it is he was talking about.
This gets off point regarding your mission to advance the cause of black women, but you and I are separated as much by the melanin content of our skin as we are the chromosomes that give me a penis and you a vagina.
My naive view of the world has no room for the belief in "race" - it's been proven to my satisfaction that we are all of one race - the human race - and the rest are differences which I choose to ignore (until forced by others to "defend" it).
Xenophile that I am, this love different people allows me to approach others with an open heart, if not an open mind, as they sense I'm projecting neither judgment nor fear toward those who are so obviously different from me.
The most trouble I have is when dealing with those of similar physical traits: light skinned men whose shallow immaturity is worn as the mask that keeps them from being authentic, vulnerable and sensitive (traits beaten out of them when they picked up a doll or a dress).
Music is the common language that my dad chose as his lifelong love, playing violin for symphonies across North America. He lived a simple life trying to perfect his art, living within his means, which goes against all the forces of "otherhood" - spending money we don't have to buy things we don't need to impress people we don't like.
Members of his Ashkenazi clan intermarried with women of color and to my knowledge, the product of such unions, my cousins, with higher melanin content than me, have found their paths through life far more interesting than what I've gone through thus far.
How does your relationship with your father inform your current outlook that you proudly wear to defend your "race" and "genger"?
I look forward to your reply, and hope you'll see that my mind, while closed from your perspective, is easily opened, given the state of my heart.
dan
ps
have you decided on a presidential candidate to support yet? the democrats pose an interesting choice: a woman and a black man. i'd love to read what this choice means for you, if anything.
One thing I forgot to mention - why I posted my comment in the first place.
Your rhetorical question about women who can't wear the "skimpy little halter tops and five inch heels," reminded me of my attraction to any woman, regardless of her size, shape or color, whose love-light shown brilliantly due to her love and acceptance of her self as "fine."
Naturally, her mind was her own, too, and outspoken, independent, intelligent, inquisitive - all goes together.
"I'm just a soul whose intentions are good.... Oh lord, please don't let me be misunderstood."
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