Images of Women and Race
I got into an interesting conversation with a coworker last night on this subject. She's an African-American woman whose sons have all married white women, and somehow it came up that her friends think she should be insulted by this. We've had conversations in the past about some of the culture shock involved in interracial marriages, but this one went somewhere different.
Seems one of her DIL's told her (not in so many words) that "white women know black men want them." Er, really? Nobody sends me these memos. You mean all I had to do to get more dates when I was younger was work and/or go to school in areas where I was the racial minority? Oh, wait. I did that. Never mind.
Further conversation drew out that she (thankfully) didn't mean this in the "lock up all the white women because the black men want to rape them" bullshit sense. I mean, it's still bullshit, but at least it's not that particular bullshit. No, she meant that many black men prefer white women because black women, in general, will not tolerate the masculinist "it's all about me" thing that some guys have.
I'm still trying to work out why it would be any woman's goal to therefore play into that, assuming there's anything to it.
It does have a ring of something to it, and I think it may come back at least in part to the way we let the media "educate" us. I don't watch much tv. Actually, the tv is the thing I watch DVD's on, mostly, so my references are pretty dated. But from the few shows I can call to mind in which black women had lead or second-lead roles, I really can't think of one to whom the word "simper" would apply. Wait, got one: Jacquee, or whatever her name was. But the rest of the women on that show seemed to look down on her for her attitudes. I think she ended up with a spinoff of her own at one point, and I don't know how things played out with that one.
As for black women I've actually known, they've been like any group of people: a mixed bag. But I've pretty consistently gotten the impression that even those black women who weren't particularly strong-minded valued women of the "take no shit from anyone" variety rather than considering them "too masculine" or "bitchy" or whatever. That does suggest something of a cultural difference in what we women (as a sweeping generalization) think of as the "ideal woman." Hardly a scientific study of the subject, but interesting, nonetheless.
I don't really have any conclusions here. Just thinky-thoughts chasing themselves in circles. And a probably-unanswerable question: is the trend towards promoting as an ideal women who are willing to be objectified and/or turned into doormats primarily a white trend? If so, why?
It took me a bit to figure out what icon fit this post, btw. Why Aphrodite? Actually, it's the fact that someone decided it was necessary to paint her nude but yet covering herself up.
Seems one of her DIL's told her (not in so many words) that "white women know black men want them." Er, really? Nobody sends me these memos. You mean all I had to do to get more dates when I was younger was work and/or go to school in areas where I was the racial minority? Oh, wait. I did that. Never mind.
Further conversation drew out that she (thankfully) didn't mean this in the "lock up all the white women because the black men want to rape them" bullshit sense. I mean, it's still bullshit, but at least it's not that particular bullshit. No, she meant that many black men prefer white women because black women, in general, will not tolerate the masculinist "it's all about me" thing that some guys have.
I'm still trying to work out why it would be any woman's goal to therefore play into that, assuming there's anything to it.
It does have a ring of something to it, and I think it may come back at least in part to the way we let the media "educate" us. I don't watch much tv. Actually, the tv is the thing I watch DVD's on, mostly, so my references are pretty dated. But from the few shows I can call to mind in which black women had lead or second-lead roles, I really can't think of one to whom the word "simper" would apply. Wait, got one: Jacquee, or whatever her name was. But the rest of the women on that show seemed to look down on her for her attitudes. I think she ended up with a spinoff of her own at one point, and I don't know how things played out with that one.
As for black women I've actually known, they've been like any group of people: a mixed bag. But I've pretty consistently gotten the impression that even those black women who weren't particularly strong-minded valued women of the "take no shit from anyone" variety rather than considering them "too masculine" or "bitchy" or whatever. That does suggest something of a cultural difference in what we women (as a sweeping generalization) think of as the "ideal woman." Hardly a scientific study of the subject, but interesting, nonetheless.
I don't really have any conclusions here. Just thinky-thoughts chasing themselves in circles. And a probably-unanswerable question: is the trend towards promoting as an ideal women who are willing to be objectified and/or turned into doormats primarily a white trend? If so, why?
It took me a bit to figure out what icon fit this post, btw. Why Aphrodite? Actually, it's the fact that someone decided it was necessary to paint her nude but yet covering herself up.