"My Mother Was Much of a Woman": Black Women, Work, and the Family under Slavery

Jones, Jacqueline

doi:10.2307/3177562

Cited by 77 publications

(12 citation statements)

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“…To strengthen economic productivity, their fertility was controlled by slave owners’ desires for an increased labor force (Collins, 2000). In addition, Black female sexuality was viewed through the repressed European lens that considered Black women immoral and promiscuous, which their slave owners used to justify rape and degradation (Jones, 1982; Palmer, 1983). As a form of resistance and survival, enslaved Black women masked their emotions in the presence of their slave owners.…”

Section: The Discourse Of Strengthmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Rethinking Strength

Nelson

Cardemil

Adeoye

2016

Psychology of Women Quarterly

103

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In this qualitative study, we examined perceptions of the strong Black woman (SBW) or superwoman role in a sample of 30 Black women. We found that participants conceptualized the SBW/superwoman role through five characteristics: independent, taking care of family and others, hardworking and high achieving, overcoming adversity, and emotionally contained. Most participants were ambivalent about their relationship with this role, given historical accounts and familial examples of Black women. Many participants appropriated the SBW/superwoman role by redefining it in ways that were more empowering and freeing. Several participants were critical of and rejected the SBW/superwoman role, focusing on its problematic and rigid view of strength. All of these perspectives underscore the importance of increasing awareness of restrictive gendered and racialized role expectations as well as the desire to maintain connections to the cultural legacy of Black women. Several important contextual factors (e.g., social status, family relationships) emerged that are relevant to the identified themes. Results from this study highlight how the discourse of strength and familiarity with the SBW/superwoman role are pervasive among Black women. Our findings underscore the need for practitioners to understand the complexity in how Black women make meaning of this role relative to help seeking for physical and mental health. Online slides for instructors who want to use this article for teaching are available on PWQ 's website at http://pwq.sagepub.com/supplemental

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Section: The Discourse Of Strengthmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As a form of resistance and survival, enslaved Black women masked their emotions in the presence of their slave owners. The consequences of expressing negative emotions were severe and included being sold or having one’s children sold (Jones, 1982).…”

Section: The Discourse Of Strengthmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rethinking Strength

Nelson

Cardemil

Adeoye

2016

Psychology of Women Quarterly

103

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“…Under certain circumstances, the experiences of women and men within black families may be more cooperative than conflictual as such families become a site of resistance to socially, economically, and ideologically hostile environments (Collins 1990;Giddings 1984;hooks 1990;Jones 1987;Wilkie 1988). Thus, while working-class white and black women may share certain experiences, such as the dialectical struggle to carve out areas of autonomy within family life, there are also experiences that are not shared.…”

Section: The Private Spherementioning

confidence: 98%

Reweaving a Critical Theory: The Socialist-Feminist Contributions

Calasanti¹,

Zajicek²

1993

Rethinking Marxism

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“…''By 1847, the majority of black Philadelphia women were washerwomen and domestic servants, numbering 2,085 of a total black female population of 4,249'' (Harley 1978, 6-7). 3 In the economic sphere, black women were mainly domestics and often made the difference between a family's starvation and survival (Davis 1981, Giddings 1984, Jones 1980. Both married and single black women performed domestic services inside and outside of the home.…”

Section: Materials Conditions and Economic Activitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Political Consciousness and Resistance Among Black Antebellum Women

Tate¹

1993

Women & Politics

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The socioeconomic factors that undergirded black women's political consciousness during the antebellum era were northern industrialization, social reform activity, and the emergence of black nationalism in African-American communities. As these factors converged, they stimulated black women's economic activity which, in turn, served as a springboard to black women's political consciousness and resistance. First as community activists and then as abolitionists in both the national and international spheres, black women organized and protested against slavery, racism, sexism, and its attendant ills. This study explores the material realities that underpinned black women's political development as well as the transformative stages of their political consciousness and activity.

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"My Mother Was Much of a Woman": Black Women, Work, and the Family under Slavery

Cited by 77 publications

References 0 publications

Rethinking Strength

Rethinking Strength

Reweaving a Critical Theory: The Socialist-Feminist Contributions

Political Consciousness and Resistance Among Black Antebellum Women

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