The sexual basis of racial formation: Anti-vice activism and the creation of the twentieth-century 'color line'

Donovan, Brian

doi:10.1080/0141987032000087370

Cited by 24 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…Second, intimate stories harness gender to race by activating gendered racial concerns that go beyond sexuality itself. Racial groups use sexual stories to create, reinforce, or resist racial hierarchies by drawing on gendered moral boundaries in which ''our'' women are positioned as sexually purer than ''yours'' (Donovan 2003;Espiritu 2001;Nagel 2000;Wilkins 2004). The sexual stories here draw on morality, but they also activate other kinds of cultural boundaries.…”

Section: Discussion: Intimate Stories and Identity Dilemmasmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Sexuality is central to race, class, and gender meanings. Ideas about how and with whom people are and should be intimate confer citizenship, status, and resources on different groups of people and justify inequalities among them (Donovan 2003;Elliott 2010;Fields 2005;Wilkins 2004). In telling interracial stories, black college women use cultural ideas about raced and gendered sexuality to create and coordinate gendered and classed racial identities.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Becoming Black Women

Wilkins

2012

Soc Psychol Q

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In this article, I argue that intimate stories are an important resource for the achievement of intersectional identities. Drawing on in-depth interviews with black college students at two predominantly white universities, I examine the stories black college women tell about interracial relationships between black men and white women. I argue that interracial stories serve an array of social purposes that go well beyond black women's intimate lives themselves. Interracial stories draw on public beliefs about gender, sexuality, and race to create a collective identity, imbue it with meaning, and socialize black women into common dispositions and practices. The transition to college makes race newly salient to black women; black women must coordinate raced gender identities with other black women across differences in backgrounds and dispositions. By learning and adopting interracial stories, black college women create alliances with other black women, draw boundaries against black men and white women, and craft black womanhood as strong and outspoken. Women's identity work is constrained, however, by the contradictions within and among gender, race, and class meanings, which make it difficult for them to enact identities that are at once strong and respectable, pushing black women to tie interracial stories to sexual restraint. I conclude by examining the implications of interracial stories for understanding black women's identities and the processes of intersectionality more broadly.

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Section: Discussion: Intimate Stories and Identity Dilemmasmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Becoming Black Women

Wilkins

2012

Soc Psychol Q

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“…Yet Black men's identity work also disrupts racial boundaries. Intimate boundaries mandating intraracial relationships can be used to maintain race and gender hierarchies (Donovan 2003), but here Black men claim the right to cross these boundaries. Their identity work disrupts race in two ways.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stigma and Status

Wilkins

2012

Gender & Society

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In this article, I use in-depth interviews with Black college students at two predominantly white universities to investigate the coconstruction of race, gender, and sexuality, and to examine intersectional identities as a dynamic process rather than bounded identity. I focus on Black college men’s talk about interracial relationships. Existing research documents Black women’s angry reactions to interracial relationships, but for Black men, interracial relationships present both problems and opportunities. I examine how Black men use two distinct forms of interracial talk— “player” talk and “intimacy” talk—to negotiate racialized gendered stereotypes of Black men’s heterosexuality. By moving between forms of talk, Black men negotiate the identity tensions they face as Black upwardly mobile men. Player talk and intimacy talk both respond to and use racialized stereotypes, reworking the relationship between gender, race, and sexuality. In this case, disrupted racial boundaries uphold gender inequalities between men and women.

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“…Historically, White working class men have maintained this White male solidarity via unions (Gilroy 1991;Green 1980), recreational activities (Burk 2005), and closed shop floors (Nelson 2001). Although some researchers (Donovan 2003;Lamont 2000) have focused on the boundary work between White working class men and race and class, few researchers (Barnard 2004;Chan 2001) have looked at the boundaries created and maintained between White working class men and sexuality.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Working Class Masculinity: Keeping Gay Men and Lesbians out of the Workplace

2007

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Recent survey research suggests that heterosexuals' attitudes toward lesbian and gay rights have become more progressive. However, we find in our research that negative attitudes and barriers against gay men and lesbians in workplaces still remain. Our project represents one case study of hidden animosity toward homosexuals, which varies from "overt disgust" to "don't ask, don't tell" policies that reinforce negative attitudes toward gay men and lesbians. As such, we contend that attitudes toward lesbian and gay rights are not becoming more progressive; instead various methods of discrimination are increasingly being used to exclude gay men and lesbians from the workplace. We argue that White working class men have constructed and maintained a form of White male solidarity, a collective practice directed toward women, People of Color, and non-heterosexuals that maintains racism, sexism, and homophobia in the local, national, and global context.

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The sexual basis of racial formation: Anti-vice activism and the creation of the twentieth-century 'color line'

Abstract: White slavery narratives -stories about white women forced into prostitution -played an important role in the construction of racial distinctions in the early twentieth-century.

Cited by 24 publications

References 3 publications

Becoming Black Women

Becoming Black Women

Stigma and Status

Working Class Masculinity: Keeping Gay Men and Lesbians out of the Workplace

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