Black Female Sexuality in Passing by Deborah E. McDowell

The author uses the young girls’ friendship to show the world that if small children can interact freely despite being of different races, why would adults discriminate against one another? The author intended to use two different races without mentioning them since he knew that readers are very intelligent and can always figure out the races he was talking about. In addition, the author was very skillful in keeping the reader in suspense so as to compel the reader to read all through in an effort to find out what the two races are (Sklar, Howard 137-154). The author is trying to show us that there are different social classes between the two races. This is evident through the description the author gives the two mothers, that is the mother of Twyla and Roberta’s mother. Twyla’s mother is described as party lady who often attends to parties such that she can’t afford to have time to care for her daughter. This alone shows that Twyla’s mother belongs to a better well off social class. Only a person with money would go to parties very often. Therefore, as readers, we are able to conclude that Twyla and her mother belong to a high social class. Only people in high social classes are associated

Picture this: it's 2017. Your mother is a teacher and your father works for the school district in your state. You aren’t sure what his actual job title is, but no one really harpers on it. It’s 6am and you rush off your bed, stumbling along all the books, clothes and miscellaneous objects on your floor. CNN is buzzing off the television while eggs sizzle on the stove. You ignore your big-headed little brother and head straight to the door, forgetting your backpack. In the midst of the moment, your eyes gaze over the television.

The story continues, Twyla narrating and is now working at Howard Johnson, a restaurant. While working as a hostess, she notices Roberta in a booth, smoking with two guys. She approaches them and Roberta is surprised at seeing her but does not seem excited. Since it is the time of racism, Roberta acts as if she wants nothing to do with Twyla. One of the guys said, ”Hendrix. Jimi Hendrix, asshole….” to Twyla (244). This shows the difference of how whites treated blacks, Roberta also did not take the initiative to protect her. Twyla finishes with asking how Roberta’s mother is, knowing she would not react with a pleasant reaction. This shows the kindness of Twyla, even during the racism at this time, but Roberta does as the others do and acts cold to those of other color. This shows the reliability of Twyla even at the hardest times in her life.

During this time while slavery was abolished a woman was very much expected to serve her husband fully, who was not always chosen out of love. Growing up Janie's guardian and major influence was her nanny, a woman that grew up during slavery and in turn hoped for janie to have a better life, she says, “You know , honey, us colored folks is branches without roots and that makes things come round in queer ways. You in particular. Ah was born back due in slavery so it wasn't for me to fulfill my dreams of what a woman oughta be and to do” (Hurston 16) Her view was imposed on janie to the extent where she grew up believing that a woman's dreams were predetermined and don't go far beyond being a wife, unlike men who are seen to have the world

Comparing and Contrasting How Womanhood is Portrayed in As I lay Dying and Their Eyes Were Watching God

A few weeks ago I was required to read Feminist Intersections in Science: Race, Gender and Sexuality Through the Microscope by Lisa H. Weasel and the article opened an avenue for me to explore new ideas. Weasel’s paper works to investigate the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality with science. She supports her argument with a story about Henrietta Lacks, a black woman who had cells stolen from her body. After violating the simple rules of consent, the scientists then proceeded to suggest that her cells represent a separate, inferior race. Some people even linked the HeLa cells to HPV and implied that Ms. Lacks “slept around”. Reading about this particular form of exploitation made me quite uneasy. Contrastly, reading Lisa Weasel’s work

According to Ross, J. N and Coleman, N. M (2011) , the sexual scripts theory is a theory that observes how someone’s culture and environment can influence their actions and attitudes towards sexual behaviour and their interaction with the opposite sex. According to this theory, there is a distinct relation between a person’s culture and the advance of their sexual scripts. However, although research has been conducted on how certain people’s cultures can have an impact on how they engage sexually with others and their attitudes toward sexual behaviour, research for this link on African American women has not yet been fully investigated. The scripting that African American women have most frequently been exposed to are those of racist and

When the girls met back up Twyla asked Roberta why she acted as if she didn't know her, Roberta utilized a key expression when attempting to legitimize her actions back at the Howard Johnson she said "the black-white thing." When she makes reference to this black-white thing she makes reference to that this was a period when her behavior was acknowledged by society as the standard. In the reading both girls describe their new lives, which is another way the reader can separate the girls by race. Twyla is married to a low-income family as she describes "Half of the population of Newburgh is on welfare now, but to my husband's family it was still some upstate paradise..." (Morrison). Then we have Roberta, who is married to a higher class family living luxuriously and it shows in the way she dresses and carries herself, "Diamonds on her hand, a smart white summer dress" (Morrison), the way she shops for "fancy water" (Morrison). The author never bluntly tells the reader who is not Black nor who is White, you kind of have to utilize your literary imagination and tie the era and detailed description of the girls throughout the story.

When sixteenth and seventeenth century explorers returned to Europe from their journeys to Africa, they constructed and disseminated degrading stereotypes of African women based on the observations they had made abroad. Basing their perceptions of women off of European women’s bodies, these explorers noticed and commented on how African women’s bodies differed in many aspects—these disparities then became justifications for the differential treatment between these two groups of women. Because these African American women didn’t conform to the basic norms of womanhood that the explorers were accustomed to, they were quick to categorize them as strange, animalistic and hypersexual; their bodily forms, attire and skin color called attention

In this paper, I will be exploring Black sexuality, particularly as it relates to Black women and the stereotypes the group faces. Previous research is entrenched in white dominance, so the majority of comparisons are to that group. Any call to change that I posit is a call to change the way that we look at Black sexuality, not Black sexuality itself; it is vital to not pathologize the behaviors of a

Morrison describes Roberta as illiterate, while Twyla is able to read and write. Typically during this time in history, blacks were not as well educated as whites children, so this idea about education may reveal their true races. Whites and blacks did not always get along because whites often thought that they were better than blacks. Morrison reveals this idea by Twyla saying “My mother won’t like you putting me in here.” Twyla meant that if her mother say her rooming with a girl from a different race, she would be upset.

The third controlling image of Black womanhood is that of the welfare mother, which is linked to Black women’s increasing dependence on the welfare state (Collins, 76). This time, the punishment is for failing to work. Rather than being a bad mother for deserting the children, now the concern is being with the children too much and not working. Again, by pinpointing the Welfare Mother as the cause,

The fear of expressing sexuality forms a prominent driving factor in Helene’s failure to find a common ground in her femininity and matronly roles, resulting in her oppressing the future generations of black women. As established previously, being the “daughter of a Creole whore who worked” at a brothel not only created Helene in poverty but also in tabooed sexual expression (17). As such, Helene struggled for the rest of her life with the ‘Madonna or Whore Complex’, where she perceives that to counteract the lowly promiscuity of her mother she must remain chaste (in the sense of stifling sexual and feminine expression) and matronly. Her grandmother exacerbates this complex through “counseling [Helene] to be constantly on guard for any sign

Butler says the formulation of gender trouble is built on Rubin’s theory The Traffic in Women (1975), which describes how “normative sexuality fortifies normative gender” and how “sexual practice has the power to destabilize gender” (Butler, 1999: xi). As if sexual practice has the power to destabilize gender, sexual behavior has the power to challenge gender normativity. The statement, in this research, is linked to Jackson’s (1995) suggestion that heterosexuality is neither fixed nor unchanging. The heterosexual normativity can be destabilised through sexual practices, and the constraints can be challenged through the materiality of the findom. The findom here is considered as a medium or a signifier to provide new signification of the “re-articulation” of desire, pleasure, and heterosexuality. This is therefore the possibility of subversion of the findom through bodies’ sexual

Sexuality in both Joyce Carol Oates’ short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” and Aimee Bender’s short story “Quiet Please” controls the female protagonists’ lives. The protagonist in “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” uses her sexuality to strive for popularity and maturity. In contrast, the protagonist in “Quiet Please” uses her sexuality to repress the feelings of sadness and regret. Both stories suggest that using active sexuality (specifically active female sexuality) exposes a vulnerable woman’s emotional weaknesses. Additionally, the female protagonists suffer the repercussions that comes with exploring their femininity.