Gender In Alice Walker's Meridian

What makes “Ain’t I a Woman?” worthy of reading? Its qualitative features such as the meaning and central idea, structure and organization, and the rhetorical strategies Sojourner Truth used for persuasion makes it an appropriate writing to read in an American Literature class. The purpose of Sojourner Truth’s speech is to persuade the audience that women and men should have the same rights. Students must connect ideas and examples over the entire text to understand Sojourner Truth’s argument and to infer that the central idea involves gender and racial discrimination. Because of the embedded nature of these ideas, the text is very complex.

Patricia Hill Collins’s work, Black Feminist Thought seeks to center Black Women into intersectionalist thought, addressing the power struggles that face them not only due to their race but also to the gender. Masculine rhetoric and powerful male leaders such as Huey P. Newton and Eldridge Cleaver have overshadowed Black Women’s stories, both in and out of the Civil Right Rights/Black Power

African American women have long been stereotyped, discriminated against and generalized in this country. They have had to face both being black in America while also being a woman in America. African American women encountered and still do encounter double discrimination of both sex and race (Cuthbert, 117). Women like Elise Johnson McDougald, Marion Vera Cuthbert and Alice Dunbar-Nelson all tried to shed light on what it was like to be an African American woman living in the 20th century yet literature often portrayed them as emotional, hypersexual, unintelligent and of lesser worth. The literature highlighted that African American women have to serve both their employer and their husbands and families. They are not supposed to have an opinion or stand up for themselves, especially to a white man. ***Concluding sentence?

To be a woman meant that one had no say in regards to political affairs or in government making decisions. If being a woman had limitations, imagine what a black woman experienced, as they were considered less than human and mistreated more than any other female from any different background. In “A Plea for the Oppressed”, Lucy Stanton, one such black woman, tried to avail her people’s plight upon an audience of white women, to support the antislavery and reform cause.

There was a heavy amount of contextual evidence demonstrated throughout this book, what with the minute print and informative words given. The perspectives of the South and the North were infused with the perspectives of people today, and how discrimination has been implemented throughout our society both then and now. With ‘the intent to introduce readers to individual African American working women’ [Preface, xv], she elicits such feelings and highlights the real struggle of those African Americans that were confirmed and transformed by giving examples from historical events such as The Great Depression, the American Revolution, Labor movements and reforms in both the North and the South.

Glenda Gilmore, in her essay “Forging Interracial Links in the Jim Crow South,” attempts to tackle the charged concepts of feminism and race relations during the infamous Jim Crow era. Her analysis focuses on both the life and character of a black woman named Charlotte Hawkins Brown, a highly influential member of the community of Greensboro, North Carolina. Brown defied the odds given her gender and race and rose to a prominent place in society through carefully calculated interracial relations. Gilmore argues that in rising above what was expected of her as a black woman, Brown was forced to diminish her own struggles as a black woman, and act to placate

As a result, the black feminist movement developed, where black women were the sole leaders of the movement that liberated all people. Many black women believed that it was counterproductive for the Civil Rights Movement to neglect the needs of black woman because black men continued to use the same systemic oppression that white people used against them on black women. In “I Am a Revolutionary Black Woman,” Angela Davis writes that “black women constitute the most oppressed sector of society” (Davis 461). It is evident that black women have been super exploited by American society economically, sexually, and politically, making them the lowest on the social hierarchy. Because of black women’s low social standing, if the black woman is liberated, then everyone else will follow, which will ensure the liberation of all people. Thus, Davis argues that “women’s liberation is especially critical with respect to the effort to build an effective black liberation movement” (461). Unlike Hamer, Davis believes that black women should liberate themselves from the black man if they are too oppressive like the white man; black men should be held accountable for their chauvinistic efforts, and should embrace the fight for liberation of women just as black women supported the liberation of black men.

Similarly, Patricia Hill’s work “Black Feminist Thought” explains the need for black feminism. For Hill U.S. black feminism is needed in order for black women to survive, cope with, and resist their differential treatment in society. Black feminist thought creates a collective identity among this marginalized group of African-American women. Hill provides several features that make U.S. Black feminist thought different than any other set of feminism. The first feature Hill speaks about is ‘blackness’ it is this concept that makes U.S. black feminist a different group that suffers a “double oppression”. Thus, U.S. Black women collectively participate in a dialectical relationship which links African American women’s oppression and activism. Hill speaks on the U.S. black feminist thought and the dilemma they face in American society. During the women’s right movement there was a tremendous difference between black and white women’s experiences, “while women of color were urged, at every turn, to become permanently infertile, white women enjoying prosperous economic conditions were urged, by the same forces, to reproduce themselves”. It is this difference in attitudes that demonstrate why there is a need to focuses on the linkage of experiences and ideas experienced by the black women in America. Consequently, Davis analyzes the hypocritical differences of the government of the

Sitting on the bus, an African American woman was viciously barked at by the white bus driver to give up her seat to a white man. The woman was Rosa Parks and this event sparked the beginning of the first large-scale demonstration against segregation in the U.S and labeled her as the “first lady of civil rights.” For years, Parks and people of color were seen as detestable in the eyes of white Americans. They were forced to work dehumanizing jobs and follow rigid social predestinations. Women, in particular, carried these fates with them long after this era as they were seen as inferior to men; women were given limited rights and were expected to comply to the stereotypical duties. It would thus be apparent that they would wish to be liberated from such dehumanizing work. Such an opportunity came during the Harlem Renaissance when these downtrodden females were ultimately given a voice. African American writers, such as Georgia Douglas Johnson, emerged and finally had the power to exploit their years of pain in an attempt at reform. Georgia Douglas Johnson wrote about oppression in her poems “Common Dust,” “Black Woman,” and “The Heart of a Woman” to expose society’s unjust treatment of African American women and inspire change.

Inside the town of Akron, Ohio within the 12 months of 1851, an African American female added a shifting speech at the women’s convention that would be remembered for its rawness, genuineness, and effectiveness. Sojourner Truth spoke about the way she was treated for simply being a “black woman”. Not only being black was the problem, also being a woman had a vast effect on the way she was treated. She used personal and emotional experiences to connect with her audience. Sojourner Truth petitions to her audience for the push of women rights – for all women – through a variety of rhetorical devices.

The first time I heard “Ar'nt I a Woman?” was freshman year of high school, during our annual African-American Heritage assembly. The crowd, always restless and inattentive, chattered and snapchatted away as the speech and presenter were announced. A lanky girl shuffled on stage, folding in on herself as she walked, arrived center stage, and began to speak. As she went on, her spine straightened, her murmurs turned to phrases enunciated so clearly her tongue seemed to be working three times as hard as a normal person’s. By the end of the speech, she had the undivided attention of the audience, all holding their breath because of how passionately and honestly she presented this glimpse into life as a black woman. Both Chapter 4 of A Shining Thread of Hope by Darlene Clark Hine and Kathleen Thompson, and Sojourner Truth’s “Ar'nt I a Woman?” speech serve the same general goal: showcasing the mistreatment of African American Women by society . While Truth’s speech is from her perspective, full of rage and frustration, A Shining thread gives her experiences important context. .

Sojourner Truth’s words in her speech, “Ain’t I a Woman?” served as an anthem for women everywhere during her time. Truth struggled with not only racial injustice but also gender inequality that made her less than a person, and second to men in society. In her speech, she warned men of “the upside down” world against the power of women where “together, [women] ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again!” Today, America proudly stands thinking that Truth’s uneasiness of gender inequality was put to rest. Oppression for women, however, continues to exist American literature has successfully captured and exposed shifts in attitude towards women and their roles throughout American history.

As African-American women address social issues that are important to their life experiences, such as class and race, instead to acknowledge “common oppression” of gender inequality, they are often criticized by “white bourgeois feminists” (hooks, 2000). Their ability to gain any form of equality within society is tarnished by such groups as they develop a “fear of encountering racism” from simply joining this movement (hooks, 2000). As white men, black men, and white women oppress them, their issues are often ignored due to reoccurring stereotypes and myths that claim black women are strong, independent, and “superhuman” (hooks, 2000). It becomes extremely difficult to seek liberation and equity within a “racist, sexist, and classist” society, as their gender and race causes them to be at the “bottom of the occupational ladder” and “social status” (hooks, 2000, pg. 16). As black women are perceived to demonstrate strength and dynamic qualities as white women perpetrate the image of being

The women of the late sixties, although some are older than others, in Alice Walker’s fiction that exhibit the qualities of the developing, emergent model are greatly influenced through the era of the Civil Rights Movement. Motherhood is a major theme in modern women’s literature, which examines as a sacred, powerful, and spiritual component of the woman’s life. Alice Walker does not choose Southern black women to be her major protagonists only because she is one, but because she had discovered in the tradition and history they collectively experience an understanding of oppression that has been drawn from them a willingness to reject the principle and to hold what is difficult. Walker’s most developed character, Meridian, is a person

In this historical and realistic novel, Meridian, written by Alice Walker, portraying the brutalities of life which most African Americans, especially women in the deep South, were forced to endure during the civil rights movement in the 1960s was a both a universal hardship and triumph for all of society. As the main character, Meridian Hill, repeatedly questions the value of her life through death and rebirth, she also seeks to discover the idealized woman, whom certain people repeatedly try to see inside of her while she repeatedly tries to bury that notion in the ground. Recurrently throughout this novel, Meridian tries to discover past memories of her inner self once again as time goes by. Through the uses of characterization,