Personal Narrative: The Fair Sex: White Women And The Racial Patriarchy

Hi, Julie. I had never thought about the white culture. It took me awhile to look at everything as a whole and to point out what I believe is white culture. For example, July 4th, Thanksgiving, hamburgers, hot dogs, baseball, and football. Although I am half Hispanic, my father raised me in a white American culture. Granted part of my personal white culture included traditions from my Irish and English heritage. I began to celebrate my Hispanic heritage in my early 20's.

It’s the day I have to move to the army's campsite. I grab my bag and swing them on my shoulder, it weighs a ton it feels like my shoulder’s gonna break. Sophie was peeking through my room door, as I was about to stand up she ran to the living room curled up into a ball making loud thud and sobbing noises. Outside of the house, I hug my mom as tight as I could, I don’t want to move any single inch of my bone. I want to stay like this forever. I felt a drop of water behind my shoulder and I know that it was her tears. I don’t want to leave them but I have to. It was time to let go but she didn’t want to, I grab her arm and slightly push them back.

As I helplessly watch my fifteen year old roommate fall to pieces in front of me, I feel everything around me slow to a crawl. Blood pounds my ear drums, I feel the color drain from my cheeks, and my feet take me forward as if they have a mind of their own. I fall to my knees and suddenly everything speeds up again – the pounding in my ear drums intensifies, my hands are trembling but I manage to grasp the side of the bed in an attempt to bring myself close to her. Her face is buried into her sheet. Muffled screaming escapes her as I whisper gentle reassurances in her ear, hoping with everything I have that she can hear me. I know she doesn’t. Even if she does, she can’t make sense of it right now. She’s stuck somewhere else, somewhere she revisits every day of her life and every time she closes her eyes to sleep.

Privileges are things that a person receives that gives them an advantage over most people (Merriam-Webster). These are benefits that only certain people receive for being in a certain group or discourse. Peggy McIntosh, director of the Wellesley College Center for Research on Women, wrote “White Privilege and Male Privilege” and states “I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privileges, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege” (605). She argues that whites and males receive certain privileges, yet they do not even notice them. This shows that different races and women are still put at a disadvantage, but the people who receive the benefits are blind to the problem. Many people will argue that she is correct

All throughout time people have been “the other.” Pratt refers to the other as being “Someone who is perceived by the dominant culture as not belonging, as they have been

Too black for the White kids, yet somehow too white for the Black kids, oh the perils of a cappuccino mixed race kid. But it’s true. My life since I was young, at least younger than my eighteen year old self, has been about which group do I most fit in with. Between the four school changes over the course of twelve years, all in white suburban towns I’ve molded myself into an array of characters.

I identify myself as a seventeen year old African American female. I was raised in Washington D.C. in a 5 family member household. I went to an elementary school with Latino and African American students. My mother is from Sierra Leone in West Africa and my father is from Washington D.C. Growing up i was taught to be proud of my heritage and my dark skin tone. My parents taught me that black is beautiful .Contrary in television ads and TV shows they only portray caucasian females as beautiful and smart and African American females as lower class , unintelligent and urban ghetto. While growing up I’ve learned that black features like having a big nose or big lips were seen as unappealing and badlooking but recently there have been trends

This theme plays a role in the operationalization of the theorectical framework of black feminism, asking, how does this shared expereience of marginilzation when it comes to race and gender affect your self;perception varying amoung socio-economic status? The emerging data from my interviews suggest that their common experience of marginalization whether aware or not has affect in some form how they view their position in society. The societal norms of misogny and sexism that are often time structural. The obligation to family and community gave women in higher socio-ecomomic status a feeling of purpose and self-determination. As she was able to have more economic freedom and higher educational attainment, a sense of self-confidence and self-worth was displayed. In contrast the particpant who who experienced very minimal class fludity and continues to live within the lower SES, portrayed a lack of self-esteem and self-determination.

In a university like Northwestern, where white students vastly outnumber students of color, the subject of race permeates every environment from the classroom to the bedroom. But for minority students who pursue relationships with a white partner, their heritage may automatically doom the success of that relationship because of a single notion: racial fetishization.

In terms of sexuality, if a white woman is living that “single in the big city” lifestyle, people assume she is a strong and independent woman, but women of color who are living a single lifestyle are not seen as someone who is choosing to be single, but as someone that is not married because of the fact that African Americans marry at lower rates than whites due to situations like poverty and high incarceration rates for black males. (Winfrey Harris, 2012) These facts put a stereotype on all African Americans. If a white women is a single, working mother, she is praised by society for being a strong and independent woman that doesn't need a man to support her, but if a back woman was a single, working mother, society would be pitied and would be wondering what happened to her husband

The first article, published in 1993, deals with the struggle of poor white women after the civil rights movement. The article focuses on the life of women and black men during the Ku Klux Klan era.

In history, women have always struggled to gain equality, respect, and the same rights as men. Women had had to endure years of sexism and struggle to get to where we are today. The struggle was even more difficult for women of color because not only were they dealing with issues of sexism, but also racism. Many movements have helped black women during the past centuries to overcome sexism, racism, and adversities that were set against them. History tells us that movements such as the Feminist Movement helped empower all women, but this fact is not totally true. In this paper, I will discuss feminism, the movements, and its "minimal" affects on black women.

Fall is in the air and being a stereotypical white girl, I make my way over to the nearest Starbucks to order a Pumpkin Spice Latte with a mountain of whipped cream. After waiting in a line which seems like has taken forever, I finally reach the Barista to place my order. I ask for extra sugar in my Latte and then I hear behind me, "Hold off on the sugar, you're sweet enough". Seriously? A coffee related pun as a pick up line? The pun master makes his way up to me and hands me half of a receipt with his number on it. I look down at the Walmart receipt and glance back up at him to kindly ask, "Do you need a babysitter this weekend?" Bad puns, sending out effortless text messages and also the occasional stalking are all pretty disastrous ways

Today is her, now seven year old, grandson’s birthday party. She is always overjoyed to see him and she loves to watch him play sports, but she misses the day when she can play catch with him in the side hard with the wind blowing in her hair. As they were walking up to the party she had to stop half way because of exhaustion. She looked up to her husband and said, ”I need to rest.’’ At this point she knew she was dying and it was getting more and more painful. She looked up and saw her grandson running around with his friends with grass stains all over his clothes and smiled up at her husband. Later that evening, sitting in the living room, she decided to have a talk with her husband about if she should go ahead and ask for the

After reading Andrew’s blog post on “Black Feminism”, I would like to say that it is eminently empowering. This post caught my attention, because black feminism is a topic that needs to be acknowledge, but it is often pushed aside. At the beginning of this course, we were taught the meaning of feminism. Feminism is a movement that has around for many years, and it explores all the reasons why women deserve the same respect and equality as men. On top of struggling for women’s equal rights, African American females are also facing sexism and racism. We live in a world where women of color would accomplish the same goals as caucasian women, but they would not get same kind of acknowledgment for it. Andrew had mentioned, “The common problem that