¶ Intro- Explanation about the social construction of race. How does it apply to Fox-Genovese’s work? WHO am I talking about and what is their definition?

Conception of self:   ¶ -  from their culture   ¶  -  from their experiences

Black men’s conception:  ¶  -  gender definition

White men’s conception:  ¶  -  gender definition, class definition

White women’s conception:  ¶  -  class definition

“Northerner’s” conception:  ¶  -  class definition

¶  Back to black women’s different womanhood that that of white women

¶  How did things change over time?

¶  Conclusion- How was their race/gender socially constructed with respect to black men, white men, and white women especially?

                In her book entitled Within the Plantation Household: Black and White Women of the Old South, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese takes on the challenge of analyzing southern black and white women, their relations within their communities, with men and with each other.  The definition of black slave women, either formed by themselves or by those around them, will be the focus of study for the purpose of a succinct examination of the book’s contribution to the notion of social construction.  The idea of race as a socially constructed phenomenon can be explained by the lack of a scientific evidence providing a distinction between races beyond the obvious physical traits such as skin color and eye shape.  The social significance of race relies on individual and group conceptions of their physical attributes and the physical attributes of others.  While people come to hold a certain belief about another “race”, they are also influenced by the conceptions other people have about them.  Black women in the south defined themselves by their experiences in America and their previous African culture but their identity was also influenced by the views of white men, white women, black men, and northerners as a political entity.

                The experiences black slave women had in American varied from the extremes of arduous field labor to the privileged life of a cherished servant.  A slave woman could be put to various tasks such as plowing, picking and planting crops, cleaning their master’s house, cooking, nursing the master’s children, weaving, and preserving fruits and vegetables.  Noting an important distinction, Fox-Genovese explains that, “Their experience unfolded between two realities: the dominion of their white masters and their relations within the black slave community” (Fox-Genovese 146).  The cruelest of masters enforced their rule with a murderous and violent temperament and sometimes even slaves would treat other slaves harshly, opening their eyes to their grim reality.  For example, Fox-Genovese cites the experience of Sally Brown, a slave who grew up with a group of women unrelated to her that were unkind.  Brown recalls their mistreatments of her but still, “had a deep, warm feeling for the “we of the slave community”” because of the things she learned from the women (Fox-Genovese 168).  The slave community was an important part of a black woman’s development of her sense of self.  In some instances slave women would, after finishing the work they did for their masters, work long into the night making clothing or other necessities for members of the community.  This dedication stemmed from the camaraderie found in organized labor that brought the women, who were all subjected to similar hardships, together as a metaphorical family.  The community also played a role in the education and preservation of African traditions and customs.

                Slave women’s African culture was reflected in their work, the way they raised their children, and their recreation.  Fox-Genovese notes that, “The talents deployed in the kitchens owed much to the slave women’s special way with herbs and spices and to recipes developed and handed down among themselves” (Fox-Genovese 160).  Not only African food but specific African spiritual values, music, dance, architecture and medicine all played a role in shaping the slave women’s identities.  The way the Fox-Genovese describes the culture of slave communities is by explaining that, “Even those born in the South developed between two cultures: that of the African past and that of the Afro-American present” (Fox-Genovese 146).  Although a lot of the African culture remained, it was a struggle to retain the history of African people with merely oral traditions.  Black slave women no longer defined themselves as merely Africans, but their African culture continued to make an impact on enduring generations.  Black men also shared the traditions and customs brought over from Africa and the culture, along with white influences, affected their views on gender relations.

                Black women were subjected to the domination of white people but were also subordinate to their husbands, fathers, brothers, and other male members of the black slave community.  The men adopted the predominantly white view of women’s household subordination as essential and, “a necessary contribution to the survival and progress of “the race”” (Fox-Genovese 51).  While the men retained social superiority they were still, “stripped of all the normal attributes of male power: legal and social fatherhood, the control of property, the ability to dominate households” (Fox-Genovese 49).  This lack of power the men held over the women could have contributed to the idea of empowered female slaves that defined themselves by their labors instead of their relation to a man.  It is important to note that while the men they directly related to had little physical control over them, the women lived in a slave society that was male dominated.

                The men that had total control over the black slaves were the southern white males.  Their relations with the slave women ranged from being a protective father of an illegitimate child, having merely an economic interest in them, or sexually violating and brutally beating them.  White men’s conception of slave women was that they were inferior to them on the basis of race, class, and gender.  The conception white men had of black men also played a role in the black female’s notion they had of themselves.  When the women saw their men being dominated by white men it further separated them from white men in the spectrum of who is dominant in society because of black men’s social domination of black women.  Not only did white men consider themselves better because they were their slaveholders but they thought they were better because men were of course, naturally, superior to women.  The female slave holders also held themselves above black male and female slaves because of the social and class distinctions made between blacks and whites.

                The female slave holders saw slaves in general as, “social and racial inferiors whose station in life was that of perpetual servants” (Fox-Genovese 43).  And while the south imposed many restrictions on all women, the slaveholding women felt that with their control of household management and of black men and women came a sort of distinguishing honor.  While black and white women were treated very differently, Fox-Genovese makes a point to note that, “Women were bound to each other in the household, not in sisterhood, but by their specific and different relations to its master” (Fox-Genovese 101).  Both white and black women were subordinate to the master of the household and that reality has aided in the formation of the idea that women somehow banded together with a feminist interest but Fox-Genovese points out that the slaveholding women were perfectly content with their domination of slaves and did not want to fight to lose the comforts the control provided them.  Northern women and men, who mostly did not have slaves, were more opposed to the gender relations of the south and were more likely to fight against slavery in the south.

the prompt is...."The essay should be about seven pages double-spaced. The essay should not be a summary of the book but rather should use the book to address questions raised by the course.  How was the group defined by different members of the wider society of the U.S.?  What aspects of the group's previous culture or the group's experiences in America helped to define the group's own conception of itself.  How were the definitions and boundaries of the ethnic/racial group contested or changed over time?  In short, look at how race/ethnicity as a socially constructed group that resulted from interaction within and between groups.  Of course, you may criticize the notion of social construction or you may accept it.  Where relevant, you may discuss how ethnicity/race was influenced by class or gender."

Essay Structure

¶ Intro- Explanation about the social construction of race. How does it apply to Fox-Genovese’s work? WHO am I talking about and what is their definition?

Conception of self:   ¶ -  from their culture   ¶  -  from their experiences

White men’s conception:  ¶  -  gender definition  ¶  -  class definition

Black men’s conception:  ¶  -  gender definition

White women’s conception:  ¶  -  class definition

“Northerner’s” conception:  ¶  -  class definition

¶  Back to black women’s different womanhood that that of white women

¶  How did things change over time?

¶  Conclusion- How was their race/gender socially constructed with respect to black men, white men, and white women especially?

Quote List

“Slave women lived free of the legal constraints of marriage and lived with the necessity to work as hard as men, frequently at tasks considered inappropriate for white women” (Fox-Genovese 35).

“Slavery as a social system shaped the experience of all its women, for slavery influenced the nature of the whole society, not least its persisting rural character” (Fox-Genovese 38).

“The experience of black slave women differed radically from that of all white women, for they belonged to households that were not governed by their own husbands, brothers, and fathers” (Fox-Genovese 39).

“But they [slaveholding women] unavoidably viewed those slaves as social and racial inferiors whose station in life was that of perpetual servants” (Fox-Genovese 43).

“…if a group of black slaves sought to establish a church or a school, they would either have to do so in secrecy and under adverse circumstances, or with white support and control” (Fox-Genovese 45).

“The independence and strength of slave women were inscribed in a social system in which slave holding women had the right to command the obedience and deference of slave men, in which slaveholding men had the right to exploit the bodies of slave women, and in which slave men did not have the right to resist either form of assault” (Fox-Genovese 49).

“But how do we evaluate a female strength that may have derived less from African traditions than from an enslavement that stripped men of all the normal attributes of male power: legal and social fatherhood, the control of property, the ability to dominate household” (Fox-Genovese 49).

 “Stripping men of power may well encourage female autonomy, but black women, slave and free, lived in a world dominated by men, even if those men were not of their own race” (Fox-Genovese 49-50).

“Afro-American slaves did not enjoy the freedom to preserve intact their African ancestors’ view of the world” (Fox-Genovese 51).

“The evidence from slavery and from Reconstruction strongly suggests that black men espoused their own version of “white” views of male dominance within and without the family, and that they actively encouraged the domestic subordination of women as a necessary contribution to the survival and progress of “the race”” (Fox-Genovese 51).

--Throughout the antebellum period, slave women resisted slavery in innumerable ways, but they did not figure among the leadership of the larger, organized revolts.--  “This pattern suggests that the West African values favoring male political and military leadership received powerful support from Anglo-American social and gender relations” (Fox-Genovese 53).

“…proslavery spokesmen simultaneously rooted their defense of slavery in the subordination of women and condemned explicitly, and even passionately, the patriarchal power of the Roman paterfamilias” (Fox-Genovese 63).

“Class and racial struggles assumed priority over the gender struggle,” blah blah because, “Black slave women’s primary gender struggles concerned their relations with black men, although these struggles, too, were deeply affected by their common confrontation with white men and women” (Fox-Genovese 97).

“The slave South, as a social formation, imposed special constraints on the lives of all southern women” (Fox-Genovese 99).

“The distinct southern form of male dominance was anchored in the household as the fundamental productive and reproductive unit of slave society” (Fox-Genovese 99).

“Women were bound to each other in the household, not in sisterhood, but by their specific and different relations to its master” (Fox-Genovese 101).

DUTY [‘slave women cleaned their mistresses’ houses, prepared their food, nursed their children, and seconded their efforts in the care of gardens and the preservation of fruits and vegetables…’] [cooks occupied positions of considerable prestige] “The talents deployed in the kitchens owed much to the slave women’s special way with herbs and spices and to recipes developed and handed down among themselves”  --one-pot meals, notably coosh-coosh, and such special treats as the ash cakes that their children fondly remembered

METAPHORICAL FAMILY- “My family, black and white”

“Even those born in the South developed between two cultures: that of the African past and that of the Afro-American present” (Fox-Genovese 146).

“Their experience unfolded between two realities: the dominion of their white masters and their relations within the black slave community” (Fox-Genovese 146).

“The texture of her life, from music to personal relations, from spiritual values to food, encoded memories of a vanished world, even as it proclaimed appropriation of a new one” (Fox-Genovese 146).

“At least in the antebellum period, slave cabins frequently betrayed the African origins of their builders and occupants in their sharply slanted and pointed thatched roofs, and in their characteristic room dimensions of ten by twelve feet” (Fox-Genovese 150).

[‘the cabins bore the mark of their role as extensions of the big house’]

“Slave mothers, nonetheless, left a strong impression on their daughters, who, after emancipation, variously recalled their mothers’ love, discipline, cooking, and occupations” (Fox-Genovese 152).

“The house girls, even if they were with their mothers, grew up well removed from the immediate influence of the slave community” (Fox-Genovese 153).

“She credited her close association with her master’s family for many of her attitudes. “I was never very superstitious, as I was reared by white people and they were never as superstitious as the colored people”” (Fox-Genovese 155).

MORE ABOUT RANK THAN RACE SOMETIMES---- “She called other blacks, who did not in her opinion match her in respectability, “de nigger” and did not hesitate to whip the kitchen servants when she thought it necessary” (Fox-Genovese 162).

While learning how to manage a household, “simultaneously, they were learning the insurmountable distinctions between themselves and the young white women with whom they had played as children” (Fox-Genovese 163).

“Occasional evidence of angry bickering among house servants suggests a jockeying for position within the complex hierarchy of the larger houses” (Fox-Genovese 167).

“Because the family to whom she was given offered her no kindness she entertained no illusions about their beneficent role in her development…yet she had a deep, warm feeling for the “we of the slave community” (Fox-Genovese 168). [because they had taught her everything from how to live to how to work] [talking about Sally Brown]

[‘Slave medicine reflected African as well as local folk beliefs’] [In Africa men made baskets- one instance where men might have requested to make baskets instead of letting the women do it (different gender roles)]

“Knowing their worth and cherishing their pride, such women refused on principle to be mastered” (Fox-Genovese 188).

“The “we” of church fellowship, like the “we” of music and dance and the birthing of babies, evoked membership in a culture poised between worlds, membership in a culture that, however proudly and lovingly transmitted, had to be reconquered in each generation” (Fox-Genovese 191). ----  [“For like all predominantly oral cultures, the culture of Afro-American slave women could change without recording its own transformation”]

“[Black women] did not primarily devote themselves to the care of their own children and houses, and their gender roles did not necessarily emanate directly from their relations with black men or from African traditions” (Fox-Genovese 193).

“Slave women could be separated from their children and husbands and could be subjected to a sexual violation that would have offended the honor and evoked the murderous retaliation of the husbands and fathers of white women” (Fox-Genovese 193-194). [‘did not enjoy the full status of their gender’]

just so i have this in writing....

i want everyone to know....that tegan and sara are going to be HUGE this year. believe me..i have a feeling about this.

just you wait