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Societies Disputes with The Black Matriarch

Some Issues with Black Matriarch Image

Patricia Hill Collins, who is the author of "Black Feminist Thought," states some problems that the image of Black Matriarch attributes to in society.

1. Fails in her ability to model appropriate gender behavior, leading to labeling of Black women as unfeminine and too strong undercuts U.S Black women’s assertiveness. The idea of a women being too strong and more masculine than their male counter parts results in a decrease of male suitors willing to partner with Black women."
2. Designed to influence White women’s gendered identities. In the post- WWII era, increasing number of White women entered the labor market, limited their fertility, and generally challenged their proscribed roles as subordinate helpmates in their families and workplaces.
3. Image of matriarchy supports racial oppression. Black family structures are seen as being deviant because they challenge the patriarchal assumptions underpinning the traditional family ideal. Moreover, the absence of patriarchy is used as evidence for Black cultural inferiority.

Lack of Male Figure

In any family, the lack of male presence in a child’s life causes many emotional issues and struggles for that child while growing up. The result of the mother trying to act as both the motherly and fatherly figure can lead to a child that is confused with what an actual male presence and assertion really is. But this argument needs more evidence than just a lack of a father figure. According to Lawrence Rosen, “it could also be argued that the absence of an adult male is too crude a measure of matriarchy. There are, after all many different males that could be included, (brothers, uncles, cousins, etc.), with carrying degrees of authority, stability and influence.” Rosen discusses how there have been several discussions on how the fathers role in a lower-class Negro family have suggested that it is not enough to conclude that the presence or lack of a father figure can lead us to understand the impact of the father on the child. Further more investigation has to be present to how a child is impacted by an authority figure than just a lack of presence from their father. Rosen expressed how there are three additional indications of matriarchy need to be looked into: sex of main wage earner, sex of main decision maker and sex of adult who exerts the greatest influence on the youth. These indicators were assumed to be a more accurate reflection of stability, authority and influence.

Matriarchy vs. Patriarchy

Ellen Herman, author of “The Romance of American Psychology,” states how there have been many discussions about the topic of matriarchs and patriarchs. Many of the arguments have been made that since the rise of the matriarch in Black families, the patriarch has been hidden away. There had been debates about the males in Black families, failing to get work so that they could take care of their families. The failure to do so is what lead to the rise of the matriarch. America deemed this as a problem and decided to fix it. Ellen Herman states, “policy planners during the 1960s hoped that getting black men into good jobs with decent pay would correct the matriarchal deviations of the black family by allowing men to function as reliable breadwinners and domestic authority figures. Supporting masculinity was, in other words, a preferred method of tackling poverty, illegitimacy, inadequate housing, poor academic achievement, and a host of other community problems, including rioting.” The creation of the Matriarch had caused such an issue for the patriarchal image that the importance of women’s physiological well-being was deemed less significant of that of men’s. Ellen Herman states that Kenneth Clark viewed “that matriarchy had created a "distorted masculine image," damaging men far more than women, however, reinforced the rationale that men were the primary concern of psychological theory. [55] Women's psychological state was considered only secondarily, and usually as a by-product of the male experience.”

Notes and references

• </ref>Collins, Patricia Hill (2009). Black Feminist Thought. Routledge. pp. 84–85. ISBN 0-415-96472-5.</ref>
• </ref>Rosen, Lawrence. "Matriarchy and Lower Class Negro Male Delinquency". University of California Press.</ref> ress
• </ref>Herman, Ellen (1995). The Romance of American Psychology: Political Culture in the Age of Experts. pp. 190–191. ISBN 978-0520207035.</ref>

Angie11GH (talk) 05:17, 10 December 2012 (UTC)