Black matriarchy
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
Related e |
Featured: |
Black matriarchy was a popular stereotype in the 1950s and 1960s that exemplified black American family structure. This ideology depicted traditional black American households as being dominated and controlled by outspoken and emasculating women.
The role of motherhood that black women of this time period were expected to fulfill created a paradox known as the superwoman. This image of the superwoman depicted the black mother as someone who had to be a traditional good mother: nurturing and caring towards her children, but at the same time she was considered unfeminine, strong willed and too domineering.
During the time of the Civil Rights Movement there was a situation of devastating poverty for many black families. Many black men could not support their families.
The inability of the men to provide on their own forced many black women to join the labor force in order to prevent their families from starving and many women become the head family provider. Many scholars argue that the myth of black matriarchy worked to generate a false sense of authority that was attributed to black women due to their participation in the labor force and their contributions in the household.
Some argue that the “authority” of the matriarchal figure as a family provider was an application of personal power instead of a means for survival.
See also
- Mammy archetype
- American family structure
- Research on the African-American Family
- The Negro Family: The Case For National Action