Black Femininity Essay

Femininity is the performance of gender expectations that are attributed to the female bodies. The slave women’s gender expectations were usually based on the unmet needs in the plantation, the recognition of their feminine genitalia by the people in power and the assumption of their abilities based on the said genitalia (Gooden, 83). They were oppressed due to the expectation that they were supposed to perform as a woman in the context of slavery and lacked the protection accorded to the females who performed womanhood outside slavery. These women served as child-rearers, caretakers, and assistants to the mistresses. They also faced sexual objectification and as fancy girls, they were ascribed roles based on their fertility and this became an important part of their identity. This is in contrast to her home place in Eatonville where she was everyone’s Zora.

Even though Zora is a second class citizen who is living in the United States, she displays an inward confidence and strength that enables her to emerge from the self-pity that other African American women appear to wallow in. Nora Hurston gains confidence by her acknowledgment that people happen to be almost the same when you look on the inside. This can be seen from her use of the image of colored bags to illustrate how people are; bags full of hopes, desires, disappointments and all the stuff of life (Hurston, 153). She says that if these bags were to be dumped, then everyone would be the same regardless of their skin color. As a black woman, Alice believes that the roots of a person set up her foundation. It is therefore very important for a person not to forget where he/she has come from.

According to Alice, Roselily makes the decision to get married to the man from Mississippi because she saw that she was going to have a good life with him. This man stayed in a place that was better than Mississippi and also had money. It is however not clear whether Roselily was going to stay with this man and submit to him as a woman or she was going to leave her just like the other man. The master was however fond of Harriet because she was different from the rest of the slaves. She was hardworking and very respectful (Foreman, 314). The master thus started to pursue a relationship with her but Harriet learns to stand for herself and becomes very stubborn. Harriet comes out to strongly resist the plans of his master.

Mr. If at all everyone, else stood out and resisted the white people just like these three women, the black community would be greatly empowered. It is necessary for the parents of the current black community generation to expose their children to their diversity and make them proud of being African Americans. Works Cited Beauboeuf-Lafontant, Tamara. Behind the mask of the strong Black woman: Voice and the embodiment of a costly performance. Temple University Press, 2009. Incidents in the life of a slave girl: Written by herself. Vol. Harvard University Press, 2009. Walker, Alice. Roselily.