Black Women In The 1950's

Robert L. Boyd is the author of Boyd’s “Race, Labor Market Disadvantage, and Survivalist Entrepreneurship: Black Women in The Great Depression.” Boyd is an associate professor at Mississippi state university where he specializes in sociology, ecology, urban studies, race, human impact, and demography. He presented this article at a sociology conference in Chicago in the summer of 2000.

In the year 1998 women would strive to be perceived as the “perfect” woman with flawless skin and a skinny body. In the 1990’s technology changed how we would perceive women forever. With this new technology we now have access to digital editing and other online editing tools that women can use to eliminate all of their imperfections. With these tools our society put a huge pressure on girls to look like the people in the magazines. The problem with this, the girls in the magazines were not real.

“I am more than just a BLACK WOMEN” The way African American women are judged is starting to become ridiculous and the list of the names that these women are being called is steady growing. I decided to focus on what is going on in the world today that has happened in the past. Out of all of the women that exist in the world African American women are the targets of American. It is hard to even walk in a store without being labeled as “ghetto, ratchet, a baby mama, gold diggers, or angry.”

Shirley Chisholm was the first African American woman elected to Congress. She became the first black woman to seek a major party nomination for the U.S. presidency. Chisholm helped place the African American culture in mainstream politics. In 1924, Chisholm spoke at the University of Missouri and emphasized a black woman's role in civil rights and the American culture.

In the article The Politics of Black Women’s Studies by Akasha Hull and Barbara Smith, Hull and Smith studiously literate the politics and controversy around the fundamentals of black women’s studies in the past and modern day. Furthermore, the ideology of the article falls under the premise that racism and prejudice are still current and prominent factors that affect the development of black women’s studies in the way it is taught in universities, and the role it takes upon the lives of black women. To begin, it is evident that the premise of the article is solely based on the pros and cons that derive from black women attempting to exist in a white man’s world by making a name for themselves in society. Hull and Smith state that “the necessity

They also had a readily constructed position of who they should be and how they should be in their homes, church and society at large. Like the dancer whose head was held up several times in the first part of cry, black women were proud of who they were irrespective of the challenges they faced. However, their pride was destroyed by the struggles they faced as subordinate beings in their society. They struggled really hard to oppose the hierarchical structure. This is represented by the manner in which the dancer pushed.

This has led to the belief that African American women hold character traits that are more masculine in nature and are viewed as being stronger, reliable and independent; while African American men display feminine traits and are seen as the weaker sex with negative characteristics such as undependable and unemotional. It is understood that there is a greater sense of egalitarian gender roles amongst the African American community in comparison to whites in the United States. With African American men having a more liberal view towards the gender roles of women more so than white Americans (Kane,

Everyone has their flaws as no human being is perfect nor will one ever be perfect either. “There are plenty of beautiful women that do not fit the projected form of beauty that we have been taught to idolize. Still, women constantly attempt to change the way their bodies are meant to be, in order to look like the edited models and airbrushed actresses we see in our favorite shows, movies and magazines.” (Curly) Women working behind magazine companies are playing apart in the downgrading of women as well and some don’t even know it. An average magazine cover is either a woman known to society as a very pretty or attractive woman, with a face full of makeup and on the side bringing attention to the main article of something like “find out the simple way to get this amazing body or how to lose weight in 10 days.”

Black women specifically are judged by their unwavering strength and endurance through their pain and anger, we see these as the stereotypical “strong/independent black woman.” This stereotype is in every movie, like Tyler Perry’s like Diary of a Mad Black Woman, I Can Do Bad All by Myself, Why Did I Get Married

Starting from a young age, things, such as Disney princess and even the unrealistic shape of Barbie was showing us that, that is what we are supposed to aim to look like. In the end we lose our self-respect, dignity and even jeopardize our health to maintain today’s society beauty standards. We as women stop at no cost to be accepted and branded as beautiful. Throughout history, women has been objectified by the media and put down in order to buy into whatever the companies were

Position of Women in Advertisements The average American will spend around a year and a half of their lives watching television commercials (Kilbourne 395). Presently advertisements are controlling our everyday lives. In Jean Kilbourne’s article: “Still Killing Us Softly: Advertising and the Obsession with Thinness”, she discusses how advertisements negatively portray women.

This is the struggles of the “Angry Black Bitch”. If you wear clothes that fit your body you are a slut, asking for attention and not acceptable in the workplace. These are just the few of many things black women must deal with on a day to day basis. The quote “Angry Black Bitch “is an American saying that black women are "sassy, ill-mannered, and tempered by nature". Sassy refers to this definition is just simply speaking my mind, I see myself sometimes holding back words to stand up for myself.

One of the categories in being the ideal woman is being conventionally beautiful because, according to the media, a significant portion of a woman’s self-worth rests in appearance. This can be seen through women’s magazines in particular, which promote altering one’s appearance leads to the significant improvement of one’s “love life and relationships, and ultimately, life in general” (Bazzini 199). Therefore, the media presents a direct relationship with beauty and success: the more attractive a woman is, the better her life will be. Thus, a woman must the take initiative to look beautiful in order to be successful. Through the repetitive exposure of the same type of image in the media, what society considers beautiful often resembles a definitive checklist.

Black women are treated less than because of their ascribed traits, their gender and race, and are often dehumanized and belittled throughout the movie. They are treated like slaves and are seen as easily disposable. There are several moments throughout the film that show the racial, gender, and class inequalities. These moments also show exploitation and opportunity hoarding. The Help also explains historical context of the inequality that occurred during that time period.

The media portrays these unrealistic standards to men and women of how women should look, which suggests that their natural face is not good enough. Unrealistic standards for beauty created by the media is detrimental to girls’ self-esteem because it makes women feel constant external pressure to achieve the “ideal look”, which indicates that their natural appearance is inadequate. There has been an increasing number of women that are dissatisfied with themselves due to constant external pressure to look perfect. YWCA’s “Beauty at Any Cost” discusses this in their article saying that, “The pressure to achieve unrealistic physical beauty is an undercurrent in the lives of virtually all women in the United States, and its steady drumbeat is wreaking havoc on women in ways that far exceed the bounds of their physical selves” (YWCA).