Black Women's Studies By Beverly Guy-Sheftall

In the article titled Black Women’s Studies: The Interface of Women’s Studies and Black Studies Beverly Guy-Sheftall writes about different topics concerning Black Studies and Women Studies. In the title the word Interface means how people interact and view something, for example a computer screen. Beverly Guy-Sheftall writes about how Black women in particular see Black Studies as an interface. Beverly Guy-Sheftall states, “… the unique experiences of black women in America and throughout the world” (Guy-Sheftall 181). What is being stated is that how black women as a whole are a different group of people based on the experiences that they have had throughout history. This thought about black women gave reason to why black women studies needed
to be created in order to ensure that people knew what was going on. In the article Beverly Guy-Sheftall gives many different examples of others work to further claim the argument she is presenting. One lady that she talks about is Toni Cade’s writing called The Black Women.
Toni Cade was a black woman herself and her writing included stories from black women that talked about the problems they faced day to day. In other words, it was a way that black women were able to get their voices heard. Toni writes, “you see, my whole life is tied up to unhappiness it’s father cooking breakfast and me getting as fat as a hog or having no food at all and father proving his incompetence again I wish I knew how it would feel to be free” (Cade 13). This shows what most black women would go through, as Toni writes based on what the women told her, as a young lady growing into adulthood. That was one of the many stories that Toni writes to be able get, like I stated previously, the voices of the black women heard by other people. Another perspective of this situation takes us to the writing of Anna Julia Cooper. Her writing takes place in 1892, years after the slaves were set free, which was one of the first works that address the problems concerning black women after the slaves were set free. Anna gives, “And not many can more sensibly realize and more accurately tell the weight and the fret of the ‘long dull pain’ than the open-eyed but hitherto voiceless Black Woman of America” (Cooper
2). She gives to state out of all the groups in America Black Women have the best connection to what’s going on in America but without a voice people will never know. It makes a person wonder how different America would have been if people just would have listen to Black Women due the experiences they have been through as the lowest of people. One of the well-known works towards Black Women studies was Ain’t I A Women, but in this Bell Hooks writes a monograph for it. The reason for her writing that was to take a closer look at this idea called Black Womanhood, but here is the catch it was told from the black women perspective instead of someone else looking in. Hook states, “Although they were both subject to sexist victimization, as victims of racism black women were subjected to oppression no white woman was forced to endure” (Hook 123). Hook gives more strength to the idea of how Black Women can be classified as a group of their own. Based on how Black Women are treated at the time most people would conclude that they were basically still in slavery even if they were declared free. Back to the article by Beverly, she writes about William Chafe and how he has conducted studies on the differences between Black Women and White Women. In the writing Beverly states, “The major weakness in this analogy between women and blacks, which Chafe also argues, is that it obscures the critical differences between black and white women, the major one being that black women suffer the double burden of racism and sexism, which makes them a unique group in American society” (Guy-Sheftall 184). What is stated here sums pretty much everything that was being talked about in the different articles and could not have been stated any better. The position I stand with these women was that I’m on their side in what they are presenting because based on personal experiences that I had with these problems mention. I say this because I grew up only having a single mother and she is a black woman. One thing I can say about those experiences is that they are pretty accurate to what these women had to say. One experience in particular was when my mother would talk to people of higher power. For instance, they would treat her and talk to her in ways they would not talk to other groups of people. I think the hardest thing for me was to have to sit there any experience that which no kind should have to go thought, but gives me a better understanding to what these women are talking about. It also makes it easier to connect certain experiences listed in the writings to experiences that I have had. When Beverly Guy-Sheftall says that Black Women are a group of their own I agree with her because of the situations I have been in.