The Mammy
Mammies, Matriarchs and Other Controlling Images
Patricia Hill Collins: Black Feminist Thought
Chapter Main Concepts:
- As it relates to African-American women, the intersecting oppressions of race, class, gender and sexuality could not continue without powerful ideological justifications for their existence, which is perpetuated through controlling images.
- Controlling societal images is one of the many powers held by the dominant group (white males) in the U.S. to manipulate ideas about black womanhood.
- Through the perpetuation of these controlling images of the black woman as the mammy, matriarch, welfare queen, jezebel/hoochie and black lady, black women become objects instead of subjects
▪ i.e. domestic workers are often referred to as “work mules/animals” or “girl”
- Like other people of color and subordinate groups, black women are seen as the “other” in our society. By not belonging, black women emphasize the significance of belonging.
❖ Black feminist thought derives from this kind of thinking, as a means to resist these controlling images. Black women insist on the right to establish and define their own reality
Controlling Images and Black Women’s Oppression
- During this slavery era images of black women were socially constructed to maintain their subordination
- Unlike Black women, white women were encouraged to possess four cardinal virtues: piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity
❖ Mammy:
- Asexual, faithful, obedient domestic servant; yardstick used to measure all black women behavior
- Image aims to influence maternal behavior; raises children to know place in society
❖ Matriarch:
- Spends too much time out the home working; overly the aggressive; emasculates husbands and lovers; unfeminine. Unlike mammy, she is the “bad” black mother
- Introduced in a government report on Black poverty in
Patricia Hill Collins: Black Feminist Thought
Chapter Main Concepts:
- As it relates to African-American women, the intersecting oppressions of race, class, gender and sexuality could not continue without powerful ideological justifications for their existence, which is perpetuated through controlling images.
- Controlling societal images is one of the many powers held by the dominant group (white males) in the U.S. to manipulate ideas about black womanhood.
- Through the perpetuation of these controlling images of the black woman as the mammy, matriarch, welfare queen, jezebel/hoochie and black lady, black women become objects instead of subjects
▪ i.e. domestic workers are often referred to as “work mules/animals” or “girl”
- Like other people of color and subordinate groups, black women are seen as the “other” in our society. By not belonging, black women emphasize the significance of belonging.
❖ Black feminist thought derives from this kind of thinking, as a means to resist these controlling images. Black women insist on the right to establish and define their own reality
Controlling Images and Black Women’s Oppression
- During this slavery era images of black women were socially constructed to maintain their subordination
- Unlike Black women, white women were encouraged to possess four cardinal virtues: piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity
❖ Mammy:
- Asexual, faithful, obedient domestic servant; yardstick used to measure all black women behavior
- Image aims to influence maternal behavior; raises children to know place in society
❖ Matriarch:
- Spends too much time out the home working; overly the aggressive; emasculates husbands and lovers; unfeminine. Unlike mammy, she is the “bad” black mother
- Introduced in a government report on Black poverty in