women's roles in the US

The veracities about women’s roles were constructed in ways that have been altered or erased for social and political purposes. The roles of black women were undermined during slavery and Hawaiian women’s roles were taken away after colonialism. Women’s roles should be recognized because it makes a significant contribution to decolonization and resistance. The erasure of women’s roles have been constructed in favor of white supremacists and colonists, thus, keeping knowledge about women’s roles away from the public view. This week’s readings reflect the counter-forces that fight against this trend. The two examples discussed in this paper will help demonstrate how the recognition of women’s roles make significant contributions to decolonization and resistance. Black women’s role during slavery was undermined in the Moynihan Report. Angela Davis critiques the history of slavery aspect of the Moynihan report because it fails to recognize the significance of black women’s role in slavery claiming that matriarchy comes from the legacy of slavery. Davis challenges this idea by arguing that matriarchy did not come from slavery since matriarchy implies power, which enslaved black women did not have. Davis indicates that although black women did not have power of the law/state, they created their own modes of power. She also indicates the reason why black women played a significant role during slavery is because they made resistance possible for others in the African American enslaved communities. Since women had the double burden of working in the fields and doing domestic work, they became the maintainers of the slave headquarters. This allowed women to recognize how much the master depended on them, giving women the consciousness of resistance. This is an example of how knowledge is distorted in the Moynihan report since it fails to address the truth about women’s roles in slavery and falsely concludes that black families are unstable because they are