This exhibition will examine the ways in which African American women within the entertainment industry have utilized their platforms to reclaim their agency and sexual freedom as a result of the negative stereotypes that have constructed false ideologies regarding the Black female identity. During the Reconstruction Era, stereotypes regarding Black femininity were constructed in order to preserve the subordination of Black women in America. Black women have been portrayed as beings who behave in an extremely maternal, aggressive, or sexual manner. The ‘Mammy’ stereotype reaffirms Black women as darker-skinned asexual maternal figures who will make extreme sacrifices to care for white children [1]. Her sacrifices and willingness to be subordinated through harsh labor and sacrifices supposedly represented her loyalty to white America also known as the dominant group within the social hierarchy. The ‘Jezebel’ stereotype mirrored lighter skinned women who could be considered ‘mixed-race’ or in closer proximity to whiteness. This stereotype hypersexualized lighter skinned women to be the pinnacle of sexual desire for white men. As a result of these stereotypes, there has been a permanent stain upon the Black community’s reputation as Black women continue to struggle with being forced within these false perceptions of their identity.
As a result of American modernization during the industrial revolution, many African
Americans migrated to northern cities in the early 1900s to escape the racial violence of the
south while gaining economic opportunities from industrial companies to improve their familial
status. The urbanization of America launched a field of creativity for Black people moving to
northern cities, which manifested into what is known as the Harlem Renaissance [2]. Once Black
people migrated to northern cites such as New York, Chicago, and Detroit, they adopted
autonomous attitudes. Black migrants wished to accomplish their goals as a community by chasing the American dream after being experiencing racial violence in the south. Black women were able to work in manufacturing companies along with domestic services, but they continued to face harsh racism due to the recurring gendered and racial stereotypes that have existed since the Reconstruction Era. Black women experience a double jeopardy when fighting against discrimination because they are faced with both racial and gendered violence [3]. Since Black women were placed into financial positions which forced them to work for themselves, they married less and performed less submission due to the independence they acquired in the workforce.
Harlem, New York is known to be the capital of Black creativity. Based off the emergence of Black creativity and racism that also existed in the north, Black women utilized the form of artistic expression to reinforce their autonomy in ways that disrupted what was considered respectable during the Harlem Renaissance Era and beyond. Black women who wrote and performed Blues music during the 1920s were monumental because they influenced artists to express their sexual and political agency within American structures that worked to repress that autonomy. At times, Blues music consisted of music that was loud, vulgar, and urban. White people called African American Blues music, “noise”, as if it was not credible or pleasing to the ear until the “Blues Craze” that emerged in the 1920s [4]. The entertainment industry was extremely segregated which allowed Black artists to work within Black record companies. Many Black female Blues singers created songs which embraced being a sexual subject. It represented resistance to patriarchal dominance in America. Blues artists like Ma Rainey and Gladys Bentley embraced their queer identities through their songs, performances, and fashion statements. African American female Blues singers challenged the racial myths which have been embedded in American hegemonic structures that worked to keep Black American women at the bottom of the hierarchical ladder. Once the “Blues Craze” slowly declined, the politics of soul, or Black soul culture was on the rise in the 1950s and sixties [5].
American powers controlled how African Americans must present themselves in order to
be considered civilized beings since the start of American chattel slavery. They were not allowed
to embrace their natural hair or wear lavish clothing. During the 1960s, many African American
female artists began to resist assimilation by embracing their natural hair, wearing African
clothing and creating art that opposed white supremacy. Black soul politics during the 1960s
influenced Black feminism within art, politics, and fashion. Artists like Dorothy Dandrige, Miriam Makeba and Nina Simone, were products of the influence of Blues and Jazz music that were formed during the Harlem Renaissance Era [6]. They created their own ideologies of what Black womanhood should look like through artistic expression and fashion, which formed social change. Black women in the entertainment industry influenced the dismissal of traditional gender roles and assimilation tactics. Their music influenced Black communities, specifically Black women to fight for their autonomy against white supremacist structures.
As a result of the racial movements within the 1960s, Black women noticed the lack of intersection between their racial identity and gendered identity. This sparked third wave Black feminism, which addressed misogyny within their own communities following the racism and sexism that they continue to fight against within mainstream America. In the 1970s and 1980s, Black feminism evolved into an extremely unapologetic and powerful movement that addressed the plight of Black women in a manner that introduced the concept ‘intersectionality’ before it was coined as a legit term. Several Black female scholars like Angela Davis and Audre Lorde addressed the oppression of Black women within their own communities as well as from the white community, which subconsciously inspired Black female entertainers and artists to express themselves in less conservative ways [7]. Artists like Betty Davis, Chaka Kahn, Maya Angelou, Donna Summer, and Kara Walker have been influenced by third wave Black feminism based off the ways in which their art has influenced African American women to embrace their power. Social and political movements have inspired and constructed new forms of Black feminism and the art that was being produced by Black women during these eras mirror the political climate and the ways in which they coped with the oppression they faced.
[1] West, Carolyn M. “Mammy, Sapphire, and Jezebel: Historical Images of Black Women and Their Implications for Psychotherapy.” Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training 32, no. 3 (Fal 1995): 458–66. [2] Smith, Jessie Carney, and Lean’tin L. Bracks. 2014. Black Women of the Harlem RenaissanceEra. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. [3] Jones, Lani Valencia, Beverly Guy-Sheftall. 2015. “Conquering the Black Girl Blues.” Social
Work 60 (4): 343–50. [4] Danaher, William F. “Gender Power: The Influence of Blues Queens, 1921 to 1929.” American
Behavioral Scientist 48, no. 11 (July 2005): 1453–67. [5] Ford, Tanisha C. Liberated Threads: Black Women, Style, and the Global Politics of Soul,
(University of North Carolina Press, 2015). [6] Feldstein, Ruth. 2013. How It Feels to Be Free: Black Women Entertainers and the Civil Rights
Movement. Oxford: Oxford University Press [7] Springer, Kimberly. “Third Wave Black Feminism?” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 27, no. 4 (2002): 1059-082.