black woman essay questions

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With a name inspired by the First Amendment, 1A explores important issues such as policy, politics, technology, and what connects us across the fissures that divide the country. The program also delves into pop culture, sports, and humor. 1A's goal is to act as a national mirror-taking time to help America look at itself and to ask what it wants to be.

Race & Ethnicity

The triple weight of being Black, American, and a woman

While we have always shared many of the concerns championed by the mainstream women’s movement, we have never had the luxury of fighting a singular fight..

Sara Lomax-Reese

Sara Lomax-Reese is shown with her mother, Beverly Lomax, who she says instilled in her a sense of pride and love of self. (Image courtesy of Laura Elam)

At times this three-ness has felt like a weight — having to navigate racism, sexism, implicit bias, and all the limitations that come when you’re placed in these tiny little boxes, often ignored or underestimated and told to wait your turn.

“The unemployment rate for African Americans in 2017 (the last full year of data) was 7.5 percent, 0.8 percentage points higher than it was in 1968 (6.7 percent). The unemployment rate for whites was 3.8 percent in 2017 and 3.2 percent in 1968.
“In 2015, the Black homeownership rate was just over 40 percent, virtually unchanged since 1968, and trailing a full 30 points behind the white homeownership rate, which saw modest gains over the same period.
“The share of African-Americans in prison or jail almost tripled between 1968 (604 of every 100,000 in the total population) and 2016 (1,730 per 100,000). In 1968, African-Americans were about 5.4 times as likely as whites to be in prison or jail. Today, African-Americans are 6.4 times as likely as whites to be incarcerated.”

Deeply disturbing is the reality that, in 2018, Black people still suffer the brunt of systemic racism and inequality.

The last election laid bare the distance and disconnect between Black and white women. What could be more blatant than 94 percent of African-American women voting for Hillary Clinton, and 52 percent of white women — the majority — voting for Donald Trump? While I still haven’t recovered from this betrayal, it is sadly consistent with a long history in this country that shows, for white women, race often eclipses gender (and sanity).

As I look through my personal and professional lens as a Black woman CEO, I see WURD as an important part of the solution to the challenges facing us in this moment. The media is extremely powerful. It shapes and perpetuates perceptions. It creates thought leaders and opinion makers. It holds the powerful accountable to the people. And when done well, it can unify our community — regardless of the double- or triple-consciousness that shapes our world view — to empower us to fight the constructs and institutions designed to contain, destroy, or silence us.

Whether we like everyone on the air or everything that is said is not the point. In today’s world, we need a place where the Black community can be strengthened and fortified. Black Lives Matter. #MeToo matters. And right now, WURD is the only place that allows us to speak each and every day about the issues that matter most to our community: in our own voice, in an interactive format that’s hyperlocal and in real time.

So, as we celebrate Women’s History Month, and honor all of the women who have paved this path for us, I invite you to continue to listen, call in, tweet, attend our events, and be an active part of this community. That, in my mind, is something worth protecting and preserving.

Sara Lomax-Reese is the president and general manager of WURD Radio, LLC , Pennsylvania’s only African-American owned talk radio station.

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10 Memoirs and Essay Collections by Black Women

Reading Lists

These contemporary books illuminate the realities of the world for black women in america.

A Black woman sitting on a bench reading

In her 1993 poem, “won’t you celebrate with me,” author and educator, Lucille Clifton, invites us to wonder at the life she has created:

“… i had no model born in babylon both nonwhite and woman what did i see to be except myself? i made it up.”

As a Black woman existing at the intersections of these marginalized identities (“both nonwhite and woman”), Clifton finds herself rendered invisible in the mainstream and—consequently—creates herself in the process. 30 years onwards, Black women writers continue to take on the mantle of rendering themselves visible across genres and constructing models for future generations to see themselves in.

This has been especially true in the case of personal narratives, from memoir to essay collections. Starting with Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl published in 1861 as a foundational abolitionist text, through to Angela Davis: An Autobiography released only a few years after the acquittal of the Black Panther leader and prominent feminist, Black women have narrated their stories and transformed the personal into the political with radical results.

In our own personal narratives, we shrug off duty and expectations, the needs of others become secondary to our primary, as we catalog our hurts and our hopes. We become the hero, not saving anyone else but ourselves. To borrow a phrase from the late bell hooks, we move from the margin to the center.

The following contemporary memoirs and personal essay collections released in the past ten years exemplify this growing urgency by Black women to tell our side of the story. Their words illuminate the realities of the world and the impact of racist and sexist systems of powers on the lives of the most disenfranchised. These works are affecting, funny, haunting, inspiring and all urgently salient. They are additions to the records and the archives, insisting and reminding us that our voices always matter.

Men We Reaped: A Memoir by Jesmyn Ward

Within a four-year time span, two-time National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward saw the deaths of five Black men in her life, including that of her brother. She chronicles their lives, alongside her own, of growing up in Mississippi and the history of racial violence that surrounds around them. “Hopefully, I’ll understand why my brother died while I live,” Ward writes, ”and why I’ve been saddled with this rotten fucking story.” Her journey of reflection is one of grief, anger, and guilt, all buoyed ultimately by the love that comes through of her family and the home that raised her.

Negroland: A Memoir by Margo Jefferson

Writing about her upbringing in a wealthy, professional Black community of Chicago in the 1950s, critic Margo Jefferson reflects on the intersections of race, gender, class, and color within her community, poetically delving into the nuances of Black life. The Pulitzer Prize winner manages a tight balancing act, honestly approaching the privileges and prejudices of her childhood family and friends, whilst remaining steadfast in her knowledge and understanding that Blackness—regardless of status or hue—is still ultimately Black. “We’re considered upper-class Negroes and upper-middle-class Americans,” her mother tells her, “But most people would like to consider us Just More Negroes.”

We Are Never Meeting In Real Life: Essays by Samantha Irby

Though comedy writing—much like comedy itself—continues to be a boy’s club, Samantha Irby fuses sarcasm, self-deprecation, and toilet humor into musings and anecdotes about her life in the Midwest. Whether she is writing about The Bachelorette or mental health or falling in love, her singular voice is sure to bring you to tears of laughter or sadness, if not both at the same time. In an especially funny take on her pain she asks, “Do Black girls even get to be depressed?” and hordes of us nod in synchronized recognition.

Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay

Author, cultural critic, and professor Roxane Gay has never shied away from the story of the violent sexual assault that took place as a child, but the story extends from that experience to explore additional themes around the (her) body. Using examples from her own lived experiences, she challenges assumptions and conventional thinking about health and wellness, taking to task all the unacknowledged fatphobia we pervasively encourage in our society. Gay’s memoir is sometimes difficult to read, but necessarily so, particularly the parts where she works through her own demons and leaves us no choice but to confront ours too. “I buried the girl I had been… and perhaps I am writing my way back to her, trying to tell her everything she needs to hear.”

Thick: And Other Essays by Tressie McMillan Cottom

In a series of wide-ranging essays, the university professor and MacArthur Genius covers beauty standards, Black maternal mortality, and the election of Barack Obama, told through personal stories, academic scholarship, and cultural criticism. Thick is intentional in centering herself and the experiences of Black women and girls—a revolutionary and counter cultural endeavor given how “[the] personal essay [has] become the way that black women writers claim legitimacy in a public discourse that defines itself, in part, by how well it excludes Black women.” McMillan Cottom refuses to be shut out.

The Yellow House: A Memoir by Sarah M. Broom

“Remembering is a chair that is hard to sit still in,” writes Sarah M. Broom in her National Book Award-winning debut work. The title comes from the name of her childhood home in New Orleans where she grew up with her large, loving, and complicated extended family. She moves away for college and continues to move further away from the yellow house, until the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina forces her to reckon with her home and all the historical and political context of where she came from. She looks at race, class, and inequality from a humanistic lens, using her story and the stories of her loved ones to reveal the harder truths about the country and how far left there is for us to go.

Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir by Natasha Tretheway

For years, former Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner ran away from the defining tragedy of her childhood—the murder of her mother by her ex-husband when Tretheway was a teenager. “All those years I thought that I had been running away from my past I had, in fact, been working my way steadily back to it,” and her memoir is her way of unpacking that journey back, beginning with her mother’s death and studying all around it. As Tretheway looks at her own life, from growing up biracial around the time of Loving v. Virginia to finding her way to becoming a writer, she is tenderly attentive to the memory of her mother and grappling with the situation of her death, taking us along the often dark journey with her.

Just Us: An American Conversation by Claudia Rankine

Much like its author, Just Us is a text that defies categorization. The poet, playwright, and essayist utilizes poems, footnotes, essays, photographs, quotes, scripts, tweets and Facebook statuses to explore and indict American racism. Rankine’s writing is grounded in her own experiences, using everything from dinner party conversations with other academics and faculty members to moments between her and her White husband in couples therapy, resulting in a text that is personal, vulnerable, and filled with beauty. Rankine asks, “How does one combat the racism of a culture?” Just Us answers.

Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop by Danyel Smith

Former editor of the iconic hip-hop and R&B publication VIBE Magazine , Danyel Smith’s memoir doubles as a music history on Black women musicians. Smith chronicles her life growing up in Oakland and her journalistic path, looking to icons like Aretha Franklin, Donna Summer and Stephanie Mills as inspiration as to who she could be, and pays them their due through her own story. “I want Black women who create music to be known and understood, as I want to be known and understood,” Danyel writes, demanding that we pay attention to them and her too.

Ordinary Notes by Christina Sharpe

Ordinary Notes can be understood best as meditations—on Blackness, on life, on the human condition—penned deftly and poignantly by the woman described in the New York Times as “shaping a generation of Black thought.” Professor Sharpe intimately walks us through her life, from the museums she walks, to the songs she listens to, to the family histories she unearths, and in the final section, she dedicates pages considering the books she describes as “giving me a place to land in difficult times.” To Sharpe, they show “Black worlds of making and possibility.” Ordinary Notes does the same.

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DON’T MISS OUT

Black Women’s Rhetoric(s): A Conversation Starter for Naming and Claiming a Field of Study

Peitho Volume 23 Issue 4, Summer 2021

Author(s): Ronisha Browdy

Ronisha Browdy is an Assistant Professor in the English Department at North Carolina State University where she teaches courses in rhetoric, writing, and cultural rhetorics. Her primary research centralizes Black women’s naming practices as acts of resistance and self-empowerment in both private and public spaces. Her goal as a scholar is to continue the work of making space for under-represented people, practices, and ways of making and communicating knowledge within (and outside) the field of rhetoric and composition, especially the voices and contributions of people of African descent and women of color. Her work has been published in Reflections Journal, Women and Language, Prose Studies , and multiple edited collections.

Abstract: In this essay, the author generally discusses the collective body of scholarly work at the intersections of Black womanhood, Black feminism, and rhetorical studies that has significantly impacted the field of rhetorical studies over the last 20+ years. Although individual scholars have considered whether or not to identify “Black women’s Rhetoric” as a rhetorical genre, while others have named their individual research and pedagogical work as some variation of “Black Women’s Rhetoric(s),” there has lacked a direct and explicit claiming of “Black Women’s Rhetoric(s)” as its own independent subject area and disciplinary community. Using personal experience, and analysis of two texts identified as African American/Black Women’s Rhetorics, the author argues that Black Women’s Rhetoric(s) must be named and claimed as a rhetorical genre and unique sub-field of rhetorical studies. This essay concludes with a call for collaborative identification and recognition of Black Women’s Rhetoric(s) as a collective, while offering a framework as a starting point for future discussions.

In the preface to her groundbreaking book, We Are Coming: The Persuasive Discourse of Nineteenth Century Black Women , Shirley Wilson Logan draws from Herbert Simon’s definition of rhetorical genre to articulate her project on interrogating African American women orators’ rhetorical tradition and practices. Wilson Logan says:

Although I borrow from Simon’s term, ‘distinctive and recurring patterns of rhetorical practice, it is not my intention here to argue for a genre called ‘black women’s rhetoric’ based on the patterns I identify or to apply a scientifically verifiable approach to identify them. So, while I look for reoccurrences, I do not claim that they constitute a genre. Instead, my focus is both singular and collective in that I consider individual speakers and the occasions surrounding particular rhetorical acts but with an eye toward the features of that act that are shared by other rhetorical acts arising from similar but not identical rhetorical situations […] Thus rather than argue for genres, I identify common practices across rhetorical acts that were molded and constrained by prevailing conventions and traditions . (Wilson Logan xiv; emphasis added)

Through her work, readers gain insight into how the sociohistorical context of the 19th century shaped Black women’s oratory choices and discourse, particularly as they were employed around social issues related to Black women’s intersecting racialized and gendered struggles against the abolishment of slavery, women’s rights, mob violence, and racial uplift. Despite Wilson Logan not defining or naming a genre within rhetorical discourse called “black women’s rhetoric” (xiv) within this particular work, her scholarship has been foundational in the development of rhetorical studies that centralizes Black women subjects and speakers, Black female literacies and communication practices, and contextualizing how Black women negotiate, navigate, and use their unique positionalities to make and distribute knowledge across diverse spaces and audiences.

Over the last 20+ years, the influences of Wilson Logan, and others like Jacqueline Jones Royster and her book Traces of a Stream: Literacy and Social Change Among African American Women is represented in the plethora of scholarship by and about Black women’s rhetorical traditions, literacy practices, experiential knowledge(s), language, spaces/places, histories, and activism. This work has been published across the fields of rhetoric and composition studies, communication studies, literacy and language studies, women and gender studies, African American and African Diasporic studies, and education. Often informed by various feminist theoretical traditions, especially Black feminist thought and womanist theories, these works articulate and argue for alternative methods for understanding Black women’s subjectivities and centralizing Black women as rhetorical subjects. Despite the expansive scholarship and undeniable presence of Black women and Black women-centered scholarship within rhetorical studies, there has still yet to be an explicit naming of a collective body of scholarship, disciplinary community, or rhetorical genre called Black Women’s Rhetoric(s). 1

In this essay, I argue that there is substantial scholarly work (in print and in progress) at the intersections of Black womanhood, Black feminism, and rhetorical studies and it is time to interrogate this scholarship collectively to consider whether, or not, it should finally be explicitly named and defined as a rhetorical genre and sub-field called “Black Women’s Rhetoric(s).” Given the history of Black women’s experiences, knowledge, and contributions being marginalized, silenced, and/or subsumed under categories that do not equally prioritize their intersecting raced, gendered, and other identities, I consider how naming and identifying a Black women’s rhetorical homeplace (hooks 37) functions as an act of resistance against the racist and patriarchal systems and practices of academia (including rhetorical studies) that continue to omit and/or limit representations of Black women’s rhetorical histories, literacies, languages, spaces/places, and meaning-making practices within program curricula, course syllabi, publication spaces, conferences, etc.

Speaking from my own personal experience, I begin with a story about my connection to this topic, and my own articulation of this inexplicitly recognized—although clearly present and identifiable—sub-field of rhetorical studies. My purpose is to illustrate my own difficulties in locating and accessing scholarship that prioritizes Black women’s rhetorical perspectives because of the ways it is typically situated under various identifiers, e.g., “women’s/feminist rhetoric,” “African American/Black rhetorics,” “cultural rhetorics,” and “hip-hop rhetorics.” Also, since this work is highly interdisciplinary, it is common that scholars producing this scholarship see the influences and implications of their work as contributing within and beyond the realms of rhetorical studies, which leads to them publishing broadly across disciplinary communities like communication studies, women and gender studies, education, language studies, technical and professional writing, African and African American studies, as well as alternative and online spaces. From my experience, the complexities of how Black women-centered rhetorical scholarship is situated across many spaces, for many reasons, with various different names, makes it difficult to access as a cohesive, interconnected network of knowledge. Furthermore, this broad distribution of “Black Women’s Rhetoric(s)” scholarship makes it difficult to bring all of these scholars and scholarship together as one collective body of knowledge with its specifications on subject matter and points of inquiry, methods and methodologies for conducting research, and functions for various audiences (including intersecting sub-fields and the entire rhetorical studies community). For students and scholars newly interested in this specialized area of study, these are important aspects of “Black Women’s Rhetoric(s)” that need to be more thoroughly articulated beyond the realms of individual scholarship. I use my story as reasoning for why there needs to be a collaborative and collective naming and mapping out of this sub-field.

Next, I will interpret two texts that clearly identify their work as “Black/African American Women’s Rhetoric,” that is, Deborah F. Atwater’s African American Women’s Rhetoric: The Search for Dignity, Personhood, and Honor , and a multi-modal course and pedagogical space called “The Black Women’s Rhetoric Project” created, taught, and publicly shared by Carmen Kynard . Through my analysis of Atwater and Kynard’s individual representations of “Black Women’s Rhetoric,” I consider how their explicit naming of their research and teaching may serve as a guide for how this larger body of Black women-centered rhetorical work may also be named and formally recognized as “Black Women’s Rhetoric(s).” Drawing on the Black feminist concept of self-definition (Collins 107; Lorde 45), I argue that naming this rhetorical scholarship that emphasizing Black women’s subjectivities, unique practices, and thinking is important in fully affirming this area study and avoiding intentional and unintentional acts of erasure of Black women’s knowledge and labor.

I conclude offering sketch of a framework for defining and describing “Black Women’s Rhetoric(s).” My purpose is to prompt conversation about what are major themes of, or bridges across, “Black Women’s Rhetoric(s)” while also honoring the many contributors and influencers of this unofficially named field. These scholars that have made it possible to better understand how “Black Women’s Rhetoric(s)” can be “traced” back to a legacy, a “stream” if you will, of Black women speaking and doing for the betterment of themselves and their communities (Royster 4). I aim to spark a conversation about how participants, students, teachers, and contributors of this field might name this collective body of work that allows us all to better understand and celebrate how Black women “make space” for their unique knowledges and ethos even within “tight spaces,” or historical contexts and situations that attempt to deny them their humanity and equal opportunity (Atwater 2-3). This work allows us to consider how Black women use their mother wit as literacies to “protect and serve” themselves and others, “bring wreck” in the most spectacular way on those that disrespect and attempt to deny them a voice within their own communities, while still negotiating the power of “getting crunk” with other Black women to empower each other and work together to make visible complex narratives of Black women’s experiences and interpretations of the world. 2

I believe that it is necessary to consider the possibilities of formalizing Black women-centered rhetorical scholarship under a collective banner with its own name, and/or to consider how the existing ways of naming this work might be more explicitly connected as a network of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary scholarship. In “Disciplinary Landscaping, or Contemporary Challenges in the History of Rhetoric,” Royster calls for the shifting of the disciplinary landscape, a shift that has made Black women more visible as rhetorical subjects (158). I believe naming this scholarly work—or saying its name (or multiple names in tandem)—can be the next step in making a “shifting” disciplinary landscape “shake.”

A Reflection: Looking for and Locating Rhetoric by/on Black Women

In her chapter “Looking for Zora” in In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens , Alice Walker describes her quest to locate the grave of anthropologist, folklorist, and writer, Zora Neale Hurston. Seeking the unmarked grave of her self-proclaimed ‘illegitimate aunt,’ Walker ventures to the location of the gravesite in South Florida. Walker, accompanied by her equally determined travel-companion, Rosalee, cautiously searched a deserted cemetery for Hurston’s burial place. When their eyes, their ability to physically see the location of Hurston’s grave, failed them, Walker resorted to another method of finding Zora. Walker called out to Zora. She describes this moment as follows:

Finding the grave seems positively hopeless. There is only one thing to do: ‘Zora!” I yell, as loud as I can (causing Rosalee to jump). ‘Are you out here?’ ‘Zora!’ I call again. ‘I’m here. Are you?’ […] ‘Zora!’ Then I start fussing with her. ‘I hope you don’t think I’m going to stand out here all day, with these snakes watching me and these ants having a field day. In fact, I’m going to call you just one or two more times.’ On a clump of dried grass, near a small bushy tree, my eye falls on one of the largest bugs I have ever seen. I walk toward it, and yell ‘Zo-ra!’ and my foot sinks into a hole. I look down. I am standing in a sunken rectangle that is about six feet long and about three or four feet wide […] ‘Well,’ I say, […] ‘Doesn’t this look like a grave to you?’ (105).

A majority of my formal education in rhetoric and composition has left me feeling like I, too, am cautiously stepping through a deserted cemetery filled with the remains of dead White men. Upon closer examination, I can read their names and list of credentials and achievements. Their contributions are undeniable, their works are unforgettable, what I learn from them is/was useful in my pursuit of understanding this field and term rhetoric , and yet, I’m still left longing for more. Within each institution in which I studied, I found myself searching, looking, listening, and waiting for some sense of familiarity and belonging.

As a Black woman student seeking a sense of belonging within a space where, to use words the words of Royster again in her CCCC Chair Address, “when the first voice you hear is not your own,” I needed an academic version of a “homeplace.” bell hooks describes the history of homeplaces in Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics as a kind of physical and spiritual space within the domestic households of enslaved Black women that served as “a site where one could freely confront the issue of humanization, where one could resist” (37). These homeplaces recognized Black subjectivities, uplifted the minds and hearts of the Black community, and served as a space of both resistance and affirmation (hooks 37). Although I do not recall screaming out like Walker, hollering the names of any particular Black woman rhetorician, scholar, or speaker, I do remember feeling like my eyes—what I could physically see before me within program curricula, course syllabi, and faculty—were deceiving me. I asked myself, “Where are the Black women? Is what I see all there is to rhetorical studies? Where is my home?”

I started using my other senses, calling for who and what I was missing. My screaming and calling out happened while walking through the library stacks searching for books that no one informed me existed. I fussed while scrolling through pages of online databases as new names and voices became my unofficial teachers of a knowledge and rhetorical history that had been omitted from my formal education. I celebrated (with smiles and tears) as this new academic home formed around me, welcoming me in and opening up space for my own voice, too. These women were my illegitimate, intellectual aunts, sisters, and cousins—my home/community/family.

And like family, it is necessary to come together. To unite under a collective banner, not to erase our differences, but to embrace them, and offer spaces of support and solidarity across differences. What I was looking for as an inductee into this legacy of Black women making, studying, and doing rhetoric was a shared name for what they/we were doing that encapsulated these histories, sacrifices, action, activism, creativity, and labors of love. Although I came to call what I was seeking and trying to identify as “Black Women’s Rhetoric(s),” I noticed that this was not a shared name across scholarship, and it certainly was not a term I saw being used around me in academia. Instead, what I saw was what I called “Black Women’s Rhetoric(s)” subsumed under the disciplinary umbrellas of African American rhetoric(s) and/or feminist rhetorics, or existing on the borders of rhetorical studies and other intersecting disciplines, like women’s studies, communication studies, literature, literacy studies, linguistics and language studies, education, history, or African and African American studies. Although I could see and understand how this work dispersed and distributed across my own field and many others linked together to form a network of knowledge about Black women’s rhetorical legacy, I desired then—and still do now—formal recognition of this discourse as its own space by those making and publishing this work, as well as the larger field. For instance, there are book collections, special issues of journals, and conferences dedicated to broadly interrogating and defining African American rhetoric(s), feminist rhetorics, and cultural rhetorics. Within these spaces, Black women and Black women-centered scholarship are often represented, demonstrating the diversity and inclusivity of these sub-fields particularly as they make space for Black women’s rhetoric(s) in ways that traditional rhetorical studies does not always do. My concern is that because this work is often deeply merged with these other sub-fields, but is not explicitly named and identified as its own rhetorical genre and disciplinary community, Black women’s rhetorical scholarship is simultaneously visible and invisible.

In other words, rhetorical scholarship that centers Black women’s experiences, traditions, and practices is clearly represented within dominant rhetorical studies, and it has greatly shaped sub-fields of rhetorical studies including influencing the how these fields function and describe their identities as unique scholarly spaces. But, since “Black Women’s Rhetoric(s)” has not identified itself as its own discourse within and outside these other disciplinary spaces, it functions in ways that help to inform and contribute to others without fully claiming and affirming itself. I believe this contributes to the appearance and representation of “Black Women’s Rhetoric(s)” as a culmination of individual works (with various different names) and individual scholars doing this work in various places and spaces, as opposed to a body of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary scholarship that collectively linked together, informs each other, and follows similar guiding principles, purposes, and practices no matter where it is located, published, taught, or spoken.

As a student of “Black Women’s Rhetoric(s),” and still now as a junior faculty who identifies myself as a part of this community, I desire for this discourse that is predominately produced by Black women rhetorical scholars, about Black women rhetorical subjects/topics to officially have a name and space as its own disciplinary community within rhetorical studies. Can we give this scholarly area a name, so that future Black women scholars roaming through metaphorical cemeteries of deceased old White men, can say its name and find a home? Furthermore, can we give this discourse a name so that others within academia can acknowledge it, say its name, and put some respect on it?

In the sections that follow, I discuss the concept of self-definition and its significance to Black women’s rhetorical scholarship. Under this Black feminist naming framework, I introduce two texts in which authors explicitly name their scholarship as African American/Black women’s rhetorics: Deborah Atwater’s, African American Women’s Rhetoric: The Search for Dignity, Personhood, and Honor , and Carmen Kynard’s, “Black Women’s Rhetoric Project/BlackWomynRhetProject.” Through a brief analysis and introduction of these works, I consider the potential and power in having a shared name to describe Black women-centered rhetorical scholarship, as well as consider opposing arguments for identifying “Black Women’s Rhetorics(s)” as its own sub-field. I conclude with themes that I locate across Black women’s rhetoric(s) that may be used as a start to a much larger conversation about the uniqueness of this genre/sub-field, how it functions, and how it might be identified and described by those within, across, and outside of it.

Inspirations and Reasons for Naming Black Women’s Rhetoric

Self-definition is a literacy with strong connections to Black women’s ways of being. Concepts like “mother tongue” and scholarship on Black women’s unique language and literacy practices that consider their mastery of signification and styles of communication, such as “loud-talking,” “polite assertiveness,” and “strategic silence,” make it clear that Black women and girls wield language to make space for their experiences and knowledge ( Smitherman ; Troutman ; Richardson ; Etter-Lewis ). This includes using language to identify and define their humanity, labor, and experiences.

Self-definition and self-determination are also intimately linked to Black feminist theory. According to Audre Lorde in Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches and Patricia Hill Collins Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment , self-definition is an essential component for Black people to survive and thrive in the midst a range of human-blindness (Lorde 45), and self-definition is a part of a part of a Black woman consciousness that is tied to Black women’s authority to name their own selves. Collins says:

The insistence on Black women’s self-definitions reframes the entire dialogue from one of protesting the technical accuracy of an image…to one stressing the power dynamics underlying the very process of definition itself. By insisting on self-definition, Black women question not only what has been said about African-American women but the credibility and the intentions of those possessing the power to define. When Black women define ourselves, we clearly reject the assumption that those in positions granting them the authority to interpret our reality are entitled to do so. Regardless of the actual content of Black women’s self-definitions, the act of insisting on Black female self-definitions validates Black women’s power as human subjects. (125-126)

In this sense, self-definition is not just about a person defining themselves. Instead, it is an interrogation of power—the possession of power and authority to interpret one’s own reality. In the case of rhetorical scholarship that centralizes Black women subjectivities, literacies, languages, cultural practices, etc., how individual scholars doing this work name and define their work, as well as themselves as creators and wielders of this knowledge, is an act of power. Furthermore, it is through these names—these individual self-definitions—bridges can be built across similar scholarship. Each name given to Black women-centered scholarship acts as a node within a larger interconnected web of knowledge that serves as irrefutable proof that this genre and discourse does exist, although the parameters and particularities of it have yet to be articulated.

What I am posing here as a concern is that these individual self-definitions and names for individual scholarship are so vast that it can make it difficult to understand how all of this work comes together to form one complex discourse at the intersections of Black women (identity) and rhetoric (disciplinary field). As stated above, scholarship that centralizes the rhetorical and literacy practices of Black women extends across rhetorical subfields and interdisciplinary communities. This work goes by so many names, ranging from explicitly calling it “Black/African American Women’s Rhetorics” to some version of “Rhetorics of Black Womanhood,” “Black Feminist Rhetorical Practices,” as well as combinations of “African American women + rhetoric/persuasion + some more specific area of focus (e.g., hip-hop, technology, history, embodiment, aesthetics, space/place, politics, a specific person(s), etc.). Because of these wide-ranging labels, not to mention the equally diverse platforms and publication spaces in which this work lives, it can be difficult to easily locate Black women-centered rhetorical scholarship. This includes locating and acknowledging the labor of individual scholars doing this work.

What I am arguing for is to finally creating a disciplinary home for this work and those doing it—and giving it a name so that it can be recognized as its own scholarly space within the system of academia that emphasizes the compartmentalization/departmentalization of knowledge and outside of it. Put simply, there is strength in numbers and power in naming and claiming one’s own space and disciplinary home, especially within societies and institutions with histories and deeply rooted practices of erasure, omission, and silencing of women and BIPOC communities. By officially bringing Black women-centered scholarship together under one banner—one self- and group-affirming name—this subfield can continue to be interdisciplinary by drawing from, working with, and contributing to other fields and sub-fields, while also finally being recognized as its own sustainable sub-field. This naming of “Black Women’s Rhetoric(s)” opens up the possibility of for broader recognition of this subject areas in the form of book collections, special issues, conferences, core and elective course(s) in undergraduate and graduate department curricula, a specialization for graduate students, and specifically identified area of research interest in job advertisements for the hiring of faculty.

If this is a potential course of action, and it truly is necessary for Black women-centered rhetorical scholarship to name and claim its own space, then an appropriate follow up question might be, “What shall we call it?”

In the following paragraphs, I’ll introduce two works that utilize African American/Black women’s rhetoric to name their individual scholarship. I consider how each scholar uses and presents their version of “African American/Black Women’s Rhetoric,” and how their similar choices of naming their individual work serves as representations of how we might officially name a “Black Women’s Rhetoric(s)” collective.

Deborah Atwater’s African American Women’s Rhetoric

Deborah Atwater’s book, African American Women’s Rhetoric: The Search for Dignity, Personhood, and Honor is a historiographical text that interrogates the lives and rhetorical practices of historical and contemporary African American women speaking, writing, and performing within their unique socio-political contexts throughout history. Atwater uses her discussion of these women’s lives, and her analysis of their rhetoric, to consider how each woman widens for herself and others “tight spaces,” or situations, circumstances, boundaries, and systems of oppression, meant to limit their abilities to be respected and treated equally as human-beings. What Atwater argues is that Black women have resisted such systemic and social barriers, widening tight spaces with their rhetoric (speeches, autobiographies, and other writings), which they have used to reimagine Black women’s ethos.

In the title of her book, Atwater clearly names her scholarship as “African American Women’s Rhetoric.” Although she does not explain what she means specifically by “African American Rhetoric,” offering no explicit breakdown of the term, it is assumed from the content of her book that focuses exclusively on African American women political activists, businesswomen, journalists, educators, and entertainers across various historical contexts—from Sara Baartman to Maria Stewart to Fannie Lou Hamer to Mary J. Blidge and so many other women in between—Atwater is interested in interrogating the stories and rhetorical practices of highly visible African American women writing, communicating, and performing within public spaces. Atwater’s “African American Women’s Rhetoric” is also interested in how Black women navigate systems of inequality such as racism and sexism, as well as negative stereotypes and perceptions of Black womanhood.

Her interpretations of African American women’s rhetoric emphasizes ethos, particularly how the women in her study, as well as how she as a researcher and teacher of this scholarship, present, represent, and describe African American women. She situates African American women’s rhetoric as an act of “widening tight spaces,” or resisting and redefining narrow and negative depictions of African American women’s realities (Atwater 141). In Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America , Melissa Harris-Perry draws from cognitive psychology to discuss the concept of the “crooked room” in relation to Black women’s navigation of racism and sexism. Harris-Perry says in regards to this concept that “[w]hen they confront race and gender stereotypes, black women are standing in a crooked room and they have to figure out which way is up. Bombarded with warped images of their humanity, some black women tilt and bend themselves to fit the distortion” (29). This concept of a “crooked room” is useful in understanding Atwater’s “African American Women’s Rhetoric” in that she closely examines the stories and actions of African American women within public discourses to consider how they manage to negotiate the “crooked rooms” each African American woman had to negotiate and navigate within their historical context to make visible the individual strategies they used to still manage to identify and present themselves respectfully, positively, and powerfully, i.e., “stand-up straight in a crooked room” (Harris-Perry 29).

Similar to Wilson Logan, Royster, and others, Atwater articulates a historical and feminist project that aims at centralizing Black women’s rhetorical choices and strategies. Atwater is engaging African American women’s rhetoric throughout history with a keen awareness of context and how it impacted Black women’s access and abilities to use rhetoric, pointing to the similarities in each rhetor’s rhetorical practices and choices despite differences. The culmination of these two lenses allows her to articulate her own defined and explicitly named space for interrogating African American women as makers and users of rhetoric. This space is centered around African American women’s actions and activism, while acknowledging the ways in which these actions served themselves, their children, Black men, and other women.

Ultimately, Atwater’s naming of her individual research as “African American Women’s Rhetoric” opens a conversation to consider what the parameters of her study are under this label, along with how it connects to similar historical rhetorical research that centers Black women. Her use of “African American Women’s Rhetoric” and how she illustrates it within her work also creates space to consider the possibilities of this kind of historically-driven work and how it might be extended or taken in new directions, as well as how it might be linked to significantly different Black women-centered rhetorical research where history and historiography are not primary methodologies.

Carmen Kynard’s BlackWomynRhetProjct

Carmen Kynard’s open, digital classroom and multi-modal pedagogical space called “Black Women’s Rhetoric Project” (or BlackWomynRhetProjct Channel on YouTube) is another phenomenal and empowering work of scholarship that explicitly named Black Women’s Rhetoric. It was composed to reach and teach undergraduate students about the rhetorical histories of Black women. It also utilizes digital platforms, including a blog space, course website, and YouTube, along with Black music, art, and oral speaking to offer an engaging and reflective space for students (and passersby observers like myself) to, as Kynard says in her blog post “Teaching Black Women’s Rhetoric: (Re)Hearing Feminist Discourses,” “re-hear black women by examining their multiple rhetorics” (n.p.).

Through the combination of both naming her course and digital space “Black Women’s Rhetoric,” and her visible and accessible presentation of Black feminist teaching and everyday practice—Kynard demonstrates how Black Women’s Rhetoric functions as a standalone subject matter and course. Her advancement of her curriculum to a social media platform (YouTube) is an example of how pedagogically we might broaden the limited representations of Black women identities and knowledges in rhetoric spaces and classrooms, as well as think critically about what this representation looks, sounds, and feels like. Kyndard’s “Black Women’s Rhetorics Project” makes space for her students within the confines of her classroom, and for the diverse audiences that engage this work, to understand how not only the written and printed texts of Black women, but also their voices, images, stories, and live performances can be recognized as rhetorical sites of inquiry and knowledge. Kynard’s description and dynamic image of “Black Women’s Rhetoric” is one that situates this discourse that has an embodied, multi-vocal, political and personal legacy that can, and must, be seen (and re-seen), heard (and re-heard), and felt (over and over again).

Name It and Claim It: Building Bridges Across a Multi-vocal Sub-field

The examples of Atwater and Kynard are two interpretations of a “Black Women’s Rhetoric.” In Atwater’s book “Black/African American Women’s Rhetoric” is a historiographical retelling on Black women public figures who navigated the constraints of their historical, social, and political position in time, and resisted negative stereotypes about Black women, to make space for themselves. They utilized their individual literacies—writing, speaking, stories, relationships, education, talent, etc.—strategically to assert and affirm their humanity, demand dignity and respect, and claim their authority as rhetorical subjects and makers of knowledge.

Similarly, Kynard’s undergraduate course—“Black Women’s Rhetoric Project”—and YouTube Channel (BlackWomynRhetProj) combine to showcase this history of Black women as rhetorical figures. Moving beyond the realms of essays, speeches, and other written texts, Kynard allows her students and other audiences to also witness through her digital platforms the creative, embodied, oral, musical, artistic, and political texts of Black women rhetors. Her representation of a Black Women’s rhetoric, like Atwater and others, is historical and allows one to map an extensive legacy of Black women’s rhetorical action and impact, yet Kynard uniquely presents this discourse as a multi-modal and poly-vocal rhetorical genre that engages all of the senses. In Kynard’s version, Black women’s rhetoric is not only a subject of study, it is an experience—something to not only learn, but live.

By closely examining these two individual pieces of scholarship that share similar names/titles, my aim is to consider how they might inform how we might name and describe a larger disciplinary community collectively called “Black Women’s Rhetoric.” The fact that these works, along with the extensive body of rhetorical scholarship that centralizes African American/Black women’s stories, literacies, languages, histories, art, music, beauty, and various texts, spaces/places, other methods of making and communicating knowledge, exist should be enough proof that this is a sub-field and there is a rhetorical genre called Black women’s rhetoric. Ultimately, I do not believe it is a matter of proving that Black women’s rhetorics exists—it clearly does—my concern is that there has yet to be an explicit, public assertion of its existence, as its own field of study, as its own disciplinary community existing outside of the realms of other sub-fields within rhetorical studies, like African American Rhetorics or feminist rhetorics.

As a counter-argument, there are understandable reasons for why this naming of “Black Women’s Rhetoric(s)” as a rhetorical genre and sub-field has not happened, and why there might be some resistance to such an act. Essentially, I am calling for a labeling of both a cultural and disciplinary community, and therefore, grouping individual scholars and their research within a category that they may, or may not identify with, or use to describe who they are and what they do. This is unlike the contentious relationship that Black women for decades have had with the word “feminism,” opting out of such labeling of their writings, stories, music, and other modes of expression and communication as “feminist” because of its connection to white feminism. Also, there may be some who might agree with the need to name Black women-centered rhetorical scholarship as a sub-field, but may not agree with the term “Black Women’s Rhetoric(s),” preferring another name, or multiple names to describe this discourse. For example, Atwater used “African American Women’s Rhetoric” to describe her work, while Kynard preferred “Black Women’s Rhetoric” to name hers, and there are many other variations, such as Keith Gilyard and Adam Bank’s in On African American Rhetorics use of “Rhetorics of Black Feminism” to describe the influences of Black feminist theory within African American rhetorical scholarship. This potential lack of consensus on a name is a reminder of the long-term debates over the terms Black feminism versus womanism. Finally, this call to distinguish “Black Women’s Rhetorics” as both a part of various disciplinary communities and sub-fields, but also its own unique and independent scholarly entity may be perceived by mixed audiences as separatist. This call may be drastically misunderstood as Black women-centered rhetorical scholarship severing ties with other intersecting sub-fields and disciplines, isolating itself from other cultural rhetorical spaces and people, limiting who can and cannot participate and contribute to this discourse, and strictly binding scholars and scholarship within a “Black Women’s Rhetoric” labelled box that only minimally describes the scope and academic and non-academic significance of this work.

As a Black woman researcher, teacher, and participant of this community, I understand these concerns, and the many others that this call for naming a Black women’s rhetorical genre and sub-field might pose, and respect these positions and arguments. To be clear, my intention is not to impose labels or categories on anyone or their work, or to limit the possibilities of what the name for this scholarly community might be called, or to suggest that one name is better than any other. My intentions are not to place impenetrable boundaries around “Black Women’s Rhetoric(s)” that would prevent it from being the inclusive, interdisciplinary, multi-functional scholarly community that it already is, or to suggest that any scholarship that might be identified as “Black Women’s Rhetoric(s)” cannot be recognized in all of its multiplicity and fluidity.

What I am saying is that “Black Women’s Rhetoric(s)” needs its own clearly identifiable seat at the rhetorical studies table. Individual scholars and teachers have built this scholarly discourse and given it many names for their own purposes, yet within mainstream and sub-fields of rhetoric there has not been a space to collectively acknowledge this rhetorical scholarship, its methods and methodologies, its scope, its implications within and outside rhetoric/academia, and—most importantly—the people (i.e., primarily Black women) producing and teaching this work.

Within our current socio-political context, it is still common practice to see Black women’s labor, contributions, and lives be erased, omitted, and forgotten (see the herstory of the Black Lives Matter Movement, #MeToo movement, and #SayHerName for real-life and real-time examples). Academics are not immune to these acts, subsuming, using, and inserting Black women and Black women’s scholarship into curriculum, syllabi, and textbooks when it is convenient, and swiftly forgetting them when they are not explicitly being called to do so. In other words, when gentle nudges at inclusion are no longer a priority. Given these realities, I believe the time for explicitly naming and identifying “Black Women’s Rhetoric” as a rhetorical genre and sub-field is now.

Towards a Black Women’s Rhetoric Framework

Although mapping out the unique tenets of a “Black Women’s Rhetoric(s)” as its own body of scholarship and disciplinary community cannot be properly considered within the scope of this essay, or by one person, I would like to end by offering a starting point for considering four major themes I identify as part of Black Women’s Rhetoric(s). These are shared ideas, practices, and influences that can be located across this body of scholarship, and they may be a starting point for articulating the disciplinary principles, purposes, and practices of this sub-field.

Re-centers Black Women as Rhetorical Subjects and Agents

The first theme of this rhetoric is that Black Women’s Rhetoric(s) scholarship centralizes Black women subjectivities, stories, and experiences, histories, traditions, and cultural practices, languages, literacies, and various modes of composing and communicating. Often guided by Black feminist theories, it recognizes the ways Black women have historically been pushed to the margins of society rendering Black women’s knowledge invisible. As a part of feminist historical rhetorics, it acknowledges how historical and contemporary Black women compose, speak, and perform as rhetorical agents. Similarly rooted in African rhetorical traditions, Black women’s rhetoric asserts that the everyday lives and meaning-making practices of Black people matter. In so doing, it often interrogates head-on how racism, sexism, patriarchy, and white supremacy have denied Black women equal access to human and civil rights, accurate representation, and a voice within movements and spaces meant to uplift and empower Black people and women. While calling out injustice and misrepresentation is essential to this rhetoric, action is its ultimate power, as scholars interrogate how, why, where, and by what means Black women negotiate barriers of oppression, speak-up and act up, subvert power dynamics (or flip the script), and invent new rules and standards for understanding and judging their actions.

Claims Black Women’s Lived Experience as Method and Theory

A second theme is informed by the understanding that Black Women’s Rhetoric(s) are rooted in Black women’s daily realities. This includes everyday experiences of micro-aggressions, coping with trauma including physical violence (and threats of violence), and systemic racism and sexism. Informed by Black feminist epistemologies, where lived experiences are valid points of inquiry (Collins), Black Women’s Rhetoric(s) challenges the private and public dichotomy that often situates rhetoric as an outward, visible, and public performance. Instead, rhetorical sites in Black Women’s Rhetoric are also subversive and silent acts taking place both in public spaces and places (from television, social media, film, concert arena, and political stage), as well as private spaces (the hair salon, kitchen table, home garden, living room, or amongst home girls). In other words, the everyday is a major contextual space from which Black Women’s Rhetoric(s) stems, or goes back to, affirming Black women’s ethos as authorities of their own lives, well-being, histories, and stories. Black Women’s Rhetoric(s) roots understanding in Black women’s thought processes and languages instead of imposing outside theories on Black women’s bodies and minds. Thus, Black Women’s Rhetoric recognizes that part of Black women’s struggle for freedom includes being free from stereotypes and controlling images that undermine Black women and Black womanhood on a daily basis. By engaging everyday experiences, actions, and literacies, Black Women’s Rhetoric(s) asserts and affirms both the ordinary and extraordinary of Black womanhood, girlhood, and sista-hood, while making space to theorize the past and present experiences of Black women that have the potential to positively or negatively impact Black women’s futures.

Employs All Available Means for Necessary Action

Black Women’s Rhetoric(s) is disruptive, resistant, alternative, and creative because it has to be. Although it is often subsumed under African American rhetorics, feminist rhetorics, cultural rhetorics and/or a more institutionalized disciplinary branch like rhetoric, composition and communication, African American studies, or Women and Gender Studies, Black Women’s Rhetoric has an ability to combine, appropriate, and readapt the conventions of these other fields and disciplines to interrogate the under-represented knowledges of Black women. As a disciplinary perspective of its own, it shifts subject matter within these more formalized spaces, but it also demands that the practices, methods, and structures of these spaces also shift so that Black women and other under-represented groups can claim their rightful spot at the table, or even more so, finally be acknowledged for already being there. This disruption is often enacted by any and all communicative, embodied, vocalized, non-verbal, digital, and multi-modal methods available and relevant for their particular historical moment and context. It is important to note that upon initial examination, the methods and modes of expression employed within Black Women’s Rhetorics may not be deemed “appropriate,” or aligning with scholarly decorum, according to dominant academic standards. But, for participants within this discourse fighting for freedom, respect, and equality, all means are necessary.

Multi-consciousness and Multi-voiced Meaning-making

Since it is informed by Black women’s lived experiences, Black Women’s Rhetoric is founded on an awareness that those experiences are informed by Black women’s intersecting identities, contradicting and unequal positions of power, multi-lensed ways of seeing and understanding the world, and multi-vocal ways of theorizing and communicating that understanding to others. In other words, Black Women’s Rhetorics interrogates and performs many consciousnesses and voices simultaneously, always with an understanding that the contradictions, incommensurable data, and complexities that get in the way of neatly packaged outcomes are expected. In other words, better understanding how, why, where, and for what purpose human-beings make meaning is a messy endeavor. It takes time, patience, and care (for subjects and self) to do this work that more than likely will, at some point, include discussions of historical trauma, racially and culturally-centered pain, sexism and misogyny, and distorted images of what it means to be Black and female at the same time. Multiple awareness of the truths of Black womanhood, as well as awareness of the hateful acts and reasoning for destroying those truths, are often vocalized within Black Women’s Rhetoric(s). These multi-conscious and multi-voiced representations are a part of what allows this work to speak across, and be useful to, multiple and mixed audiences.

In this essay, I have that is time for Black Women’s Rhetoric(s) to be officially named as its own rhetorical genre and sub-field of rhetorical studies. Given its roots in Black feminist theory, it is necessary for Black Women’s Rhetoric(s) to employ practices of self-definition to collectively name and institute a disciplinary community that has been here, but has yet to be explicitly and independently acknowledged. As illustrated through my own story, the reluctance to clearly identify Black Women’s Rhetoric(s) as its own rhetorical genre and sub-field can leave those new, or unaware of this discourse, feeling disconnected from a potential scholarly homeplace. Drawing inspiration from Atwater and Kynard who both name their individual works “African American/ Black women’s rhetoric ,” I consider how this same terminology could be used to name a collective scholarly community that centralizes Black women’s histories, communication, literacies, and other knowledges within rhetorical theory and studies. Although I acknowledge some possible concerns and hesitancies for naming this sub-field, I ultimately argue that identifying a Black Women’s Rhetoric(s) creates opportunities for advancing this scholarship, especially making it and the labor of Black women contributing and inspiring this discourse more visible within other intersecting sub-fields and the broader rhetoric field. I conclude by offering a start to a much larger conversation about potential themes that constitute a Black Women’s Rhetoric(s).

Overall, I hope that this conversation will be taken up, furthered, and complicated, especially by scholars who may or may not name or see their work as a part of a collective body of Black Women’s Rhetoric(s) scholarship, or who have differing opinions about whether such naming of a sub-field or rhetorical genre is necessary at all. I also would call those who do recognize that a Black Women’s Rhetoric(s) sub-field and scholarly community exists to either continue, or start, writing, teaching, publishing, presenting in ways that make this scholarly space visible.

In all cases, my purpose is to spark dialogue as I speak from the position of a Black woman scholar who does rhetorical work. In my own academic journey, locating Black women rhetorical scholars and Black women rhetorics scholarship was not readily available to me within institutional spaces, which made locating my voice as a member of this field even more difficult and complicated. I found myself wandering through rhetorical studies, and similar fields of study, looking for voices that sounded like my own and research that engaged subject matter relevant to my own growth and freedom as a Black woman. Because Black women’s experiences and Black women scholars still remain under-represented on college syllabi and curriculum pages, the opportunities to locate a field called “Black Women’s Rhetoric(s)” is oftentimes the tedious efforts of those who may not have a name, or a map pointing them to this academic space, but who rely on their instincts, intuition, and faith that if they call out—Black women will answer.

In this essay, I will primarily use the term Black Women’s Rhetoric(s) to name both a genre of rhetorical studies and a disciplinary community, or subfield of rhetorical studies, that centralizes Black women rhetorical subjects, histories, discourse communities, spaces/places, languages and literacies. My reasoning for using “Black Women,” as opposed to African American women is twofold. First, I am aligning my naming practices with Wilson Logans word choices cited on the previous page. Wilson Logan did not want to explicitly name a “black women’s rhetoric” at the time, but I aim to claim this identification while honoring a major influencer to my argument in this essay. Secondly, by choosing “Black Women’s Rhetoric(s)” my intention is to use an inclusive term that does not limit this rhetorical perspective to the experiences. This scholarly discourse includes African American women, as well as all women of African descent. “Black Woman” is meant to refer to all women across the African Diaspora and rhetoric(s) is meant to acknowledge all of our culturally and ethnically diverse ways of understanding and doing rhetoric. -return to text
These are indirect references to well-known Black women’s rhetorical scholarship, including Elaine Richardson’s CCC article “To Protect and Serve: African American Female Literacies,” Gwendolyn Pough ’s iconic book Check It, While I Wreck It: Black Womanhood, Hip-Hop Culture, and the Public Sphere , and the collaborative digital and print work of Brittany Cooper, Susana Morris, and Robin Boylorn in The Crunk Feminist Collective . -return to text

Works Cited

Atwater, Deborah. African American Women’s Rhetoric: The Search for Dignity, Personhood, and Honor . Lexington Books, 2009. -return to text
Collins, Patricia. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment . Routledge, 2000. – return to text
Cooper, Brittany, Susana Morris, and Robin Boylorn. The Crunk Feminist Collective . Feminist Press, 2017. -return to text
Etter-Lewis, Gwendolyn. “Standing Up and Speaking Out: African American Women’s Narrative Legacy.” Discourse & Society , vol. 2, no. 4, 1991, pp. 425-437. -return to text
Gilyard, Keith and Adam Banks. On African American Rhetoric . Routledge, 2018. -return to text
Harris-Perry, Melissa. Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America . Yale University Press, 2011. -return to text
hooks, bell. Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural politics . South End Press, 1999. -return to text
Kynard, Carmen. An Open, Digital Classroom on Gender, Intersectionality & Black Women’s Rhetorics . Web. http://www.blackwomenrhetproject.com/black-womens-rhetorics.html -return to text
Kynard, Carmen. BlackWomynRhetProjct . YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSEjUiSEJlu7Xtw0xHIicLw?feature=emb_ch_name_ex -return to text
Kynard, Carmen. “Teaching Black Women’s Rhetoric: (Re)Hearing Feminist Discourse.” Web. http://carmenkynard.org/teaching-black-womens-rhetoric-digitally -return to text
Lorde, Audre. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde . Crossing Press, 2007. -return to text
Pough, Gwendolyn. Check It While I Wreck It: Black Womanhood, Hip-Hop Culture, and the Public Sphere . Northeastern University Press, 2004. -return to text
Richardson, Elaine. “To Protect and Serve: African American Female Literacies.” College Composition and Communication , vol. 53, no.4, 2002, pp.675-704. -return to text
Royster, Jacqueline. “Disciplinary landscaping, or Contemporary Challenges in the History of Rhetoric.” Philosophy & Rhetoric , vol.36, no. 2, 2003, pp. 148-167. -return to text
Royster, Jacqueline. Traces of a Stream: Literacy and Social Change Among African American Women . University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000. -return to text
Smitherman, Geneva. Talkin and Testifyin: The Language of Black America . Wayne State University Press, 1986. -return to text
Smitherman, Geneva. Word From the Mother: Language and African Americans . Routledge, 2006. -return to text
Troutman, Denise. “Attitude and Its Situatedness in Linguistic Politeness” Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics , vol. 46, no. 1, 2010, pp. 85-109. -return to text
Walker, Alice. In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose . Harcourt Books, 1983. -return to text
Wilson Logan, Shirley. We Are Coming: The Persuasive Discourse of Nineteenth Century Black Women . SIU Press, 1999. -return to text

334 Feminism Essay Topics & Examples

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Find more points and essays at IvyPanda!

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Femininity in Media.
The History of Feminist Slogans.
Must-Read Feminist Books.
Feminist Perspective in Politics.
Gender Equality in Patriarchal Society.
Feminism & Contemporary Art.
Feminism in “A Doll’s House” by Henrik Ibsen Nora is referred by her husband as a songbird, a lark, a squirrel, names that suggest how insignificant she is to her.
Feminism: Benefits over Disadvantages They believe that feminists make the importance of family less critical than it used to be, which affects children’s lives and their psychological state.
Feminist Approach to Health In general feminist recognize gender as an important aspect and believe that gender inequality essentially exist.
Feminist Perspective: “My Last Duchess”, “To His Coy Mistress”, and “The Secretary Chant” He thinks such behavior is offensive to his position and his power, this is why this woman is in the past, and the other one is waiting for him downstairs to enlarge Duke’s collection of […]
The Great Gatsby: Analysis and Feminist Critique The feminist critique is an aspect that seeks to explore the topic of men domination in the social, economic, and political sectors.
Feminism in “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood Religion in Gilead is the similar to that of the current American society especially, the aspect of ambiguity which has been predominant with regard to the rightful application of religious beliefs and principles.
Hedda Gabler: Feminist Ideas and Themes Central to the female world was the woman with knowledge.”Think of the sort of life she was accustomed to in her father’s time.
Third-World Feminism Analysis Although the primary aim of western feminists is centered on the issues women face, the beliefs of the third world consist of various tenets compared to western feminist interpretations.
Top Themes About Feminism It’s a movement that is mainly concerned with fighting for women’s rights in terms of gender equality and equity in the distribution of resources and opportunities in society.
Female Characters in Shakespeare’s “Othello”: A Feminist Critique This shows that Desdemona has completely accepted and respected her role as a woman in the society; she is an obedient wife to Othello.
Feminist Criticism in Literature: Character of Women in Books Wright The unimportance of women in the play is a critical factor for the women should follow all the things that their men counterparts impose on them.
Feminism in “The Introduction” and “A Nocturnal Reverie” by Finch One of Anne Finch’s poems, “The Introduction,” talks about female writers of her time in the first twenty lines of her text.
Feminism in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley Mary Wollstonecraft expressly makes her stand known in advocating for the rights of the women in her novel, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, but her daughter is a bit reluctant to curve a […]
Feminist Theory of Delinquency by Chesney-Lind One of the core ideas expressed by Chesney-Lind is that girls are highly susceptible to abuse and violent treatment. At the same time, scholars note that girls do not view delinquency as the “rejection of […]
“We Should All Be Feminists” Adichie’s TED Talk For Adichie, the only thing necessary to qualify as a feminist is recognizing the problem with gender and aspiring to fix it, regardless of whether a person in question is a man or woman. This […]
Metropolis’ Women: Analysis of the Movie’s Feminism & Examples This film is an endeavor to examine the image of the female depicted, the oppression that they have to endure before they are liberated, as well as the expectations of men with regard to the […]
Feminism in Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler Hedda Gabler, upon the discovery that her imaginary world of free-living and noble dying lies in shivers about her, no longer has the vitality to continue existence in the real world and chooses self-annihilation. At […]
Feminism in The Yellow Wallpaper In an attempt to free her, she rips apart the wallpaper and locks herself in the bedroom. The husband locks her wife in a room because of his beliefs that she needed a rest break.
Feminist Connotations in Susan Glaspell’s “Trifles” It is a call to reexamine the value of women in a patriarchal society; through their central role in the drama, the female characters challenge traditional notions about women’s perspective and value.
Race, Class and Gender: Feminism – A Transformational Politic The social construction of difference in America has its historical roots in the days of slavery, the civil war, the civil rights movement, and the various shades of affirmative action that have still not managed […]
Character Analysis in Pride and Prejudice From the Feminist Perspective Darcy is a character who is able to evolve over the span of the story, and eventually, he recognizes his mistakes.Mr.
Feminist Therapy: Gwen’s Case Study The application of a feminist perspective in Gwen’s case is different from other theoretical frameworks as the approach highlights the impact of gender and associated stressors on the client’s life.
Feminism in Advertisements of the 1950s and Today In the paper, the author discussed how the whole process of advertising and feminism is depicted in print advertisements. The common characteristic is the advertisements’ illustration of feminism in the media.
Gender Issues: Education and Feminism These experiences in many times strongly affects the individual’s understanding, reasoning, action about the particular issue in contention In this work two issues of great influence and relevance to our societies are discussed.
Yves Klein’s Works From a Feminist Perspective The images were painted in the 20th century in the backdrop of the rising pressure in many parts of the globe for the government to embrace gender equality.
The Fraternal Social Contract on Feminism and Community Formation The contract was signed by men to bring to an end the conditions of the state of nature. Life was anarchic and short lived which forced men to sign a social contract that could bring […]
Feminism in “Heart of Darkness” and “Apocalypse Now” However, one realizes that she is voiceless in the novel, which highlights the insignificance of role of women in Heart of Darkness.
Feminist View of Red Riding Hood Adaptations The Brothers Grimm modified the ending of the story, in their version the girl and her grandmother were saved by a hunter who came to the house when he heard the wolf snoring.
Feminism in the “The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath This piece of writing reveals the concept of gender in general and “the role of female protagonists in a largely patriarchal world” in particular. In Plath’s novel, the bell jar is a metaphor used to […]
A Feminist Life Lesson in “Sula” by Toni Morrison This essay is going to review gender and love and sexuality as the key themes that intertwined with Nel and Sula’s friendship, while also explaining how these influenced each of the two main characters. On […]
Hello Kitty as a Kitsch and Anti-Feminist Phenomenon In this scenario, Hello Kitty is linked to the notion of kitsch because it connects adult men and women that are attached to the cute image to constant consumerism.
Shifting the Centre: Race, Class, and Feminist Theorizing About Motherhood The author is very categorical in that it is necessary to put the role of the woman of color in the same position as that of the white one since this ensures that cultural identity […]
Feminist Critique of Jean Racine’s “Phedre” Racine view Phedre as in a trap by the anger of gods and her destiny due to the unlawful and jealous passion that resulted into the deaths of Hippolytus and Oenone.
Feminism in the Past and Nowadays The definition of liberal feminism is the following: “a particular approach to achieving equality between men and women that emphasizes the power of an individual person to alter discriminatory practices against women”.
Mary Rowlandson’s Feminism and View on Women’s Role The sort of power developed by Rowlandson was such that it set her apart from the traditional roles of the Puritan women in her time and within her culture.
Feminist Approach: Virginia Woolf In “A room of ones own” Virginia Woolf speaks about the problems of women, gender roles, and the low social position of women writers in society.
Maya Angelou and Audre Lorde: The Black Feminist Poets The themes of double discrimination are developed in the poems “Woman Work” and “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou and poems “A Meeting of Minds” and “To the Poet Who Happens to Be Black and […]
The Picture of Arabic Feminist Najir’s father’s taking of her sexually excludes her from chances at a marriage of her own, because she is deprived of her virginity, and exposes the young woman to the risk of a pregnancy which […]
Feminism in ‘Trifles’ by Susan Glaspell The Feminist Movement, also called the Women’s Movement and the Women’s Liberation Movement, includes a series of efforts by women in the world to fight for the restoration of gender equality.
Feminist Theory and Postmodern Approaches It seems to me that such technique can be quite helpful because it helps to get to the root of the problem.
Kate Chopin’s Feminist Short Stories and Novels Two short stories were written by Chopin, A Story of One Hour and The Storm well as her brilliant novel Awakening should be regarded as one of the best examples of the feminist literature of […]
Feminist Theory of Family Therapy The purpose of this paper is to review and evaluate the feminist theory based on its model, views on mental health, goals, and the role of the counselor in the process.
Willa Cather and Feminism Ability to work and/or supervise oneself as a woman is also quietly depicted through the girl who is able to work in the absence of her father. Cather depicts most of the women in her […]
Importance of Feminism in Interpersonal Communication in “Erin Brockovich” In this presentation, the theme of feminism in interpersonal communication will be discussed to prove that it is a good example of how a woman can fight for her rights.
Feminist Analysis of Gender in American Television The analysis is guided by the hypothesis that the media plays a role in the propagation of antagonistic sexual and gender-based stereotypes.
Black Feminism: A Revolutionary Practice The Black Feminist Movement was organized in an endeavor to meet the requirements of black women who were racially browbeaten in the Women’s Movement and sexually exploited during the Black Liberation Movement.
Popular Culture From the Fifties to Heroin Chic: Feminism The women have become aware of their legal rights and disabilities as a consequence of the inclusion of educated women in movements to repair the legal disabilities.
Feminism: “The Second Sex” by Simone de Beauvoir According to post-structural feminism structures in society still hold the woman back.de Beauvoir states that this is because structures still exist in the minds of people as to the place of women in society.
“Feminism and Modern Friendship” by Marilyn Friedman Individualism denies that the identity and nature of human beings as individuals is a product of the roles of communities as well as social relationships.
Feminism and Roles in “A Raisin in the Sun” Play These are such questions as: “What does Beneatha’s conduct reveal about her intentions?”, “How does the character treat female’s role in society?”, “How does Beneatha regard poor people?”, “How does the heroine explain her choice […]
Third World Feminism and Its Challenges As a conclusion, Sa’ar states that “it is rooted in the code of familial commitment, which is primarily masculine and includes women only secondarily,” which makes it difficult for women to commit to the family, […]
“First Wave” Feminist Movement The reading explicitly details the pathways used by women and men in the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries to advocate for the realization of equality of rights across a wide spectrum of […]
Feminism and Respect for Culture A crucial gender aspect that continues to trouble the unity of the people across the world is gender bias, which seems to encourage the formation of the feminist campaigns.
Feminism in the 20th Century: a Literature Perspective. Research Summaries For years, the sphere of political, social and economical life of people all over the world was dominated by men, while women’ were restricted to the household domain; more to the point, women were not […]
Women’s Health and Feminism Theory For a woman to be in charge of her reproductive health, she has to know some of the stages and conditions in her life.
Feminist Research Methods The study of methods and methodology shows that the unique differences are found in the motives of the research, the knowledge that the research seeks to expound, and the concerns of the researchers and the […]
Feminism Builds up in Romanticism, Realism, Modernism Exploring the significance of the theme as well as the motifs of this piece, it becomes essential to understand that the era of modernism injected individualism in the literary works.
The Adoption of Structuralism and Post-Structuralism Basics in Feminist Cultural Theory On the contrary, post structuralism is opposite to such an assumption and uses the concept of deconstruction in order to explain the relations and the position of women in the society.
“Othello” Through the Lens of Feminist Theory It depicts female characters in a state of submission and obedience and shows the disbalance in the distribution of power between men and women.
The Feminist Theory in Nursing Since nursing has traditionally been a women’s profession, it is important to understand the oppression of women to gain insight into some of the most pressing issues in nursing.
Historical Development of Feminism and Patriarchy Women in the United States have always encountered challenges that interfere with their individual fulfillment in society.
The Concept of Feminist Epistemology The analysis starts with an overview of the evolutions process of standpoint epistemology; then, the philosophical movement is defined and the major ideas and arguments embedded into the theory are discussed.
Ecological Feminism and Environmental Ethics Because of the effects that the process of globalization has had on the environment, including the increase in the speed of global warming and the scope of its outcomes, environmental ethics has gained significance.
Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics It seems that this approach to this problem is important for discussing the origins of social inequalities existing in the community. This is one of the main points that can be made.
Comparing Views on the Feminism of Wollstonecraft and Martin Luther King This means that if women are given and encouraged to have the same level of education as the men than the society would be a much better place as both the female and male genders […]
Judith Butler’s Feminist Theory From a phenomenological point of view, gender is a stable identity that is realized through the repetition of certain acts. Butler’s article is dedicated to the role of gender, its relation to a body and […]
Charlotte Gilman’s feminism theory Because of the many issues that women face, feminism movements’ seeks equality between men and women in the society. Throughout, the paper will discuss Gilman’s feminism theory and relate it to the issues of women […]
Feminist Accountability Approach Therefore, the feminist accountability approach involves the collective responsibility to fight social injustices regardless of gender and race. Therefore, integrating the global approach to social injustice promotes the aspect of universality and unity in promoting […]
The Feminist and Gender Theory Influence on Nursing That is, gender and feminist theories are still relevant in the modern world. This is explained by the fact that women are struggling to demonstrate their professionalism in order to receive the same recognition and […]
The Incorporation of Feminism in Literature By focusing on the character, the book portrays the demand for feminism in society to allow females to have the ability and potential to undertake some responsibilities persevered by their male counterparts. The belief in […]
The Feminist Theory, Prostitution, and Universal Access to Justice In the essay, it is concluded that the theory is a key component of the reforms needed in the criminal justice system with respect to prostitution. In this essay, the subject of prostitution is discussed […]
Feminism in ‘Telephone Video’ To demonstrate how feminist theory in communication is relevant to music, the paper will analyze the depiction of females, the vocal arrangements, representation of female roles and their visual appearance in Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” music […]
Feminist Theory in Psychotherapy This theory puts women at the first place, and this place is reflected in three aspects: the first is its main object of study – the situation and difficulties faced by women in society, and […]
A Feminist Analysis on Abu Ghraib Moreover, these tortures were intended to become public with the help of demonstrations at Abu Ghraib and taking photographs that accentuated the loss of prisoners’ masculine power.[4] According to Foucault’s views, public torture is an […]
Feminist Perspective in “Ruined” Play by Nottage This is a story about the issues of women in the Democratic Republic of Congo during the civil war. The comments of ‘Anonymous’ published as a response to the review of Jill Dolan, demonstrate the […]
Feminist Political Theory, Approaches and Challenge However, regardless of studying the perception of women and their role in society, there is no unified approach in feminist political theory that leads to the existence of the so-called feminist challenge.
Feminism in the Story “Lord of the Rings” The movie, in its turn, instead of focusing on the evolution of the female leads, seemed to be concerned with the relationships between the male characters as well as the growth of the latter.
Feminist Pro-Porn During Sex Wars In particular, this group was determined to fight for the rights of the lesbians as they realised that the arguments of the anti-porn feminists were against their freedom.
Seven Variations of Cinderella as the Portrayal of an Anti-Feminist Character: a Counterargument Against the Statement of Cinderella’s Passiveness It is rather peculiar that, instead of simply providing Cinderella with the dress, the crystal slippers and the carriage to get to the palace in, the fairy godmother turns the process of helping Cinderella into […]
Feminist Literature: “The Revolt of Mother” by Mary E. Wilkins The woman in her story goes against the tradition of the time and triumphs by challenging it and gaining a new self-identity. The author uses this story to address the issue of women oppression that […]
Comparing Mainardi and Kollantai on Housework and Women’s Oppression Mainardi and Kollantai argue that women should be liberated from chores for the sake of the future. Nonetheless, the two feminists have different views on the way liberation can be achieved.
Bell Hooks’ Article Analysis With Regard to Women and Minorities Feminism is meant to stop sexist oppression. The major aim of these movements has not yet been achieved. Bell Hooks promotes the knowledge of feminist theory as essential portion of the development of self-actualization.
Equal Society: Antebellum Feminism, Temperance, and Abolition It is characterized by the emergence of a women’s rights movement that was spearheaded by activists who sought to secure the rights of women to vote, own property, and participate in education and the public […]
Feminism in the “Lorraine Hansberry” Film Her activism aligns with the fundamental tenets of women of color feminism, which emphasizes the intersecting nature of oppression and the importance of centering the experiences of marginalized groups in social justice movements.
Gloria Steinem: Political Activist and Feminist Leader Thesis: Gloria Steinem’s direct, bold, argumentative, and explicit style of conveying her ideas and values is the result of her political activism, feminist leadership, and her grandmother, Pauline Perlmutter Steinem.
The Myntra Logo from a Feminist Perspective The first feature of the Myntra logo that comes under the scrutiny of transnational feminism is the commercialization of female sexuality.
Feminist Geography and Women Suppression Tim Cresswell’s feminist geography explores how the patriarchal structures of our society have silenced women’s voices and experiences in the field of geography for centuries and how recent changes in the field have allowed for […]
Feminism from a Historical Perspective Accordingly, the discontent facilitated the development of reform-minded activist organizations across Europe and the United States and the subsequent rise of the Modern or New Women’s Movement.
The Feminist Theory in Modern Realities The theory and culture of feminism in modern philosophy and the development of society play a significant role in cultural and social development.
Alice Walker’s Statement “Womanist Is to Feminist…” In her short tale “Perspectives Past and Present,” author and poet Alice Walker famously uses the statement “Womanist Is to Feminist as Purple Is to Lavender,” meaning that womanist is a larger ideological framework within […]
Feminist Perspective on Family Counselling The author of the article considers the study and the data obtained as a result of it as information reporting not only about the specifics of homosexual relationships but also about their perception in American […]
Modern Feminism and Its Major Directions Radical feminism views patriarchy as the reason men have more rights than women and attempts to fight against it. Liberal, intersectional, and radical feminism differ in many ways as they have various perspectives on women’s […]
Feminist Theory and Its Application Alice Walker advocated for the rights of women of color at the end of the 20th century, creating a feminist branch named womanism. The feminist theory is one of the most known and popular theories […]
Discussion of Feminist Movements The feminist movements have been behind a sequence of political and social movements that champion the equal rights of women in all aspects of life.
Feminists on the Women’s Role in the Bible The author of the article uses the term intertextuality, which plays a significant role in the text analysis, including from the feminist aspect.
Feminist Contribution to International Relations Moreover, it will be shown that the concept of gender is important as it helps to shed light on the power dynamics in the sphere of international relations and explain female exclusion from politics.
Emotional Revival in Feminist Writers’ Short Stories This paper aims to discuss the emotional revival of heroines in the short stories of Kate Chopin and Charlotte Perkins Gilman.”The Story of an Hour” is a very short story that describes a woman’s experience […]
Emotion and Freedom in 20th-Century Feminist Literature The author notes that the second layer of the story can be found in the antagonism between the “narrator, author, and the unreliable protagonist”.
The Cyborg Term in the Context of Feminist Studies In other words, during the transition of identity from the individual to the collective level, people, especially women, may encounter inequalities manifested in the collective space.
Feminist and Traditional Ethics The feminist ethics also criticize the gender binary of distinct biological formation between men and women. Consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics are the three theories of conventional ethics.
Feminism: A Road Map to Overcoming COVID-19 and Climate Change By exposing how individuals relate to one another as humans, institutions, and organizations, feminism aids in the identification of these frequent dimensions of suffering.
White Privilege in Conflict and Feminist Theories They see how the privilege of whiteness and denial of non-whiteness are connected to the social and political meaning of race and ethnicity.
Women’s Role in Society From Feminist Perspective Also, in Hartsock’s opinion, that the whole society would benefit if women were allowed to have a role equal with men in a community.
The Feminist Theory and IR Practice Focusing on how international relations theorists explained some concepts, such as security, state, and superiority that led to gender bias, feminists felt the need to develop and transform the international relations practice and theory.
Intersectionality and Feminist Activism Therefore, I hope to study the academic literature to discuss the existing tendencies and difficulties to contribute to the understanding of the identified topic in terms of gender and female studies.
Feminism: Reflection of Cultural Feminism If they found that the gases were harmful and may lead to complications in their body, they would approve the employer’s right to prohibit women from working in the company.
Feminist Theoretical Perspectives on Rape There is a number of theoretical perspectives aimed at explaining what stands behind rape, that is, how rape is reinforced by, why it is more widespread in specific concepts, and what a rapist’s motivations for […]
A Feminist Reading of “Wild Nights” and “Death Be Not Proud” From the feminist perspective, the key feature of the speaker’s stance in “Death Be Not Proud” that sets it apart from “Wild Nights” is the speaker’s persona, which is openly and unequivocally male.
Body: Social Constructionist & Feminist Approaches The idea of the gendered body was based on the focus on the concept of gender, which sees masculinity and femininity as social roles and the need for the representatives of genders to maintain within […]
Feminist Film Theory Overview The presence of women on the screen is commonly accomplished by the sexualization and objectivization of female characters. Along with that, sadism and fetishism toward the physical beauty of the object and the representation of […]
“Daddy-long-Legs”: Why Jerusha Is a Feminist Heroine Jerusha is a feminist because she uses the letters to communicate the inequalities she feels in her relationship with Daddy-long-legs and her limits.
Homosexuality and Feminism in the TV Series The depiction of these complex topics in the TV series of the humoristic genre implies both regressive and progressive impulses for the audience.
Popular Feminism in Video Post of Emma Watson According to Emma Watson, now feminism is increasingly associated with hatred of men, although in reality it only implies the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities.
Contingent Foundations: Feminism and Postmodernism Feminism offers women theoretical bases on which to interrogate the issues of womanhood while Postmodernism takes this away by arguing for the “death of subjects”.abolition of the foundations of the ideals of reality.
Art, Pornography and Feminism and Internet Influence The purpose of pornography is not the desire to admire the human body and respect physical intimacy. Indeed, society can say that women themselves agree to such rules, but the choice of a minority forms […]
The Contemporary Image of Feminism Following the initial surge of the movement, governments finally came to acknowledge the magnitude of the situation and satisfied the demands of the female population.
Feminism and Nationalism: The Western World In this case, we find that feminism has been a different that all the time and therefore, it is impossible to predict the trend of feminism in future.
Gould’s and Sterling’s Feminist Articles Critique The focal point of this paper is to prepare a critical reflection on the articles by Stephen Jay Gould named “Women’s Brains” in The Panda’s Thumb and by Anne Fausto-Sterling named “The biological Connections,” from […]
Core Aspects of Black Feminist and Womanist Thoughts Compared to Jones, who believes in “unparalleled advocates of universal suffrage in its true sense,” Lindsey does not support the relegation of the “voices and experiences of women of color to the background”.
Barbara and Beverly Smith: Black Feminist Statement Sexism was an explicit element of the African American Civil Rights Movement. Fight against segregation was rather single-sided.
Feminism: Fundamentals of Case Management Practice The feminist therapy’s main emphasis is put on the notion of invoking social changes and transforming the lives of people in favor of feminist resistance in order to promote equality and justice for all.
Feminist Contributions to Understanding Women’s Lives This gave women a clear picture of the daily realities in their lives. The success of feminism is evident at all levels of human interaction since there is a better understanding of women and their […]
As We Are Feminist Campaign’s Strategic Goals The present paper is devoted to the analysis of the goals of a feminist campaign As We Are that is aimed at challenging gender stereotypes that are being promoted by the media and society in […]
Feminist Ethics in Nursing: Personal Thoughts The concept of feminist ethics emphasizes the belief that ethical theorizing at the present is done from a distinctly male point of view and, as such, lacks the moral experience of women.
Feminism: Kneel to the Rest of Life, or Fight for the Fairness It seems that the law is not perfect, and the public opinion of sexual harassment might influence a woman’s life negatively.
Feminist Perspective Influence on Canadian Laws and Lawmakers The change in the statistics is attributed to social changes, which include increase of women in the labor force, conflict in female-male relations, increase in alcohol consumption and increase in the rate of divorce. Feminists […]
Blog Post: Arab Feminism in Contemporary World Women of the Arab world have struggled to overcome inequality, oppression, and rights deprivation by state authorities, which takes the discussion of the Islamic feminist movement to the political domain. According to Sharia, the unity […]
Feminist Movement and Recommendations on Women’s Liberation According to Nawal El-Saadawi In Egypt, the feminist movement was started by Nawal El-Saadawi, and her article “The Arab Women’s Solidarity Association: The Coming Challenge” has historical importance as it addresses the plight of women in the community.
Technological Progress, Globalization, Feminism Roots However, the work becomes more complicated when the time distance of the events and processes is shorter, and the stories are unfinished.
Race at the Intersections: Sociology, 3rd Wave Feminism, and Critical Race Theory In this reading, the author examines the phenomenon of racism not merely as an issue but a systematic, institutionalized, and cultural phenomenon that is hard to eliminate.
The Feminist Performers: Yoko Ono, Marina Abramovic, Gina Pane The feminist artists ccontributed to the women’s image, its role in society, and exposed the passiveness and submissiveness the women are obliged to endure.
Feminism and Multiculturalism for Women The foundation of liberalism is having an interest in all the minority cultures that are put together to form the larger special group.
“The Great Gatsby” by Fitzgerald: Betrayal, Romance, Social Politics and Feminism This work seeks to outline the role of women in the development of the plot of the book and in relation to the social issues affecting women in contemporary society.
Pornography’s Harm as a Feminist Fallacy In this scenario, scientific research has proven the argument not to be true. It is weakened by the fact that people are not forced to watch the video.
Feminism in Mourning Dove’s “Cogewea, the Half-Blood” The patriarchal practices embraced by the Indian community and the subsequent system of governance humiliated the writer; hence, the use of Cogewea in the passage was aimed to imply the abilities that were bestowed upon […]
Feminist Film Strategy: The Watermelon Women These techniques have the capabilities of shifting meaning away from the narrative as the source of meaning to the audience’s background knowledge in making meaning.
The Emerging Feminism in India and Their Views on God as a Feminist However, among the explanation of the cause of the phenomenon for this lack of agreement is the tendency for people to define religion too narrowly, and in most cases from the perspective of their own […]
Feminist Psychology in Canada The introduction of the article gives the purposes of the research that include the historical and present condition of the psychology of women field of interest.
American Art Since 1945 Till Feminism The entire movement represented the combination of emotional strength and the self-expression of the European abstract schools: Futurism, the Bauhaus and Synthetic Cubism.
Modernist Art: A Feminist Perspective Clarke limited the definition of modernism even further by his restriction of it to the facets of the Paris of Manet and the Impressionists, a place of leisure, pleasure, and excesses, and it seems that […]
Enlightenment, Feminism and Social Movements As a result of Enlightenment, the creative entrepreneurs as well as thinkers enjoyed the high freedom benefits that were brought in by the Enlightenment thinkers, enabling them to apply the newly acquired liberty to invent […]
“Our Journey to Repowered Feminism” by Sonja K. Foss Foss tried to work out a new conception of repowered feminism in the article “Our Journey to Repowered Feminism: Expanding the Feminist Toolbox”.
Feminist Position on Prostitution and Pornography The only requirement is that it should not violate the norms of the law. On the other hand, one of the suggestions for feminists is to envisage individual cases of enslaving women as prostitutes.
The Politics of Feminism in Islam by Anouar Majid Considering the work The Politics of Feminism in Islam by Anouar Majid written in 1998, it should be noticed that the main point of this article is the Muslim feminism and the relation of West […]
The Feminist Art Movement in the 1970s and Today The feminist art movement emerged in the 1960s and from that time the women had taken much interest in what causes them to be different from the male gender and particularly, what causes the art […]
Feminist Theory. Modes of Feminist Theorizing The second point of conflict is the acknowledgment that most of the feminist ideas are part and parcel of our culture yet these ideas might be presented in a way that is hard for us […]
Australian Feminism Movements The fact that feminism movements do not have a great following in Australia is because they are not generally seen to address issues that women and the society are facing.
Feminism in Canadian Literature First of all, the female author of the article considered by Cosh is evidently a supporter of the equality of rights for men and women, and her account on the women liberation movement in the […]
Understanding of Feminism: Philosophical and Social Concepts The vision that emerges, in the narrative as in the world it represents, is of a whole composed of separate, yet interdependent and interrelating, parts.
Geoffrey Chaucer: A Founder of English Literature as a Feminist Despite the distorted interpretation of gender in the patriarchal society, Chaucer’s vision of women contradicts the orthodox view of the biological distinction of males and females as the justification for gender inequality.
Feminist Activism for Safer Social Space by Whitzman The scientist pays special attention to the municipal parks, mainly High Park in Toronto, from the point of view of feminists trying to make women involved into the discourse concerning different aspects of the park.
Western Feminism as Fighters Against Oppression For postmodern feminists and post-colonial feminists, the second component of the new women’s ideology is the idea of the responsibility of the state to rule and administer both genders on the basis of their interpretation […]
Perils and Possibilities of Doing Transnational Feminist Activism These have promoted awareness of human rights among women and other masses, ensured and led to the adoption of the rules and regulations recognizing women rights and that supports ending of women violations and participated […]
The Feminist Gendering Into International Relations These are early female contributions to IR academic and the In terms of conferences, the theme of gender and politics was being explored in conferences.
“Feminism and Religion: The Introduction” by R. Gross Gross critically in order to see the essence of the book and the competence of the author in the current issue.
Western Feminists and Their Impact on the Consciousness and Self-Identity of Muslim Women One of the main objectives of the Western feminism is to give to the citizen of the new nation a feeling of dignity and importance resulting from that citizenship and from his ethnic origin, and […]
Feminism – Women and Work in the Middle East The history of feminism consists of different movements and theories for the rights of women. The first wave of this phenomenon began in the 19th century and saw the end only in the early 20th […]
Harriet Martineau, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Marianne Weber: Feminist Sociologists Through her writings she always advocated for the equal rights of women with men and remarked the importance of financial self-sufficiency among women in the society. She observed the role of women in society and […]
English Language in the Feminist Movement In addition to that, it is of the crucial importance to explore the underlying causes of this phenomenon. Now that we have enumerated the research methods, that can be employed, it is of the utmost […]
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Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Gender Inequality — Black Women in American Society

Black Women in American Society

Categories: African American Gender Inequality

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Published: Sep 19, 2019

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Black Woman Analyzed: Subject Matter, Themes and Poetic Devices

This tutorial will take you through a thorough analysis of “Black Woman”. “Black Woman” is a poem composed by Leopold Sedar Senghor. Leopold Senghor was a Senegalese poet, academic and politician. In fact, he was also the first president of independent Senegal.

At Cegast Academy, you can learn more about the contribution of Leopold Senghor to the independence struggle in French West Africa. In case you didn’t know, this topic is right inside the SHS/WASSCE Government syllabus.

But right now, our focus is on Leopold Senghor the poet, not the politician.

Here are the major areas we shall cover in our analysis of “Black Woman”.

Background information
Subject matter
Poetic Devices

So, here we go.

Background Information

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All Six African Poems for WASSCE 2021-2025 (PDF -FREE)

Leopold Senghor’s poem, Black Woman, belongs to the negritude tradition in African Literature. The poet himself was a leading figure in the Negritude movement. It was a period that stretched from the 1930s to the 1950s.

So what is Negritude about? The term was coined to describe African Literature which concerns itself with the rediscovery and affirmation of the African identity. It was very much about the revival of black consciousness.

The Negritude movement started when Leopold Senghor and his compatriots in Europe at the time began to realize that it was a mistake to continue to hold European culture as superior to African ways. Many of them wrote poetry in particular to celebrate Africa and her black race.

Important Elements of Negritude Literature

Below are the recurring themes and features of Negritude literature in general, and poetry in particular (especially those coming from the writings of Leopold Senghor). You will be seeing a lot of these in the analysis of this poem, “Black Woman”, too.

Glorification of blackness
An idealized African culture and people
Personification of the African continent as a beautiful black woman
Extensive praise singing about the beauty of the black woman
Lopsided comparison between Europe and Africa – Africa is often portrayed as an ideal environment. Europe is made to look pale in the shadow of Africa.
A longing for Africa and her past glory
Descriptive diction
Hyperbolic (exaggerated) figures of speech and imagery
Sensual or romantic allusions
Expression of deep love and attachment to the object of admiration
A tone that affirms the profoundness of the African cultural heritage and identity
Nature imagery
Imagery of Africa and Europe
The use of the figure of speech known as apostrophe
Major themes are: beauty, love and attachment, nostalgia, admiration
In most cases, the poet writes from Europe where he imagines Africa in her beauty, splendour and glory.

Subject Matter of Black Woman

Next in this analysis of Black Woman is the subject matter of the poem. I’m about to show you the meaning of “Black Woman” by Leopold Senghor, the renowned Senegalese poet, academic and politician.

In Black Woman, the poet employs a combination of descriptive and narrative techniques. He also reveals to us the various identities of the black woman that make her almost complete.

OBJECTIVE TEST QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ON BLACK WOMAN

Different Identities of the Black Woman

The poet shifts between different identities of the beloved. She is, at one time, simply a woman of startling physical beauty. Then she becomes an African woman of motherly qualities. After this, we return to the beautiful image of the beloved. Next, we see her as an object of romantic love surrendering under the power of her admirer, the “conqueror”. Her beauty then comes to the fore once more and, at the end of it all, she is a mortal being. Her beauty is not going to last forever. It is destined for destruction by death.

Beautiful Woman (Lines 1 – 3)

The poem Black Woman opens with the persona describing the striking physical beauty of the black woman. He imagines her right in front of him. This object of admiration is

The persona goes on to compare this black woman’s colour to life itself. Then, quickly, he speaks of the shape of her body (form) as an embodiment of beauty. This black woman, in effect, is extremely good-looking.

Mother (Lines 4 – 10)

The descriptive diction in the previous opening lines has changed to a narrative one.

In the lines that follow, the poet recollects his childhood spent under the motherly care of the black woman. He speaks in glowing terms about how the care and affection she showered on him played a vital role in his growth.

In your shadow I have grown up the gentleness of your hands was laid over my eyes

Europe: Beautiful Image of the Black Woman Appears

The narrative style continues as we are speedily transported to Europe. The time is midday in the Summer season, “at heart of noon”.

Africa, in the image of a beautiful black woman, appears like a vision before the persona. He beholds her stunning beauty. So powerful is this beauty that the poet feels as if he has been stricken.

And your beauty strikes me to the heart like the flash of an eagle

Romantic Lover (Lines 11 – 20)

We return to the description of the black woman. The poet portrays her as a lover. There are strong suggestions of romantic love from line 11 onwards. You can also not fail to notice the strong sexual undertones that keep coming up in the imagery evoked in these lines.

Firm-fleshed ripe fruit, sombre raptures of black wine, mouth making lyrical my mouth Savannah stretching to clear horizons

Her flesh is firm, smooth and attractive
She is like a ripe fruit, ready for consumption
The liquid inside this “fruit” of the “naked” black woman is compared to black wine. She is tasty and has had an intoxicating effect on the persona.

“mouth making lyrical my mouth”

Now the woman’s image is like the whole stretch of the Savannah grasslands of Africa. In effect, she is whole, expansive, beautiful and natural.

Then there is the “east wind” that blows across the Savannah. The east wind is cast in the image of a male lover. It can also be seen as a metaphor for the contact between Africa and the European colonialist.

The meeting between the Savannah and the east wind describes the embrace between the persona and the beloved.

There follows an eager caress between the two. The Savannah (black woman) shakes with emotion at the touch of the east wind (the masculine, more powerful conqueror)

Savannah shuddering beneath the East wind’s eager caresses

The poet then moves away from the imagery of the Savannah to that of a “carved tom tom”.

The beloved black woman is thus like a cute traditional musical instrument – a drum. And as she feels the touch of the “conqueror”, her muscles and nerves grow tense (“taut”). Her emotions get stronger and, like the tom-tom , she makes very feeble and low moaning sounds ( muttering ) at the touch of the conqueror.

Carved tom tom, taut tom tom, muttering under the Conqueror’s fingers

The sound she makes in this moment of ecstasy is solemn and deeply spiritual.

Beautiful Woman (Lines 21 – 29)

Leaving the imagery of romance behind, the poet gets back to continue his admiration for the beauty of his beloved.

She is dark and naked
The woman looks like the gazelle in its graceful appearance and movements
She is like the calm oil
Her stunning shiny beauty suggests only one thing. She could only have been formed in Paradise.
The perfect darkness of her skin will make precious stones shine on it. Droplets of water on that dark skin will shine the same way.
The beloved’s beauty has the power to make the persona forget about his worries. Because, her hair alone resembles the leaves on a tree while her eyes are like many suns. They will provide a shadow under which he will find comfort.

Under the shadow of your hair my care is lightened by the neighbouring suns of your eyes

These comparisons are all exaggerations. They are meant to portray this black woman as whole, larger than life and perfect.

Physical Beauty is Temporary (Lines 30 – 34)

Finally, the poet expresses disquiet over one disturbing reality. It is the mortality of the beloved woman and the impermanence of her beauty. In desperation, he intends to turn his praises of her beauty into a song (possibly this poem) so that unavoidable death will never be able to destroy it completely.

Naked woman, black woman I sing your beauty that passes, the form that fix in the Eternal Before jealous fate turn you to ashes to feed the roots of life.

Analysis of Black Woman

We are through with the meaning and subject matter of “Black Woman”. So let’s move straight ahead to analyze the poem. This is where you will get to know much about the themes and poetic devices or literary techniques in Leopold Senghor’s poem, Black Woman. And they include all the figures of speech in the poem.

The Themes in Black Woman

There are several themes in the poem, Black Woman. These themes are closely related to the overall focus of the poem. It is a celebration of the beauty and uniqueness of Africa and black people.

As stated early on, this is the central subject of Negritude Literature. All the other themes you will see discussed in this analysis of Black Woman are, therefore, connected to the call for us to see Africa in a fresh and more positive light.

Again, remember that the poet speaks of Africa as an attractive black woman. One reason for this is to make us appreciate his strong attachment to the continent.

Theme of Beauty

Physical beauty is the most prominent of the human qualities the poet celebrates in Black Woman. Aspects of this beauty of the woman that the persona admires greatly include her bright eyes, the dark skin colour, her naked form and her graceful movements.

The poet uses the beauty of the beloved as a metaphor for the positive qualities of Africa and her people. This reminds us of “I WILL PRONOUNCE YOUR NAME, NAET” another Leopold Senghor poem with similar elements.

In highly exaggerated terms, the poet paints a picture of a continent that is whole and perfect in all its ways. Indeed, the nudity of the black woman can be seen as the innocence and natural beauty of Africa as compared to the sun-baked passes of Europe. It, therefore, represents the unblemished natural state of Africa before the advent of foreign colonial domination.

Poetry, once again, has been used as an instrument of instruction. The poet is apparently calling on Africans who have failed to appreciate the beauty in their blackness to wake up and behold the huge potential in the continent. The images of the Savannah grasslands and precious stones carry a simple but direct message to those Africans who still have doubts about their identity and abilities. The natural resources, the cultural practices and the spiritual life of the people are worthy of praise and must be treasured for posterity.

The Theme of Reaffirmation or Idealization of Blackness

The poem is titled “Black Woman” for a reason. It is supposed to extol the awesomeness of being black. It is a poem that rejects, in very strong terms, the prevailing idea at the time that white is superior to black.

To properly reaffirm the virtues of black Africa, the poet makes use of such literary devices as metaphor and repetition.

For instance, he compares the beloved black woman to such objects of great value as gold and pearls. The frequent use of the words “black” and “dark” emphasize the great value the poet wants Africans to attach to their colour and culture.

Theme of Praise or Glorification of Africa

More than anything else, “Black Woman” is a praise song. The object of all this praise is the black woman. And, by extension, the black woman represents the African continent or the black race. Here are some features which show that “Black Woman” is truly meant to be a praise song.

Oral Traditions

Leopold Senghor’s poem, Black Woman is a poem rooted in his native Senegalese oral traditions. As we travel through the lines of this poem (in praise of the singer’s object of admiration), we cannot fail to cast our minds back to the oral traditions of the traveller praise-singer known as griot in this part of West Africa.

RELATED QUESTION: Consider Black Woman as a Praise Song

Sound Effects or Musical Rhythm

The lines of the poem are highly musical. Auditory imagery is used to register the sounds that shout in praise of the beloved. The musical imagery is strong in such lines and expressions as the following.

Solemn contralto voice

Spiritual song

I sing your beauty

The many run-on lines, pausing in the middle occasionally, create the same musical effects.

“Delights of the mind, the glinting of red

gold against your watered skin

Under the shadow of your hair my care

is lightened by the neighbouring suns of your eyes”

Again, the repetition of the same sounds and grammatical units (parallelism) create the right musical tone for this praise song.

Songs of this nature have an enduring mnemonic quality. Consider the /f/ sound that runs through the last few lines as the poet literally cries over the inevitability of death and its destructive effect on the beauty of the black woman.

“Naked woman, black woman

I sing your beauty that passes, the form

that I fix in the Eternal

Before jealous fate turn you to ashes to

feed the roots of life.”

We must also not lose sight of the refrain, “Naked woman, black woman” and “Naked woman, dark woman” that opens the majority of the stanzas.

And this is why the poet believes music is his best shot at preserving the beauty of the beloved against the imminent destruction from death.

Lastly, the poet leaves no stone unturned to make his compatriots appreciate the beauty of their blackness. He freely makes use of hyperbole to further enhance the praise element of the poem.

If it needs exaggeration to make Africans come to the realization that being black is something to be proud of, the poet is more than willing to use it.

So, like the Negritude poem that it is, Black Woman contains several exaggerated comparisons. An example is where the black woman’s eyes are compared to “suns” and to the biblical “Promised Land”.

The Theme of Womanhood

The poet in “Black Woman” evokes all the known aspects of what it means to be a woman in Africa. She is

A mother and she cares
Epitome of beauty
And a sexual object.

Thus, while most of these aspects of womanhood are very positive, there are others that make the woman subservient to the domineering male persona (a “conqueror” of women) in African culture.

Theme of Nostalgia

Like most Negritude poetry, Black Woman does not only glorify the present. The poet recalls the past and shows a deep longing for those days gone by. His yearning for the past is most felt when he refers to the love and care showered on him by his gentle African mother.

“In your shadow I have grown up the

gentleness of your hands was laid over my eyes.”

However, as we have seen so far, this nostalgic feeling for his childhood goes beyond the personal. It is a longing for the unblemished innocence of pre-colonial Africa. The poet wishes to bring back the pure glory and beauty of the African landscape and culture before they were decimated by the conquering colonizer.

Now living in Europe, he gets to appreciate more the beautiful climate of his own continent.

“And now high on the sun-baked

pass, at the heart of summer, at the heart of noon,

I come upon you, my Promised Land.

And your beauty strikes me to the heart

like the flash of an eagle.”

Other Themes and Other Ways of Putting the Same Themes

Praise for African cultural heritage

Colonialism

Cultural Alienation

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Poetic Devices in Black Woman

We shall begin with diction and imagery as we analyse the various poetic devices or literary techniques present in Black Woman. Beyond diction and imagery, there is a lot to say about other literary devices and figures of speech. We are going to do justice to all that. Let’s keep moving.

Diction and Imagery

Overall, it is relatively difficult to grasp the full meaning of Leopold Senghor’s poem, Black Woman. This is particularly so if you happen to be a first time reader. The difficulty is traceable to the occasional difficult syntax and choice of vocabulary e.g. contralto, sombre ruptures.

The unpredictable line breaks and enjambment (run-on lines) also get confusing at times.

SEE ALSO : Literary Devices and Figures of Speech 101 (PDF)

Then come the rather strange and hyperbolic comparisons e.g. black wine. solemn contralto voice is the spiritual song, pearls are stars on the night of your skin, I came upon you, my Promised Land. This should remind you of John Donne, another poet featured in the Non-African Poetry section of the WASSCE/NECO/JAMB syllabus.

This section of your analysis of Black Woman shall begin with the use of descriptive vocabulary.

MUST READ: Analysis of “The Good Morrow” by John Donne

Descriptive Diction

There is a careful and detailed description of the various parts of the woman’s body as well as her other attributes. This descriptive element makes “Black Woman” a praise song. The poet meticulously gives us interesting descriptions of the following

The woman’s build or form

Her temperament – she is calm like oil that “no breath can ruffle”

Voice – it sounds like music. Not only that. It resembles a solemn spiritual song

Preponderance or abundance of Descriptive words/adjectives

She is gentle “the gentleness of your hand”

The black woman is a motherly figure who knows how to care for her children and groom them into adults fully prepared to face life responsibly.

Also, she is passionate in her sensual feelings – shuddering, muttering, taut

Below are more adjectives found in the numerous noun phrases in this poem. The descriptive words/adjectives are the ones in bold lettering.

Naked woman

Black woman

Watered skin

Carved tom-tom

Taut tom-tom

Eager caresses

Clear horizons

Further, the beloved is imbued with a motherly disposition

Quick and fast – note the use of “athlete’s flanks” and “gazelle”.

This poem appears difficult to understand. On the whole, however, it only takes a bit of patience and close reading to begin to unravel the meaning of Black Woman. In fact, the subject matter of the poem becomes easy to grasp when, just like much of poetry, you take the lines, not as individual entities to be understood separately, but as a collection of connected descriptions about one, and the same subject. It is all to the praise and glory of the black woman and black Africa.

All the above and a lot more help to register various images on our minds. The imagery in the poem, therefore, is largely effective in developing the various themes. Because both are closely related to each other.

Images of Africa and Her Natural Environment

Call it geographical imagery and you’d be right. Words and expressions that evoke the images of the African landscape include the following

Imagery of African Womanhood

The African woman is portrayed as the very embodiment of beauty and grace. She is a spectacle of stunning beauty, a mother and a lover. Her very black skin is the primary reason for her attractive physical looks.

Black, therefore, is beautiful and must be revered rather than shied away from. So amazing is her beauty that it needs to be preserved. The poet is conscious of this sad fact. This beauty is still going to be destroyed by death sooner or later. To the poet, this is the time to stop, behold and celebrate Africa. Because life is too short. This is the main thrust of the Negritude literature message.

Love Imagery (Sensual/Sexual/Romance)

Here are some words and expressions the persona uses to evoke an atmosphere of strong love or romantic feelings

muttering under the conqueror’s fingers

Sombre ruptures

Visual Imagery/Colour Imagery

Clothed with your colour which is life

Glinting of red gold

Against your watered skin

Imagery of Conquest/Domination

Value imagery, imagery of beauty.

Gazelle limbed

Your beauty

Your form which is beauty

Glinting red gold

Firm-fleshed ripe fruit

Other Literary Devices

Below are some equally important literary devices and figures of speech we must never ignore. That is if we are interested in doing a thorough analysis of Black Woman. These poetic techniques help to evoke the images in the poem. Consequently, they contribute to the development of the themes we’ve been discussing so far.

Repetitive use of “you”, “your”. Example:

“I came upon you, my Promised Land

And your beauty strikes me to the heart”

Next in this analysis of Black Woman is the use of metaphor. The poet compares the physical beauty of the beloved and other qualities to the following.

Roots of life

Like the flash of an eagle

Your colour which is life

Like the flash of an eagle”

Suns of your eyes
Heart of summer
Heart of noon
Sun-baked pass
Under the shadow of your hair, my care

Is lightened by the neighbouring suns of your eyes

RELATED QUESTION: Comment on the poet’s use of hyperbole in Black Woman

Political/Historical: Princes of Mali

Sport – athlete’s flanks

PLEASE NOTE: The three figures of speech below (parallelism, alliteration and repetition) are associated with repetition of the same linguistic units. The repetitive strain in the poem is a deliberate sound device the poet employs to create the desired auditory imagery. Together, they go a long way to accentuate the musical tone of the poem, Black Woman.

Parallelism

At the heart of summer, at the heart of noon
With your colour which is life

With your form which is beauty

Alliteration

Mouth making lyrical my mouth
Carved tom-tom, taut tom-tom

Naked woman, black woman

We are leaving behind the above sound devices in our analysis of Black Woman. Let’s consider other figures of speech in the poem, Black Woman.

Personification

Africa itself is portrayed as a beautiful African woman with terrific human qualities such as calmness, sensuality, caring, great musical voice, and mortality

Jealous fate

Feed the roots of life

“fate” refers to death

“ashes” refers to the decomposed remains of the human body after death

Likely Exam Questions on Black Woman

Consider Leopold Senghor’s Black Woman as a praise song.

Discuss the theme of beauty in Black Woman

Highlight the various images of black Africa in Senghor’s poem, Black Woman

Discuss the poet’s use of diction and imagery in Black Woman

Describe the qualities of the beloved in Senghor’s Black Woman.

Comment on the use of repetition and hyperbole in the poem.

Examine Black Woman as a descriptive poem.

Discuss the themes of love and attachment in Black Woman.

What strikes you about the image of the black woman?

Discuss the theme of African renaissance in Black Woman by Leopold Senghor

Highlight the elements of Negritude Literature in the poem, Black Woman.

Comment on the poet’s attitude to the woman in the poem.

Discuss the theme of mortality in Leopold Senghor’s Black Woman.

Describe the encounter between the poet and the black woman.

Comment on the appropriateness of the title of Senghor’s poem, Black Woman

The poem Black Woman is about the revival of black consciousness. Comment

What elements of nostalgia can you identify in Black Woman?

Final thoughts

We’ve done it! You and I have been doing an in-depth analysis of Black Woman by Leopold Sedar Senghor. Now that we’ve brought this analysis of Black Woman to a close, I wish to thank you for your support.

So what’s next? It would be a lot of fun if you picked a couple of questions from the list above and write an essay on them. Feel free to contact me via the comment form or contact form in case you need further clarification. Meanwhile, you can find more literature study guides HERE . Thank you!

Did you find this information helpful? Then share it on your favourite social media platform for the benefit of others you care about. Thank you!

Ralph Nyadzi

Ralph Nyadzi is the Director of Studies at Cegast Academy. He is a qualified English tutor with decades of experience behind him. Since 2001, he has successfully coached thousands of High School General Arts WASSCE candidates in English, Literature and related subjects. He combines his expertise with a passion for lifelong learning to guide learners from varying backgrounds to achieve their educational goals. Ralph shares lessons from his blogging journey on BloggingtotheMax . He lives with River, his pet cat, in the Central Region of Ghana.

Ralph Nyadzi https://www.cegastacademy.com/author/misteraf/ The Grieved Lands of Africa Quiz: Objective Test Questions and Answers
Ralph Nyadzi https://www.cegastacademy.com/author/misteraf/ Caged Bird Questions and Answers (Multiple Choice)
Ralph Nyadzi https://www.cegastacademy.com/author/misteraf/ Bat Poem Questions and Answers (D.H. Lawrence)
Ralph Nyadzi https://www.cegastacademy.com/author/misteraf/ Black Woman Questions and Answers: Objective Practice Test (Poetry)

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17 thoughts on “black woman analyzed: subject matter, themes and poetic devices”.

Type here..I really enjoy the novel it give more understaning abt the beauty of africam

Hi Yunus. Thank you for the encouragement. You can find similar useful tutorials here anytime.

Sir please I can’t find the writer’s use of metaphor in black woman on the page

Hello Jessica. Kindly move down to the bottom of the post and you will see the links for the remaining two pages. Click/tap on page 3 and you will see METAPHOR on that page. Thank you.

Please there is no next page button.so far i have enjoyed your piece.please I need the analysis.

Hi Richester, It is there. Please look further down just below the ‘YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE’ section at the bottom of the post. You will see this. Pages:1 2 3. And please let me know if you still have trouble finding the next page links. Thank you.

Thank you so very much an indeed in-depth analysis it helped me as a teacher

I’m glad it helped.

Very useful analysis

The major challenge I came across while reading this poem was trying to get the actual meanings of some words and this post gave that. I liked the way everything was broken down and also fully detailed

Thanks for your feedback. So tell me, is the meaning clearer now?

There is no click button to the next page for the continuation of the analysis on “Black Woman.”

A very good analysis, so far.

Hi Francis. Thanks for reaching out. I’ll be fixing it shortly.

Thank you very much, Sir.

My pleasure, Francis.

I really enjoy the analysis .And how everything was broken down. It gave me more insights and i really enjoyed it..

Thank you, Johannah.

In Love & Trouble: Stories of Black Women Essay Questions

By alice walker, essay questions.

These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own.

Written by Maria Magdalena

Explore deceit as brought out in “Really, Doesn’t Crime Pay?”

Myrna has a profound love for literature and becoming a writer. However, her husband Ruel is not supportive of her ambitions. When Myrna meets Mordecai, also another writer with his own set of interests, she confides in him and the two become more than friends. Later after Mordecai passes away, she realizes that she had used her by publishing one of her stories using his name and therefore had taken all the credit for her hard work. Mordecai’s utilization of this dishonest scheme to publish work that was not his paints him out as a rather deceitful and dishonest person. In this short story, deceit is in this way explored.

How is the idea of dysfunctional marriage brought out in Alice Walker’s In Love & Trouble: Stories of Black Women ?

Dysfunctional marriages and marital relations are very well explored in this anthology. For instance, in the short story “Really, Doesn’t Crime Pay?” the protagonist Myrna is a wannabe writer even though her husband wants nothing of the embarrassment that he feels will follow her being a writer. When she finds Mordecai who outwardly appears to care about her and her work, the magic begins: “Under Mordecai’s fingers my body opened like a flower and carefully bloomed. And it was strange as well as wonderful. Myrna becomes entangled in Mordecai’s wraps only to realize after his death that he had been using her. This is the height of deceit, an unfaithful wife and epitome of a dysfunctional marriage as well as a deceitful extra-marital lover. In “Her Sweet Jerome,” the marriage between the protagonist and her husband also suffers, all thanks to her jealousy.

Roselily gives off her fourth child to his father yet she feels bothered by it. Why is this so?

The love of a mother for their child is a bond so strong and almost unbreakable, a bond that begins at conception. Even though Roselily gives off her son to her father and his people, the love for her son is still alive within her. She often wonders whether doing that was the best decision for her son. Even though her son’s father is quite well off with some money and a Harvard alumnus. Roselily still wonders whether the New England climate would be good for her son and whether the people and the family members of the boy’s father would treat him nicely as well. She wonders whether her son would be stronger than his father who had at one point tried to commit suicide. As a result of Roselily’s constantly worried nature about the wellbeing of her son, she becomes constantly bothered.

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In Love & Trouble: Stories of Black Women Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for In Love & Trouble: Stories of Black Women is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Study Guide for In Love & Trouble: Stories of Black Women

In Love & Trouble: Stories of Black Women study guide contains a biography of Alice Walker, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

About In Love & Trouble: Stories of Black Women
In Love & Trouble: Stories of Black Women Summary
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Essays for In Love & Trouble: Stories of Black Women

In Love & Trouble: Stories of Black Women essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of In Love & Trouble: Stories of Black Women by Alice Walker.

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The Woman in Black Essay Questions Eduqas

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Perspectives Identity

“Part of what inspired the project was wanting to create something that really centered the brilliance and creativity of Black women writers and the transformative possibilities that come with reading.” The Free Black Women’s Library is a third-space social art project founded and maintained by artist OlaRonke Akinmowo that features a collection of over 5,000 books written by Black women and Black nonbinary writers in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn. Like any library, it is a space to read, write, and study. Visitors are also invited to attend workshops, film screenings, book signings, teach-ins, story time sessions, critical conversations and to use the space to gather in community. During her CPP Residency, OlaRonke has created Obsidian, a collective featuring 20 Black women writers and artists who meet several times a month. In December 2024, Obsidian will publish a book, Pretty Little Brick . The Met’s Civic Practice Partnership (CPP), launched in 2017, catalyzes and implements creative projects that advance healthy communities by bringing the skills and interests of neighborhood stakeholders together with those of The Met and artists who are socially minded in their practice. Invited CPP artists work in their own neighborhoods across New York City and at The Met to develop and implement ambitious projects and forge meaningful collaborations. Learn more about OlaRonke’s CPP Residency .

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Social Change

The 12 Black women behind Brown v. Board often go unrecognized. A new exhibit aims to change that.

A black and white photo of eleven people wearing business clothes pose for a group portrait.

To unearth the forgotten history of the Kansas women who served as plaintiffs in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case, Donna Rae Pearson had to dig.

Without published scholarship to go on, Pearson and two other researchers hunted down the women’s obituaries, cross-referenced their details against Census records and city directories, and pored over newspaper clippings, oral histories, and court transcripts.

It was no easy feat: Some women’s names had changed, and some had moved as far away as Oregon.

The result of their work is “ The Women of Brown ,” which recognizes the lives and contributions of the 12 Black mothers who signed their names, alongside Oliver Brown, to the lawsuit that reached the Supreme Court.

Headshots of nine of the 12 Black women who participated in the Brown v. Board of Education case.

A pop-up exhibit showcasing their findings is traveling across Kansas to mark the 70-year anniversary of the landmark decision. That includes a stop at Topeka Public Schools’ commemorative event this week.

Pearson hopes that students and others who see the exhibit will leave curious to find out more about the Black women who committed acts of “everyday activism” to further their children’s education.

“I don’t think Black women — I don’t think women — get the credit that they are supposed to have when it comes to these kinds of activities,” said Pearson, a museum curator at the Kansas Historical Society and a former local history librarian at the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library. “I think that’s becoming more and more of a conversation that we have today: How did they contribute to these movements?”

The documents Pearson and her team collected will be housed at the Kansas Historical Society State Archives and Topeka’s local library, so future researchers won’t have to do as much legwork. Pearson is also starting to hear from relatives and others who knew the women, which she hopes will contribute to the scholarship, too.

“We just needed to bring them out of the dark,” she said. “We needed to say their names out loud again.”

Chalkbeat spoke with Pearson about why the 12 women joined the lawsuit and the challenges of researching Black women’s history. She also has thoughts on how students and teachers can keep the conversation going (see sidebar).

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

How did the 12 Black women who became plaintiffs in the Brown case come to be part of the lawsuit?

We don’t know exactly how all of them came to be part of it. Lucinda Todd, one of the plaintiffs, and actually the first plaintiff to sign up, was heavily involved in the NAACP . She was on a special committee when talk of this lawsuit started happening, and she helped recruit parents.

We also identified different locations throughout the city [of Topeka] where these women could have possibly met. They were all involved in formal religious activities. Some of them went to church together. Some of them were involved in social clubs together. So we believe there was this network where they could have been simply having coffee or tea and saying: ‘Hey, I decided to sign up. How about you?’

Why have they historically gotten less attention than Oliver Brown?

In our legal system, ‘et al’ can hide a lot of things. That means ‘and more.’ Et al really covers up, initially, the fact that these women were part of the case.

But then you go into a little bit deeper reasons. These are Black women. And our history is not recorded as well as the majority’s history.

The case, initially, was not necessarily as well-received, for different reasons . Why this case happened does not fit our prevailing narrative [in Kansas] of being a ‘ free state ,’ a state about civil rights. We were actually one of three northern states that allowed permissive segregation , which means, by law, they could segregate.

This is a panel from "The Women of Brown" exhibit that shows photos and information about some of the women who were part of the famous lawsuit.

What were the ways in which the women saw that their children were not getting equal opportunities as white children at school?

When you read the transcript from the local court trial , you’ll find that there were problems with the busing system and being able to pick up their children in a timely manner. The Brown children had to walk almost a mile by railroad tracks just to get to their bus stop. These long commutes would have interfered with their schooling. You’re going to get up earlier than a person who’s going to walk two minutes. That’s eating time before school and after school.

[Students who lived far from their schools] couldn’t go home for lunch. They had to bring lunch, and supposedly the lunch wasn’t going to be as nutritious as a hot, home-cooked meal.

There were other things, in terms of activities that were not available. What sparked some of this was Lucinda Todd was super mad about the fact that her daughter, Nancy, could not participate in the district-wide [music] program. There were 18 schools, but only 14 of them were participating. What schools did they leave out? The four Black schools. It was because of Lucinda Todd’s complaints that they were finally able to get [music programs].

There were sports available at the upper levels in Topeka, but the [activities were] segregated. So there was a Black basketball team and a white basketball team. There was a Black prom and a white prom. Even though they all went to school together, all those activities were actually segregated. [Kansas law at the time permitted segregated elementary schools, but high schools were supposed to be integrated.]

Initially, the women were featured in some news coverage, but then their voices just kind of dropped out. What were you able to glean from what they did share over the years?

As the secretary of the NAACP, Lucinda Todd sent out this very long press release that explains the case to the community. But over time, you see the male figures that were involved with the case, they continue to be elevated. But the women, you don’t see them asked as many questions later on, or any questions.

Toward the ‘80s and ‘90s, when the historic site was being lobbied for and built here, they brought them back again. Locally, the one disarming piece that I found was an article that was talking about them, and it tried to give a status update. It kept saying: ‘No information known.’ And we discovered that some of these women were actually still alive, living in the city.

But I also have to remember … the challenge with doing women’s history — not just Black women, but women in general — is we are [often] forced to change our names. In some cases, especially then, they were not referred to by their first and last name. They’re referred to as ‘Mrs. Brown.’ And it’s like: ‘Well, Mrs. Brown surely has a first name!’ So that made it a little bit challenging.

How do the women who participated in this lawsuit fit within the larger tradition of African American women participating in advocacy and organizing in their communities?

It’s kind of a culmination of all the experiences they were able to have. Colored women’s clubs were here as early as the 1890s. Black women are the backbone of those [church] organizations. When you decide to have an event at church, and you’re the one in charge, you start organizing. You start getting people on board, you start raising money.

We had Black women who were involved in entrepreneurship. There were women who owned their own businesses. They were not used to necessarily sitting on the sidelines here. I think as organizers, they were in a community where it was acceptable for them to sign up and do things like this.

What lessons can we draw from ‘The Women of Brown’ about the significance of everyday activism?

I think we need to broaden our definition of what activism is. It is not always Martin Luther King, standing at a pulpit. Everyday activism is really the little things that you can do in your own community to make a difference. It’s when we take a stand for something that we believe in.

Some would say what I’m doing right now is being an activist. I’m bringing up a story; I’m posing challenging questions.

Did you make any personal connections to what you learned about the women of Brown?

As a historian, I very intentionally did not talk about the decision [in the past]. Part of the reason was because of the way it is portrayed in the media. Yes, it is a celebration of sorts. But y’all have to remember, the reason why this case happened is because there was blatant segregation in this state for an extended period of time, within our lives.

My class, when I entered elementary school in the ‘70s, was considered the first truly integrated class. My older brothers, my older sisters, in particular, went to segregated Black schools. And this was post the [Brown] decision. These are things we are still wrestling with.

I didn’t think we were looking at [the Brown decision] from a very truthful perspective. I don’t think we were looking at all the nuances, and the impact that it created on different communities.

During this time period, you had a couple of things happen to the Black community. Redlining forced us into one community. With desegregation of schools, you were breaking up that school network, that bonding of a community. Then the next step was urban renewal — that totally wiped out some of these communities.

I needed to look closer at the decision from another perspective, so I could understand it.

What would you like for students who are going to see the exhibit to take away from it?

I hope it’s a conversation-starter for them. I hope that they can relate to the women.

They were ignored. Hopefully, this will again bring them to the forefront and shine some light on them. Hopefully, it makes you curious enough to want to learn a little bit more about them.

A deeper dive into ‘The Women of Brown’

For students and teachers interested in learning more, here are a few recommended resources:

Read: Rectifying “et al.” History: The Women of Brown Project , by Donna Rae Pearson

Read: “ A Girl Stands at the Door: The Generation of Young Women Who Desegregated America’s Schools ,” by Rachel Devlin

Watch: “ The Women of Brown ,” presented to the Kansas Historical Society by Donna Rae Pearson

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at [email protected] .

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The race question follows Caitlin Clark to the WNBA: ‘Boils my blood’

For much of the past two years, Caitlin Clark has been the centerpiece of the college basketball world.

Now Clark, like NBA Hall of Famer Larry Bird was 45 years ago, is involuntarily the focus of discussions about race and her transition to professional basketball. Though Clark hasn’t said anything to fuel the Black-white narrative surrounding her meteoric rise, talks about a double standard are being had.

“I think it’s a huge thing. I think a lot of people may say it’s not about Black and white, but to me, it is,” Las Vegas Aces star A’ja Wilson said when asked about the race element in Clark’s popularity and before she recently signed two major endorsement deals.

“It really is because you can be top notch at what you are as a Black woman, but yet maybe that’s something that people don’t want to see.

“They don’t see it as marketable, so it doesn’t matter how hard I work. It doesn’t matter what we all do as Black women, we’re still going to be swept underneath the rug. That’s why it boils my blood when people say it’s not about race because it is.”

To be clear, Clark is a skilled hardcourt savant from Iowa. Bird was a skilled hardcourt savant from Indiana State. And like Bird, Clark has captivated audiences and brought unmatched attention to women’s basketball with an ability to score from every corner of the court.

Neither Bird nor Clark were the first great white male or female pro basketball players. Jerry West is the actual NBA logo and before Clark, the long list of talented white WNBA players included Sue Bird and Breanna Stewart.

But sports can be elevated by a heated rivalry, particularly when race is involved.

Clark’s rise has come with an on-court bravado that made her must-watch TV as she led the Hawkeyes to back-to-back NCAA championship game appearances. When Bird led the Sycamores to the title game in 1979, he squared off against Magic Johnson in one of the most-watched games in NCAA tourney history.

At Iowa, Clark’s on-court rival in the NCAA Tournament was former LSU star Angel Reese. Then she took on women’s juggernaut South Carolina and coach Dawn Staley. The matchups created the kind of made-for-social media moments that captivated audiences, regardless of gender.

The matchups also led to ongoing discussions about how race plays a factor in the treatment afforded to Clark, a white woman from “America’s Heartland,” as compared to Black counterparts like Reese.

Clark has said she and Reese are just pieces of a larger movement.

“I would say me and Angel have always been great competitors,” Clark said prior to Iowa’s Elite Eight matchup with Reese and LSU in March. “I think Angel would say the same, like it’s not just us in women’s basketball. That’s not the only competitive thing about where our game is at, and that’s what makes it so good. We need multiple people to be really good.”

Still, the race-based debate over perceived slights to Black players or favoritism toward Clark is not going away as the No. 1 pick in the WNBA draft prepares for her first regular-season game on Tuesday night when Indiana plays Connecticut.

“I think new fans, or maybe returning fans to women’s college basketball, have been drawn in. In part because of Clark. But also, you know, because of the LSU-Iowa rivalry,” said Victoria Jackson, a sports historian and clinical associate professor of history at Arizona State University.

“There are basketball reasons,” Jackson said, “but also there are racial reasons for why Clark has been able to kind of break off into a completely different stratosphere from players that came before her.”

Because of the perceived double standard, nearly everything involving Clark gets questioned:

— Clark’s first WNBA preseason game was streamed, but Reese’s was not.

— Clark gets an endorsement deal. Other established Black stars not so much.

— If Reese talks trash, it’s viewed as unsportsmanlike. If Clark does it, she’s being competitive.

— Reese received some backlash for going to the Met Gala before a game, raising questions would there have been the same type of scrutiny if Clark had graced the red carpet.

Wilson, who signed with Gatorade last week and announced Saturday that she is getting a Nike signature shoe, and others have cited how companies are clamoring to be in business with Clark as an example of the disparity in how players are treated.

The deal Clark struck with Nike will reportedly pay her $28 million over eight years — making it the richest sponsorship contract for a women’s basketball player, and it includes a signature shoe. Before Wilson’s announcement Saturday, the only other active players in the WNBA with a signature shoe were Elena Delle Donne, Sabrina Ionescu and Stewart – who are all white.

The perception extends beyond endorsements.

While Clark’s preseason debut was available on the WNBA League Pass streaming app, a post on the X platform from the WNBA incorrectly stated that all games, including the debut of Reese and fellow rookie former South Carolina standout Kamilla Cardoso for the Chicago Sky, would also be available.

So, a fan in attendance at the Sky’s game livestreamed it. It received more than 620,000 views.

In an apology post explaining why the Sky’s game wasn’t also available, the WNBA said Clark’s game was available as part of a limited free preview of its streaming app.

There also have been racial components to how Clark is treated on social media as compared to others, most notably Reese.

Reese, who has previously spoken about the vitriol she received online, was recently attacked again after she missed a preseason practice to attend the Met Gala. Clark also has been the target of online criticism, but apparently not to the extent that Reese has been.

Online hate-speech accounts for approximately 1 percent of all social media posts in the context of sports, according to Daniel Kilvington, course director in Media & Cultural Studies at Leeds Beckett University in Leeds, England.

“Although this might sound quite low, consider how much traffic is online and how many posts are made every single day,” said Kilvington, whose work with the Tackling Online Hate in Football research group has looked at the issue through the sport of soccer. “One percent is therefore 1% too high as athletes are primary targets of hate-speech, harassment and death threats simply for playing a game they love.”

But as Clark’s popularity grows, so will the debate. Jackson believes it’s a good time to openly have discussions about it.

“I don’t know how many times I read and heard her described as generational talent,” the ASU professor said. “And whenever we’re making those cases, I immediately think, well, who are the other generational talents we’ve had? And, I think too often the athletes could be placed in that category who have been Black women have not had that sort of gushing attention. And especially the kind of general public, crossover saturation that Caitlin Clark has had.

“There are overlapping, intersecting reasons for why that is. But, I think we can’t not think about it if the goal here is to have equitable treatment of the athletes in the sport.”

The race question follows Caitlin Clark to the WNBA: ‘Boils my blood’

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A Majority of Latinas Feel Pressure To Support Their Families or To Succeed at Work
2. Pressures Latinas face in their lives

The impact of gender, Hispanic identity and skin color on the lives of Latinas
3. Life satisfaction and sources of joy for Latinas
Acknowledgments
The American Trends Panel survey methodology

Latinas say Hispanic women face far more pressure than Hispanic men to cook and clean at home, be attractive, get married and have children, be pleasant, and have few sexual partners. Similar shares of Hispanic women and men say they feel pressures related to family or work.

Some groups of Latinas feel more pressure than others. Latinas who are younger, college graduates or are born in the United States are especially likely to say they feel pressures to be successful at work and to live close to their family.

This chapter explores the life pressures Latinas face and how different groups of Latinas experience these stressors.

What pressures do Hispanic women face?

Among Latinas, large shares say Hispanic women in the U.S. face considerable pressure when it comes to doing things associated with gender roles for women.

Bar chart showing that most Latinas say Hispanic women in the U.S. these days face pressure to cook and clean or be beautiful

About two-thirds of Latinas (68%) say Latinas in the U.S. face a great deal or fair amount of pressure to do the cooking and cleaning at home.
About six-in-ten (62%) say that U.S. Latinas face a great deal or fair amount of pressure to be beautiful by taking the time to dress nicely, wear makeup or do their hair and nails.
A majority of Latinas (56%) say Latinas face a great deal or fair amount of pressure to get married and have children.
About half (52%) say Latinas face a great deal or a fair amount of pressure to be pleasant.

How do pressures differ for Hispanic women and men?

Overall, Latinas are more likely to say Hispanic women face the following pressures a great deal or a fair amount than they are to say the same of Hispanic men:

Bar chart showing that Latinas say Hispanic women face more pressure than Hispanic men to cook and clean at home, be pleasant and have few sexual partners, but say Hispanic men face more pressure to avoid talking about their feelings and to physically intimidate others

Do the cooking and cleaning at home (68% of women vs. 19% of men)
Get married and have children (56% vs. 36%)
Be pleasant (52% vs. 28%)
Have few sexual partners (39% vs. 20%)

When it comes to being physically attractive, 62% of Latinas say Hispanic women face pressure to be beautiful, while 37% say Hispanic men face pressure to be handsome.

On the other hand, Hispanic women are more likely to say Hispanic men face the following pressures than they are to say that Hispanic women face them:

Avoid talking about their feelings (48% of men vs. 33% of women)
Physically intimidate others (30% vs. 17%).

And Latinas say Hispanic men face more pressure to join in when other men are talking about women in a sexual way (37%) than Hispanic women face when other women are talking about men in a sexual way (17%).

By age among Latinas

Younger Latinas are more likely than those who are older to say Latinas in the U.S. face a great deal or fair amount of pressure across all eight examples asked about in the survey.

Dot plot chart comparing perceived pressures Hispanic women face across age groups. Younger Latinas are more likely than older to say Hispanic women overall face pressure to marry and have children, be beautiful, and do the cooking and cleaning at home.

67% of those ages 18 to 29 say Latinas in the U.S. face pressure to get married and have children, compared with 44% of those 50 to 64 and 43% of those 65 and older.
71% of those 18 to 29 say Latinas face pressure to be beautiful, while 53% of those 50 to 64 and 50% of those 65 and older say the same.
77% of those 18 to 29 say Latinas face pressure to do the cooking and cleaning at home, compared with 58% of those 50 to 64 and 57% of those 65 and older.

Substantial differences between Latinas ages 18 to 29 and those 50 and older also emerge in their views of how much pressure Latinas face to have few sexual partners , be pleasant and avoid talking about their feelings .

By education

Latinas with a bachelor’s degree or higher and those with some college education are more likely to say Latinas in the U.S. face a great deal or fair amount of pressure to cook and clean at home, be beautiful, get married and have children, be pleasant, and have few sexual partners.

Those with a high school diploma or less education and those with some college are more likely to say that Latinas face pressure to avoid talking about their feelings.

By nativity

Among Latinas, U.S. born are more likely than immigrants to say Hispanic women in the U.S. face a great deal or fair amount of pressure to cook and clean at home, be beautiful, get married and have children, be pleasant, and have few sexual partners.

Family and work pressures

Latinas say Hispanic women face far more pressure than Hispanic men to cook and clean, be attractive, get married and have children.

About three-in-ten Hispanic women say they extremely or very often feel pressure to provide care for children in their family (30%) and to live close to their family (28%). Slightly fewer say they frequently feel pressure to support their family financially (24%) and to provide care for elderly family members (22%).

By contrast, Hispanic men (23%) are less likely than Hispanic women to say they often feel pressure to care for children in their family. However, Hispanic men (30%) are more likely than Hispanic women to say they often feel pressure to support their family financially.

Overall, about half of Hispanic women in the U.S. (53%) say they often feel at least one of four family-related pressures in the survey, a similar share to Hispanic men (49%).

Meanwhile, similar shares of Hispanic women (39%) and Hispanic men (40%) say they often feel pressure to be successful in their job or career.

Hispanic women’s views on how frequently they personally face family and work pressures vary by age, education and nativity:

Younger Latinas are more likely to say they extremely or very often feel pressure to provide care for children in their family, live close to their family and be successful in their job or career.
Latinas with a bachelor’s degree or higher are more likely than those with no college experience to say they extremely or very often feel pressure to live close to their family, support their family financially and succeed in their job or career.
Latinas born in the U.S. are more likely than Latina immigrants to say they extremely or very often feel pressure to succeed in their job or career , and on all four family pressures – providing care for children, living close to family, supporting family financially and providing care for elderly family members.

Bar chart comparing the family or career pressures U.S. Latinas say they face across demographic groups. Among Latinas, young adults and college graduates are much more likely to feel pressure to succeed in their job or career

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Florida deputies who fatally shot US airman burst into wrong apartment, attorney says

The family of a US airman who was fatally shot by a Florida deputy earlier this month held a news conference Thursday in which they disputed that the deputy fired in self-defense. (AP Video: Stephen Smith)

This photo provided by the U.S. Air Force, shows Senior Airman Roger Fortson in a Dec. 24, 2019, photo. The Air Force says the airman supporting its Special Operations Wing at Hurlburt Field, Fla., was shot and killed on May 3, 2024, during an incident involving the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office. (U.S. Air Force via AP)

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FILE - Civil rights attorney Ben Crump speaks in the Audubon Ballroom, now part of The Malcolm X & Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center, in New York, on Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey, File)

MIAMI (AP) — Deputies responding to a disturbance call at a Florida apartment complex burst into the wrong unit and fatally shot a Black U.S. Air Force airman who was home alone when they saw he was armed with a gun, an attorney for the man’s family said Wednesday.

Senior Airman Roger Fortson , 23, who was based at the Special Operations Wing at Hurlburt Field, was in his off-base apartment in Fort Walton Beach when the shooting happened on May 3.

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump said in a statement that Fortson was on a Facetime call with a woman at the time of the encounter.

According to Crump, the woman, whom Crump didn’t identify, said Fortson was alone in his apartment when he heard a knock at the door. He asked who was there but didn’t get a response. A few minutes later, Fortson heard a louder knock but didn’t see anyone when he looked through the peephole, Crump said, citing the woman’s account.

The woman said Fortson was concerned and went to retrieve his gun, which Crump said was legally owned.

As Fortson walked back through his living room, deputies burst through the door, saw that Fortson was armed and shot him six times, according to Crump’s statement. The woman said Fortson was on the ground, saying, “I can’t breathe,” after he was shot, Crump said.

Demonstrators clash with the officers from the Metropolitan Police Department at George Washington University in Washington, early Wednesday, May 8, 2024. Police cleared a pro-Palestinian tent encampment at the university and arrested demonstrators early Wednesday, hours after dozens marched to the home of the school’s president. (Sage Russell/GW Hatchet via AP)

Fortson died at a hospital, officials said. The deputy involved in the shooting was placed on administrative leave pending an investigation.

The woman said Fortson wasn’t causing a disturbance during their Facetime call and believes that the deputies must have had the wrong apartment, Crump’s statement said.

“The circumstances surrounding Roger’s death raise serious questions that demand immediate answers from authorities, especially considering the alarming witness statement that the police entered the wrong apartment,” Crump said.

“We are calling for transparency in the investigation into Roger’s death and the immediate release of body cam video to the family,” Crump said. “His family and the public deserve to know what occurred in the moments leading up to this tragedy.”

Crump is a nationally known attorney based in Tallahassee, Florida. He has been involved in multiple high-profile law enforcement shooting cases involving Black people, including those of Ahmaud Arbery , Trayvon Martin , Breonna Taylor , Tyre Nichols and George Floyd .

Crump and Fortson’s family plan to speak at a news conference in Fort Walton Beach on Thursday morning.

The Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office didn’t immediately respond to an email or voicemail from The Associated Press seeking comment about Crump’s claims. But Sheriff Eric Aden posted a statement on Facebook Wednesday afternoon expressing sadness about the shooting.

“At this time, we humbly ask for our community’s patience as we work to understand the facts that resulted in this tragic event,” Aden said.

The sheriff’s office said in a statement last week that a deputy responding to a call of a disturbance in progress at the apartment complex reacted in self-defense after encountering an armed man. The office did not offer details on what kind of disturbance deputies were responding to or who called them.

The sheriff’s office also declined to immediately identify the responding deputies or their races. Officials said earlier this week that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the local State Attorney’s Office will investigate the shooting.

FDLE spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger told The Associated Press on Wednesday that it is highly unlikely the agency will have any further comment until the investigation is complete.

Fortson was assigned to the 4th Special Operations Squadron as a special missions aviator, where one of his roles as a member of the squadron’s AC-130J Ghostrider aircrew was to load the gunship’s 30mm and 105mm cannons during missions.

Fortson’s death draws striking similarities to other Black people killed in recent years by police in their homes, in circumstances that involved officers responding to the wrong address or responding to service calls with wanton uses of deadly force.

In 2018, a white former Dallas police offer fatally shot Botham Jean, an unarmed Black man, after mistaking his apartment for her own. Amber Guyger, the former officer, was found guilty of murder the following year and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

In 2019, a white former Fort Worth, Texas, officer fatally shot Atatiana Jefferson through a rear window of her home after responding to a nonemergency call reporting that Jefferson’s front door was open. Aaron Dean, the former officer, was found guilty of manslaughter in 2022 and was sentenced to nearly 12 years in prison.

Crump has represented families in both cases as part of his ongoing effort to force accountability for the killings of Black people at the hands of police.

“What I’m trying to do, as much as I can, even sometimes singlehandedly, is increase the value of Black life,” Crump told The Associated Press in 2021 following the conviction a former Minneapolis officer in the murder of George Floyd.

Fort Walton Beach is between Panama City Beach and Pensacola in the Florida Panhandle.

Associated Press reporters Curt Anderson in St. Petersburg, Florida, and Aaron Morrison in New York contributed to this story.

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