"The Task of Negro Womanhood" 10/1

In “The Task of Negro Womanhood” we learn that African American women are not all the stereotypical domestic laborers, rather they are struggling for education and economic opportunity just as their white counterparts of the time. As business owners and clerical workers they are struggling (and in some cases succeeding) for advancements. As college educated teachers and social workers they are educating both the black and white students, as well as forming and leading social organizations designed to benefit women and children. As union members they are demanding better education and an understanding of union rights, and even when they are domestic laborers, they strive to clearly outline work distinctions, so as to spend more time caring for their own families. Elise MacDougald makes clear that African American women will not be considered the “Aunt Jemima’s” of old, and in fact, that they are valued members of their races improvement.
Of course, this argument cannot be made without some response to the commonly held belief, even at that time, that African American women were some how inherently less moral than other women, making their economic struggles suspicious, and even their role as mothers and teachers some how less valid. Thus, she sites “sex irregularities” or moral standards a factor of socio- economic conditions, and not of race. Specifically pointing out that;
“illegitimacy among negroes is cause for shame and grief. When economic social and
biological factors combine to bring about unwed motherhood, the reaction is much the
same as in families in other racial groups.”(380)
She goes on to say that stigma does fall on the unwed mother, but the general attitude is one is of the way in which more modern thought would deemed it appropriate to treat the unfortunate, conjuring ideas of sympathy and understanding. Similar to what we can discern from Jean Toomer’s Cane.
Although many of the women described in Cane would be considered “loose” by the periods standards, it is clear that Toomer sympathizes with women who must struggled and often, be subjected to sexual mistreatment, in order to survive. It is also evident that these women, specifically Fern, show a repentance and desire to understand what they have done. Thus, portraying these women as clearly understanding of moral norms, and at odds with the way they sometimes have to live. A fact not portrayed by writers of the period and even there after, who described the black women of the south as either ‘the mammy or the sex object .’
I found this week’s reading to be very interesting, maybe because we haven’t really read that much pertaining to African American women so far. Also, I’m interested to see things being written about African Americans in the workforce, especially by women in this time period. During the labor seminar last semester I got a chance to read a lot of work with a similar thesis (by authors such as Patricia Morton and Tera Hunter.) However, I got the impression that this was a relatively new ideology, which, if even discussed in primary documents, was only in newspaper articles by the likes of Marvel cooke and Ella Baker some time later.