History 326 Readings Wiki

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====== Freedom's Yoke: Gender Conventions among Antebellum Free Blacks ======

===== Social Expectations =====

Horton mainly argued that gender roles, among formerly enslaved people in the late 1880s to early 1900's, were influenced by multiple factors such as social expectations combined with racism. For instance, Horton discussed that many Black men in the north faced harsh economic discrimination because they were only able to work low-paying jobs, outside of the many opportunities in the industrial work industry. Within the institute of slavery, men were expected to be strong providers who used their hands to provide for their families physically. However, once large groups of Black men began migrating north, racism remained rampant during the antebellum period, which severely restricted housing and education, making working a further obstacle for freemen. Nevertheless, Black women ultimately began working in factories and shipyards, while also serving as caregivers at home. Therefore, there became a gender expectational shift within the Black community in the North, because women became the primary providers while also being expected to care for children and be wives. (Allisya Smith)

The reading demonstrates how black people were influenced by black led news publications showing how men and women were expected to act with women often due to economic strain being pressured to take on most domestic responsibility while also working a job to make enough income. Men on other hand were expected to lead by example and teach their children a trade so that the next generation advance the progress of the race. Adding on the idea of advancing the black race, both men and women were expected to be representatives for their race by acting in an ideal manner so their communities would gain respect. (Henry Prior)

===== Gender and the Struggle for Racial Equality =====

The struggle for racial equality also shaped gender expectations in free Black communities. Adherence to gender roles and the avoidance of gendered and racialized stereotypes became one way to legitimize Black communities in the eyes of white society. Despite the acknowledgements that racial oppression limited the ability of Black men to achieve gendered ideals, Black women were often held to standards that were impossible to meet. To abide by gender roles, she would ideally stay in the home, perform domestic duties, and raise children, not only helping her family but demonstrating the femininity of Black women. However, there was also the acknowledgement that the economic advancement of Black families required women to work. However, this didn't lessen these expectations of domestic achievement, which instead were expected to be performed alongside paid work. Often, this was also balanced alongside community work to advance racial equality, in which Black women were simultaneously praised for their involvement even as they were barred from positions of power. (Cameron Spivy)

The masculinity of African American men - partly due to traditions older than enslavement, partly due to conspicuous attempts to replicate the "gender conventions" of White America - was reliant on the submission of African American women to patriarchy. Even if the socioeconomic conditions in which Black Americans lived did not allow for Black men to live out the patriarchal ideal, Black women were expected to act with deference towards them, and allow them to feel "tough and protective". (Nick Thodal)

There was significant discourse in the abolitionist community as to the role Black women were to play in their liberation. On one hand, many abolitionists - the famous Frederick Douglass among them - argued that women should be welcomed into the abolitionist movement, and furthermore that women's suffrage and abolition were all part of the same struggle towards human equality. However, the more prevailing view was that politics was a masculine realm, and a masculine realm it should remain. Abolitionist and free Black men did not have an inherent problem with women participating in abolitionist societies, or even with women speaking at abolitionist meetings, but were of the opinion that it was not a woman's place to argue abolition to the wider public, which may have been more willing to listen to abolitionist ideas if they came from men - the traditional public actors. Therefore, most abolitionist speakers and organizers were men, even though many women (White and Black) participated in the abolitionist movement. (Nick Thodal)

This reading identifies economic pressure and gendered workloads that present differently across both race and gender identities. Horton argues that ideally, women would be domesticated but due to the necessity for compensation, black families relied on multiple incomes to survive and function. This argument sheds light on the constraints of male labor where skilled black men like Frederick Douglas were denied trade work for white competitors. Black men were also forced to work mundane tasks for low compensation. On the other hand, black women were forced to show up as a “True Women” who works twelve hours a day as domestic servants and titles alike; all while maintaining their own household and taking care of her own kids. Horton uses this factoid to express how black women carried the burdens of black men that (white) society inflicted onto them.(Reiley Gibson)

This reading demonstrates that in the antebellum south, slave owners sought to emasculate enslaved black men in ways like punishing them in front of their women and children to demonstrate the manliness of the owner but also helplessness of the enslaved man's position, therefore, in the eyes of the owner making him less of a man. However despite these efforts, the reading claims that enslaved women weren't convinced by this and instead respected enslaved men knowing what was and was not possible their circumstances in a way resisting the power of the owner. (Henry Prior)

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