Paper Topic:

race, class and gender

p 2 To what extent does Daviss chapter support our belief in rape as a crime of domination ? Are white-on-white rapes parallel to the rape of black women by white men (whether as slave women or post emancipation as freewomen ? Why or why not ? Do the stereotypes perpetuated in the American dialect of English rationalize or enable the society sanctioned rape of black women in Davis ? Consider other essays from Race , Class and Gender to support your argument . The rape of black women by white men , certainly have a different social repercussion

than if white males rape and de white women . There will always be this fascination and dark obsession with the image of the Afro-American female , as seen in the novels of Toni Morrison [ Beloved , and The Bluest Eye , etc .] . The rationale here can be found in the history of subjugation and slavery that is to the Afro-American

historical legacy of both the male and female gender of this respective race . American dialect is not sympathetic to the historical past of the Afro-American woman . Words like , hoe ' and nigger-woman ' connote gender bias and trace their roots to the old role of the black woman in America 's past . She was the colored woman working in the cotton fields the servant in the Puritanical -elite homes of Southern territories , and the Negress woman singing Love for Sale ' in the salons and clubs of America 's Harlem Renaissance . The object is objectified and seen in relation to a common farm tool , transforming her dignity into someone who is only meant to be useful , used , and made for the tasks that are connected to the toil of earth , grit , grime , and dirt : which for the white chauvinistic and racist American male , has everything to do with the color of her skin . A hoe ' which is also means a shovel , calls to mind the physical meanderings of most sexual acts , wherein something forceful and hard is thrust into the softness of fertile ground , in repeated motions . And this softness , is the unassuming black female , who is the white man 's ready victim in his eyes . As field workers often translate work on the field as a channel by which to release feelings of anger , rage , and aggression so too , does the rape of the black woman become a twisted version of the need for the release of the white male . Which should not be the case , since , this situation can also be applied to the plight of the black American woman for the many years of trying to fight the strains of gender bias and ethnic hatred , she must be seen differently in the modern age . She should be respected , just like any ordinary white American woman . The past must be buried and so should the use of words like hoe ' and nigger-woman . She may have the color of the earth upon her , but let us not condemn her to the earthen strife of human existence...

2 pages

8.1 KB

Free sing-up