LITR 5731 UHCL 2006 sample student midterm

LITR 5731: Seminar in American Multicultural Literature
Sample Student Midterm, Spring 2006

Giselle Hewitt

Sexual Objectification and Empowerment Through Sexuality of African American Women in Literature

Minorities are usually defined so due to their initial relationship with the dominant culture. Sometimes the minority status can be changed since race is not the sole factor in being a minority. As pointed out in Erin Gouner’s 2001 midterm, “The struggles facing a minority group are further complicated when these different facets of minority categories are combined and an identity as a double minority is created.” Women as a minority group share the struggle to become unfettered from the chains of inequality. African American women, throughout their writing, have exposed how being a “double minority” changes their identity as a minority.

African American’s original “social contract” with the dominant culture was one of “forced participation” and their initial relationship with the dominant culture was as property, while African American women were further lowered in their status as property to being used as sexual objects by their owners. In Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, she explains the added burden female slaves had to endure by their masters. Jacobs describes a fairly pleasant childhood, which was turned upside down at the onset of puberty. Her realization of her sexuality was marked by a constant “tremble” when she heard her “masters footfall” and the understanding that “she [was] no longer a child”. As a female slave, beauty was an unwanted “curse” because the master would hand select them as his personal sexual objects (361).

A theme of sexual objectification is consistent for African American women in literature, however, beyond the slave narrative of Jacobs. Instead of being sexual slaves of their “masters”, though, many African American women post-slavery have been turned into “prisoners” in their own homes due to their sex, which is seen as “weaker”. According to a survey in The Impossible Dilemma an article published in The New Republic, “In 1992… young black females (largely as the result of sexual assault) were 70 percent more likely then their white counterparts… to be victims of crimes.” The purpose of this essay is not to study the questions of why this trend is, but to show the existence of the trend and to study other commonalities African American women in literature have with sexual objectification and empowerment of their sexuality as a positive force.

Objectification has created a subsidiary, servile role for women and robbed them of their voice. The loss of voice, which is a common characteristic of minority groups, can also be lost through the pressures and fear of family, friends, or society as a whole. In Slave Girl, Jacobs showed a direct loss of voice through her “master” who “may treat you as rudely as he pleases, and you dare not speak” (385). She also explained how hard it was for her to tell her own grandmother about her master’s attempts and her pregnancy solution saying, “My lips moved to make confession, but the words stuck in my throat (387).” Shame and fear of not being seen as “virtuous” – a very important characteristic of her self-identity, led to a loss of voice with her grandmother.

In Song of Solomon, Ruth and her daughters never really spoke about their lack of voice, but they knew it existed. They weren’t there to speak, but to be showcased as Macon Dead’s success much like his house and his car. Every Sunday the whole family would pile into his “green Packard” in order for Macon to display that “he was indeed a successful man.” Ruth’s lack of voice can be seen in her mundane existence inside of the Dead house. In the first chapter, she talks about a water stain on the dining room table. The stain begins as a symbol of her prominent background – marking where her father always had some sort of fresh cut flowers throughout her childhood. Later the stain becomes a constant reminder of her existence or lack thereof – symbolizing both her inability to escape the prison of her husband and the difficulty she has speaking to him about the situation. “She knew it was there, would always be there, but she needed to confirm its presence…[it was a] stable visual object that assured her that the world was still there; that this was life and not a dream…(11).” Ruth was a token for Macon – the daughter of the doctor of “Not Doctor St.”, and he was sure to tell her that she “ain’t nobody” except her “daddy’s daughter (67).” This link, in Macon’s mind, was the only thing that made her worthy of him.

Precious Jones, in the novel Push, lost her voice before it really began to shape and take form. From about the age of two, she became an object for both her parents. Her father used her for his own sexual gratification, while her mother used her as a ploy to keep this man in their lives. Knowing that she didn’t have a voice, “…she just stopped—stopped talking, bouncing the ball, filling in the dotted lines, identifying shapes and colors. What difference did it make if the purple blob was a square or a circle (18).” She gave up on learning, and the education system gave up on her. She was quiet and didn’t create a problem in class so they passed her even though the test showed there was something missing from their equation of her. Precious knows that they can’t see beyond the test saying, “the tesses paint a picture of me an’ my muver – my whole family, we more than dumb, we invisible…I see myself disappear in their eyes, their tesses. I talk loud but still don’t exist (33).” Precious knows that she doesn’t have a voice so she gives up trying until she is confronted and makes the decision to become “visible”.

As with all minority groups the “dilemma” of “assimilation or resistance” comes into play for African American women. They must ask themselves whether they will “fight or join” the role that has been placed on them by those around them. Some African American women will find empowerment through their sexuality – making the experience their own. Sexuality as defined by the hardnessfactor.com, “is a total sensory experience, involving the whole mind and body--not just the genitals. Sexuality is shaped by a person's values, attitudes, behaviors, physical appearance, beliefs, emotions, personality, likes and dislikes, and spiritual selves, as well as all the ways in which one has been socialized.” Therefore if a woman changes the “shape” of her “values, attitudes, physical appearance, emotions, personality” or any of the other characteristics listed above they can reshape their sexuality and find power. Empowerment, which often requires creating new rules, can take many forms as is seen in the African American women characters throughout literature.

Harriet Jacobs’ power comes from choosing which white man to have her children with (she knows she can’t choose a black man because her master could kill or get rid of him with little or no legal repercussions). She wanted to remain “virtuous” as her grandmother had taught her, but when it appeared her master would not give up on his sexual advances towards her she changed the rules on him, thus gaining back some power of self. Jacobs’ choice to have children with a white man (other than her master) led to her ability to get her children freed. She knew this man did not want another white man selling or harming his children even if they were mixed with a slave’s blood.

Ruth, Hagar, and Pilate are three of the African American women in Song of Solomon who were empowered through choices used to change their sexuality in order to create a positive self-image for themselves. Ruth, a woman who had gone so long with “nobody touching [her], or even looking as though they’d like to touch [her]”, had been “pressed small” by her husband (125). Macon was able to further objectify Ruth by denying her this intimacy that she yearned for, while he openly “went to ‘bad houses’ or lay sometimes, with a slack or lonely female tenant.” Ruth wanted a son and after talking to Pilate decided to give Macon a “greenish gray powder” to put him into a “sexual hypnosis” hoping to “reinstate their sex lives’. Even though the “hypnosis” wore off and she was returned to her gloomy existence, she was empowered briefly by her choices and able to assert her sexuality in order to have her son.

Hagar much like Ruth was hurt and denied intimacy from the man that she loved. Hagar, who had fallen completely in love with Milkman, found out when he was bored with the relationship that she had merely been a sexual object for him. Milkman used her and when he was done he sent her a note telling her that he was finished. He didn’t even find it worth his time to sit down and talk to her. Hagar soon found that “nothing could pull her mind away from the mouth Milkman was not kissing”. She could not function in her daily life and settled deep into a depression, until she decided to take action against him. “When any contact with him at all was better than none, she stalked him. She could not get his love, so she settled for his fear (128).” She became empowered to take action and reassert her sexuality as a strong force through the strength of her “emotion” for him. Hagar had successfully flipped the table on Milkman, and for a while he was the object that was being hunted. As soon as he stopped running and stood up to her, however, she lost her found empowerment and returned to her original state of depression.

Pilate also was a victim of sexual objectification. Once she was out on her own, she soon found out that there were many who only saw her as an object. The first sort of adoptive father she had was a preacher who “started pattin on [her]” and she “didn’t know enough to stop him (141).” She also realized that these men were not able to accept the fact that she lacked a navel. Even the women around her treated her as a strange or evil object rather than a person. She had a child and cared deeply for the father, but she knew that even though he said he loved her and wanted to marry her that he didn’t love her enough to accept everything about her. Pilate then in an empowering moment chose to change her “physical appearance” and her sexuality forever. “She cut her hair…then she tackled the problem of trying to decide how she wanted to live and what was valuable to her…she knew there was nothing to fear (149).” Giving up all care for structure she decided to only give energy towards helping and healing people.

It may appear as though Pilate has had a complete role reversal, however she has chosen to embrace the role as a nurturer, which is commonly associated with women and motherhood. In a sense she becomes a mother to many of the characters throughout the novel, such as Ruth, Milkman, and Guitar. She made her own living and created her own community with a separate set of rules. Then through a self-proclaimed sexual abstinence she took away any possibility of being objectified in this manner. Unlike Ruth and Hagar she was empowered through sexual abstinence and she was the only one to remain in her state of empowerment. In Song of Solomon Pilate has only one moment that she appears to have lost some of her power and this is in the police station, but in this scene she has been taken out of her community and placed back into a world where she is the “double minority”. Pilate understands that to get what she wants she must play by the rules, and as soon as she enters back into her world she “was tall again…and her voice was back (207).”

In the novel Push, Precious Jones finds empowerment with personal growth and a better understanding of the world around her. Precious’ first moment of empowerment comes with her pregnancy. Pregnancy allowed her to begin talking about her parents and the sexual abuse she had endured from the both of them. Before she became pregnant she was just another girl who lacked potential, but with the birth of her kids it became obvious that she suffered from abuse. Even though the only time she hinted to the problem was by listing her father as the father of her baby, this gave her a voice for the first time. Another moment of empowerment comes with the realization that she isn’t alone in her experience with incest. Going to her first incest meeting she felt “alive”, and afterwards she went to a coffee shop and had “hot chocolate in Village wif girls—all kind who love [her].” For the first time in her life she felt as if she were “winning” and her “Mama and Daddy is not win (133).” In this moment she finally understood that it was her parents who were the odd ones, and that she was normal. She embraced her sexuality, and began to realize that it was okay to have sexual feelings and want to be “loved by boyz.” Precious’ final moment of empowerment comes when she sees her son as an expression of herself. Precious is a good mother and he is a good son. As she stated in the end of the novel, “In his beauty I see my own (142).” She has made great strides in her own personal growth despite the roadblocks that were set before her at a very early age, and for the first time she sees herself as “beautiful”.

As a “double minority” group African American women have many struggles they must face and overcome in order to find their “dream”. In their initial relationship with the dominant culture they were placed into a role of sexual objectification, however, sexual objectification of African American women has continued as a common struggle that is still being faced today. There is a parallel between the aspects found in “the Dream” and African American women’s fight to be seen as people and not objects. They are choosing to resist the role regardless of how many setbacks they run into. Empowerment is often found through the woman’s reshaping of their sexuality and creating a new positive self-image allowing them to combat the role. Maya Angelou speaks of this new sexual image in her poem “Still I Rise” when she says, “Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise that I dance like I’ve got diamonds at the meeting of my thighs?” Angelou is telling the reader that she is proud of her beauty and her sexuality. Even though she comes from a “past that’s rooted in pain”, she refuses to give up and will continue to “rise”.

Outside Works Cited

Loury, Glenn. “The Impossible Dilemma.” The New Republic January 1, 1996, pp 21-25.