What exactly is the "Angry Black Woman"stereotype? The blog, Angry Black Woman summarizes this stereotype very well:
It’s true that the Angry Black Woman is a negative stereotype. Black men don’t like us, white people fear us, and non-angry black women wish we would stop being so loud. Anger isn’t going to solve all of the world’s problems, true. Anger is sometimes an unhealthy emotion. Sometimes it’s not. We sometimes need to get angry to propel us toward positive change or to stop injustice and oppression. We can’t stop being angry until the fight is over. And the fight is far from over, kids.
Are Black Women on TV so angry? Cal Thomas on Fox News said thisabout Angry Black Women:
Look at the image of angry black women on television. Politically you have Maxine Waters of California, liberal Democrat. She's always angry every time she gets on television. Cynthia McKinney, another angry black woman. And who are the black women you see on the local news at night in cities all over the country. They're usually angry about something. They've had a son who has been shot in a drive-by shooting. They are angry at Bush. So you don't really have a profile of non-angry black women.
Of course others on the show did mention that Oprah Winfrey wasn’t all that angry- and they could have added the hugely popular Tyra Banks to that list. Both those women are comfortable in their womanhood, without failing to acknowledge society is obsessed with the physical appearance of all women. Tyra was quite angry over being called fat when she weighed a normal amount- and America applauded her for her defense of normal.
Is it sexist that people keep talking about Michelle Obama’s beauty and her grooming and her motherhood and wifehood and hardly mention her career? What about attacks on Michelle calling her "lantern-jawed" or "grim" or having a log-sized chip on her shoulder? Is it appropriate for people to discuss Michelle Obama’s "guns" and not Hillary Clinton’s cleavage, since they both are fashion statements (sleeveless vs V-neck?) Is it sexist that Vogue is making Cindy McCain a fashion icon, photographing her lounging in her size 0 jeans with her thin blonde hair carefully arranged around her? Why are people not talking about Cindy’s career as a wealthy woman and corporate head? Could it be there are a few more skeletons in Cindy’s closet than in Michelle Obama’s closet? What about attacks on Cindy as a brainless, frozen, Stepford wife plastered with make-up? Is that sexism?
Is it sexist, racist or both to call Michelle Obama a "baby mama"? Is there a specific feminist defense of this, when feminists have advocated that women should be supported in their reproductive and marriage decisions? None-the-less, Michelle Obama actually has made very conventional and conservative decisions with regard to education, marriage and reproduction and employment- so accusing her of doing otherwise is just false.
My question is how a feminist should defend Michelle Obama against the untruths and smears leveled against her? How should a feminist defend another woman from the charge that she is an "angry black woman?" Is Michelle Obama a feminist at all and would she welcome defense from traditional, "second wave" feminists like Gloria Steinham or Hillary Clinton or me, given how many people hate feminism and feminists?
We second wave feminists grew up in a different world- we couldn’t obtain birth control unless we were married. We couldn’t work at certain jobs because they were controlled by men who concluded women shouldn’t have such difficult professions (carpenter, electrician, judge). We worked for changes to state laws, brought lawsuits, fought for equal pay for equal work, better divorce settlements, stronger penalties for spouse and partner abuse, protested all male institutions like Harvard and West Point, put up with being called emasculating ball breakers by the media and many men threatened by women in the workforce. We fought for ERA and lost, although there have been many changes occurred in American Society.
Many American women resent feminism and strongly disavow it. They advocate a simpler gentler world, an idealized 19th century world where women stay home and keep house for their spouses and children. Phillis Schlafly who worked tirelessly to defeat the Equal Rights Amendment describes feminism in this fashion:
"The longtime feminist goal of a gender-neutral society was the motivation behind the campaigns for the Equal Rights Amendment and for the feminization of the military. Feminist goals are incompatible with the combat readiness we need in times of war, a priority that has taken on a new urgency because of events since 9/11. The brave firefighters who charged up the towers of the World Trade Center, and our Special Forces who dared to enter the caves in Afghanistan, need our help to defend themselves and their work against the feminists who despise macho men.
The feminists' goal is to eradicate from our culture everything that is masculine and remake us into a gender-neutral society. We see their handiwork in textbook revision and in the constant haranguing by the language gestapo to force us to use such gender-neutral idiocies as he/she. We see this in the war on boys through abolishing recess, overprescribing Ritalin, and the zero tolerance policies that forbid them to play cops and robbers. We see this in the sex integration of Virginia Military Institute and the Citadel, which was a battle not for sex equality but to eliminate macho men. We see this in the implementation of Title IX, which is used not to give women equal opportunity in colleges but as a vehicle to abolish wrestling teams and other sports in which men outperform women.
The feminists showcased their goal in the New York Times Sunday Style section on November 3, 2002. The headline was "She's Got to Be a Macho Girl," and the subtitle was: "In a role reversal, teenage girls are the aggressors when it comes to boys." The article boasted about "the trickle-down effects of feminism" which have taught teenage girls to initiate sex "in a more aggressive manner." One high school senior pontificated: "No one is a stay-at-home mom anymore. Women don't have to wear skirts. We are empowered and we can do whatever we want."
The feminists constantly intimidate men with their assault on the English language. When Mitt Romney, campaigning for governor of Massachusetts in 2002, called the histrionics of his Democratic feminist opponent "unbecoming," the feminists exploded in tantrums of accusations that he had used a sexist word. Actually, since unbecoming means unattractive and creating an unfavorable impression, the word is most apt to politely describe a feminist politician. As Harry Truman used to say, if you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.
In an article published in the Washington Post, Michelle Obama was asked, is she a feminist? Her response:
"You know, I'm not that into labels," Michelle Obama said in the interview. "So probably, if you laid out a feminist agenda, I would probably agree with a large portion of it," she said. "I wouldn't identify as a feminist just like I probably wouldn't identify as a liberal or a progressive."
Apparently only about 20% of Americans (men and women) consider themselves feminists according to the ABC/Washington Post Poll, so I won't get too offended if Michelle Obama has waffled more than I do on this point. I doubt if Michelle Obama would reject equity feminism, which guarantees women have full civil and legal rights. But does she consider herself a Gender Feminist, feminism which criticizes contemporary gender roles and aims to eliminate them altogether.
In May 2008 Michelle stepped back to working part-time in order to assist in her husband’s campaign. She often comments often how important her role as a mother is to her. But she also considers Barack Obama a full partner in their marriage and parenting roles, and doesn’t hesitate to jokingly comment that he needs to keep helping out in the home.
She appeared on "The View" according to the New York Times to reintroduce herself to American women who are home watching TV in the daytime (for whatever reason) and points out she likes looking pretty, being physically fit and dressing well. Michelle's The View Appearance received good reviews in print link and was live-blogged link
I conclude from these interviews that Michelle Obama is more likely a "post-feminist" who recognizes that "women are people". Post-feminists often consider feminism divides the sexes rather than unites them and avoid being labeled. Interesting, ABC News/Washington Post reported last week on a poll concerning Michelle Obama's popularity vs. Cindy McCain.
An even more striking gap may cut to Obama's independent persona; among the two in 10 Americans who call themselves feminists (men and women alike), 60 percent view her favorably. That drops to 45 percent among non-feminists – who are twice as apt as feminists to see her unfavorably.
Some emphatically consider extreme or gender feminist positions to be sexist. Certainly that assertion was made on this blog often with regard to Hillary Clinton. So would Michelle Obama welcome a defense of the "Angry Black Woman" Stereotype on purely feminist grounds given her stated dislike for being labeled? Or is it better to focus on the racial stereotyping which is so clearly motivating these attacks? Or as Audre Lorde states, "There is no thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives."
I think the strongest evidence that both sexism AND racism are at work is the disconnect between Michelle Obama’s life and accomplishments and the caricature being tried out for her. You see, it doesn’t really matter if she went to a wealthy white Ivy League school like Princeton- she just got in because of affirmative action they say. They will even be concerned that the Obamas haven’t released their SAT scores. If her thesis says black students at Ivy League schools feel socially isolated from both communities- white and black- they will misread it as anger. It doesn’t matter if she went to Harvard Law School- she just got in from affirmative action. It doesn’t matter if she passed the bar and got a job at a top corporate law firm- affirmative action. It doesn’t matter that she had her first child 6 years after she married- she is a baby mama because she is black and a woman. It doesn’t matter that she goes to church- she will be blamed for every statement her minister said. It doesn’t matter that her dad and mom worked hard and made overtime- she will be called a liar because she was living above the poverty line so therefore she mustn’t had had much to overcome. It doesn’t matter how successful and beautiful sane and articulate and good she is, she must have a chip on her shoulder and something to prove to people. You know, the people who are sitting back and calling her angrynow.
The Sun-Times mocked this "angry Michelle" theme this week in a great column:
What woman, black or white, who is married to a man who has been compared to John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. would be bitter?
What woman, black or white, whose husband -- in less than 10 years -- goes from having the family's credit card declined at a car-rental counter to earning $4 million for two books he's written is angry?
What woman, black or white, who at 44, has an intact family, two beautiful daughters, a loving mother and an adoring god-mother, a dependable social network, who lives in a mansion in a great neighborhood, would feel anything but blessed?
No. This is angry:
The black woman who is stuck in a slum building in an unsafe neighborhood, she's angry.
The black woman who is dragging her baby's daddy to court once a month trying to get child support, she's angry.
The black woman who has to rob Peter to pay Paul and still can't pay the gas bill, she's angry.
No one's life is perfect, but the Obamas are living the American Dream.
So, it is ridiculous that the mouthpieces for the GOP are having such an easy go of it trying to stereotype Michelle as an angry black woman.
That's what it means when conservative columnist Michelle Malkin is comfortable calling Michelle Barack's "bitter half," and when the conservative National Review labels her Mrs. Grievance.
Condoleezza Rice gave an excellent defense of both Barack and Michelle Obama’s patriotism as well as the Reverend Wright. Rice said –
"What I would like understood as a black American is that black Americans loved and had faith in this country even when this country didn't love and have faith in them -- and that's our legacy," she said.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, another lawyer accused of special treatment under affirmative action, came to resent the racism of America dealt out by liberal as well as conservatives. In his most famous response to his Senate committee hearing he responded,
"And from my standpoint, as a black American, as far as I am concerned, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that, unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you. You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the U.S. Senate, rather than hung from a tree."
How ironic if in Michelle Obama's case, the caricature will come from Fox News and patronizing and untruthful blogs. How ironic that Clarance Thomas should so strongly understand possible bias being judged in the press and the Senate, when he doesn't support any remedy for it in his decisions.
I admire Michelle Obama a great deal, and I know she is perfectly capable of speaking for herself. Nonetheless, she is in an awkward place these days, in the spotlight of public scrutiny. And as that great feminist Gloria Gloria Steinem says, "A pedestal is as much a prison as any other small space."
I hope Michelle can relax and know most Democrats support her more than most Republicans support Cindy McCain AND::
A result from an ABC/Post poll in December pointed the same way: Sixteen percent said that in deciding their vote they give a "great amount" of weight to the candidates' spouses; by contrast 65 percent put a great amount of weight on the issues, 58 percent on the candidates' personal qualities and 54 percent on their professional ability.
"Finally, remember the words of feminist Susi Kaplow:. Because anger takes the woman out of her earth mother role as bastion of peace and calm, out of her familial role as peace-maker, out of her political role as preserver of the status quo, out of her economic role as cheap labor, out of her social role as second-class citizen. It takes her out of roles altogether and makes her a person."
For me you are not just a person Michelle, but a pretty great one!
