Transcript African American Women’s Experience

African American
Women’s Experience
The experience of African American is
unique and part and parcel of the African
American experience overall.
Problems through experience
“Sexuality, cultural roles, and gender relations early
became central problems in the organizational and cultural
responses of African-Americans to their enslavement and
to their subsequent experience”
AAC, 82
Causes of the problems
 Euro-American ideals
 1. Men and women
have different spheres.
 2. Women are
“protected.”
 3. Families are kept
together.
 4. Different roles for
men and women.
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5. Freedom to
associate.
 African reality
 1. Women worked beside
the men in the fields.
 2. Women were degraded
along with the men.
 3. Families were
intentionally broken up.
 4. Roles of men and
women were made the
same.
 5. The church was
reluctantly, belatedly and
tenuously given approval
Women faced problems
1. Race
2. Class
3. Gender
A Black Woman’s context
 Although their circumstances created
problems it also gave African American
women a unique perspective on life.
 Black women developed a “multiple
consciousness” which enabled them to have
a critique unique only to them.
Role Models Characteristics
 Autonomous
 Independent
 Strong
 Self-reliant
Religious Imagination
 Priestesses
 Cult Leaders
 Female deities
 Female images of the divine
African American Church Realities
 The African-American church is male
dominated for a couple of reasons:
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Most African societies are patriarchal
America is patriarchal
African American churches were theologically
influenced by their “evangelists”
Result of the tensions
 African American women supported one
another in child rearing and child bearing
(e.g. many became midwives)
 Helped each other in religious life
 Became religious leaders in the slave
community
Two dominant aspects of the dual
oppression of race and gender.
 1. Development of
“dual-sex politics” in
historically Black
churches.
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Autonomous
independent
self reliant
 2. Development of the
“tradition of conflict.”
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Politically active
Community work
Resist the “imposition
of Euro-American
patriarchy
The Tension Between
 European Religious
 African Thought
Thinking
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Compartmentalization
Specialization vs.
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Thorough integration
Group responsibility
Importance of Women in African
Societies
 This created unique problems and yet was
the strength of resistance for the women to
total enslavement.
 Women were able to “impose” themselves
onto the political process through cooperation
among themselves.
 Women provided a strong economic base.
African Roles for Women
 Business Persons
 Politically Organized
 Mutually Supportive
Economic
 Controlled certain industries
 High economic position
 Were traders
 What they traded or negotiated belonged to
them (usually)
 Raised food--planted and maintained crops
Political Organization
 Expressed their disapproval and secured
their demands by
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public demonstrations
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through ridicule
satirical singing and dancing
group strikes
Mutual Support
 Supported each other through organizations
which dealt with problems of:
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violations of domestic law
decisions concerning agricultural labor
mutual aid
situations involving men
African Women’s organizations
were based on economic status,
age and social status
Black Women’s Support
 Women were members of organizations with
like status.
 Peers were called “sister” and elders were
called “mother.”
Sometimes the women had
“institutional authority.”
Authority in titles
 Omu -- Queen
 Ilogo -- Women’s cabinet
 These women held real power and the queen
was not necessarily the wife of a king but
were important contacts between men’s world
and women’s world.
Dual-Sex Politics of Black Churches
 African American women played and continue
to play a very powerful role in Church life.
Various Roles
 Teacher
 Evangelist
 Missionary
 Deaconess
 “Sister”
Recognized Role
 Church Mother
 older woman
 spiritually mature
 morally upright
 Mother
 spiritual/moral leader
 highly influential
 state mother
 Political Activist
 active in community
 active in church
 stressed education
 were educators
 started national
organizations
Recognized ability
 Baptist and African
Methodist women were
highly sought after by
the founders of
Holiness and
Pentecostal churches
 In the new
denominations they
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established schools
educated members
preached at various
services
founded churches
maintained a church
until a pastor arrived
became wives of
pastors and bishops
Structural Importance
in COGIC congregations
 The women’s department was built on the
role of church mother
 The term “missionary” and “evangelist”
developed out of the prohibition against
women preaching
 Missionary and evangelist needed to have
the signatures of both the Bishop and Church
Mother on their certificate
Structural
 Sometimes the title “missionary” referred to
all of the various roles of women
 While the term minister encompasses the
male roles
 There were also “double pulpits” one for non
“preachers” and another one for “preachers”
Some of these structures also exist
in the Black Baptist Churches
Handling Black Male Domination
in Black Churches
Methods used by Black Women
 Black Female Hermeneutic
 Women’s Day
 Changing church membership
 Founding churches
 “Militant assertion of personhood”
 Confidence in their own abilities for the larger
society
Origins of “Black Biblical
Feminism”
 Jarena Lee (1783? - )
Although the AME
Church did not ordain
she was permitted to
“speak” meetings.
 Rebecca Cox Jackson
(1795-1871)
 Became a member of the
Shakers because of their
stand.
 Amanda Berry Smith (18371915)
 Holiness
 “Gifted singer, preacher,
evangelist, and
missionary”
 There are quite a few
churches in AME which have
women as pastors.
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http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3h91b.html
http://muweb.millersville.edu/~ugrr/tellingstories/demosite/Columbia/women/images/amanda_berry_smith.jpg
An Influential Women
 Ida B Wells-Barnett
http://www.iun.edu/~wostnw/history/images/Ida_B_Wells.jpg
Response by Men
 Although the large Black Baptist Conventions
have a number of churches which oppose
women pastors some of these churches do
have women as pastors
Some of the Biblical arguments
used by women
 God used women in every capacity--owners,
evangelists, teachers, helpers, military
 God made women equal to men
 Men come from women
Women fought Black patriarchy
in two ways
 1. Expanded analysis of women’s role. They
used Biblical arguments in defense of women
their work. They did it to the point where
sermons were affected--men had to “finely
tune” and elaborate their argument. One
practice was for the women to name the
unnamed woman in a text. (woman with the
issue of blood “Safronia”
 2. They fully developed the Woman’s Day
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One Sunday each year the women would lead
in the worship in everything from Sunday
School to the main worship service to special
program to the evening service.
It became and still is a national event in that it
is practiced by many Black Churches
Dilemmas of Commitment
 “In spite of male domination, the black church
functions for women as a women’s institution.
Dual-sex politics mean that women have the
autonomy necessary to provide their own
leadership training. While their access to
authority within the church is limited, women
occupy roles which are authoritative within
the scope of the entire tradition.”