Rising black middle-class incomes fostered women’s pursuit of idealized femininity

Evidence

An emerging black middle class meant that groups of black females had more money than ever before to spend buying fashions, cosmetics, or reading magazines like McCall’s and Ladies Home Journal. Masses of black women who at one time were proud of their ability to work outside the home and yet be good housewives and mothers became discontented with their lot. They wanted only to be housewives and expressed openly their rage and hostility toward black men—a hostility that emerged because they were convinced black men were not striving hard enough to assume the role of sole economic provider in the home so that they could be housewives. — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 514

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Black women themselves pressured men into the breadwinner role; Black middle-class respectability stigmatized calypso as lower-class degeneracy; Black women’s workforce participation did not produce feminist consciousness — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 238 (+5 more)

Related

• Capitalist economic change, not feminism, drove women into the workforce (similarity 0.85)
• Black women’s workforce participation did not produce feminist consciousness (similarity 0.84)
• Black middle-class advancement sharpened cultural divisions within black society (similarity 0.84)
• Black women have always been free from femininity’s protective constraints. (similarity 0.83)
• The mainstream women’s movement was deliberately structured around white middle-class interests. (similarity 0.82)
• Racist, sexist socialization conditioned black women to devalue femaleness and identify only with race (similarity 0.81)
• The American public idealized black women embracing roles they rejected (similarity 0.81)
• White middle-class women are less oppressed than poor or black women (similarity 0.80)
• Feminism must combat domination across sex, race, and class, not just male chauvinism (similarity 0.80)
• Black women’s silence on sexism stemmed from socialization that devalued their femaleness (similarity 0.80)
• Black men asserted dominance over women to compensate for losing to white men (similarity 0.80)
• Black women’s exploitation is better described as masculinization than black men’s de-masculinization. (similarity 0.79)
• Black women needed a separate feminist intellectual tradition (similarity 0.79)
• Black women experienced sexist oppression distinct from racism (similarity 0.79)
• The women’s movement equated liberation with capitalist economic success (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Black women’s workforce participation did not produce feminist consciousness #complicates (0.50) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 238
• Black women themselves pressured men into the breadwinner role #complicates (0.40)
• The 1950s, not the 70s black macho, socialized black women into sexist roles #complicates (0.35)
• Black middle-class respectability stigmatized calypso as lower-class degeneracy #expands (0.30)