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Cooking In Other Women's Kitchen Summary

1651 Words7 Pages

Antonette Wade
Analysis Paper: “Cooking in Other Women’s Kitchens: Domestic Workers in the South,1865-1960” by Rebecca Sharpless and “Hidden Figures” by Margot Lee Shetterly

Wade 1 After the Civil War, African American women had thought they were going to live a life of freedom with the same benefits as their white counterparts. However, the newly freed African American women in the south had didn’t have too much money, barely had education and racism impacted every one of their lives. The change from being slaves to being free was a difficult and worrisome thing for most black women who lived through the enslavement knowing "that what they got wasn't what they wanted; it wasn't freedom, really."
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It was difficult enough to rise above the silent reminders of Colored signs on the bathroom doors and cafeteria tables. But to be confronted with the prejudice so blatantly, there in that temple to intellectual excellence and rational thought, by something so mundane, so ridiculous, so universal as having to go to the bathroom...In the moment when the white women laughed at her, Mary had been demoted from professional mathematician to a second-class human being, reminded that she was a black girl whose piss wasn't good enough for the white pot”(pg.108.Shetterly). Mary Jackson had showed the young girls at the Girl Scouts that they be/do anything and shouldn’t believe the negative stereotypes about themselves and other African Americans. She had told them that but yet she was being treated less than her white counterparts. During the 1960s, a time when racial segregation was the law of the land, and gender discrimination was still normal. In Virginia, where the story takes place, local Jim Crow laws enforced segregation and discrimination against African-Americans, who were legally obligated to use separate facilities. Though NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia did hire women and African-Americans, offices, restrooms and other areas were kept

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This includes poor women as they escalated on the political scene during the war, allowing more women to take on new positions within the state and federal governments. On the other end of the spectrum, African-Americans were increasingly hostile to the idea of fighting and/or working for the Confederacy, which would eventually lead many African Americans to flee plantations. This damaged Confederate society as well as accelerated the end of the war. Addressing past historiographical authors and works, McCurry notes that “developments in the C.S.A. are of little significance in the drama of emancipation it plots,” and this speaks to the boldness of McCurry in expanding the story to include new voices. Building upon this, the author makes excellent use of sourcing, choosing to rely principally upon primary source

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Mary Mebane recalls as freshmen was stopped by the chairman’s wife because of how well Mary scored on her verbal examination compared to the white people at her school. She knows that the chairman 's wife thought it was a fluke and she speaks to her, but Mebane knows that this is out of an act of racism. Mebane then shows African people how their people are just viewed as numbers. She also shows the stereotype how light skin students were smarter people than darker students but what was even worse to the eyes of the school is that she is a dark- skinned woman. She continues to target African women with the example of her friend Lucy which was a, “Dark Dark skinned” girl that chose to hang around a light skin girl named Patricia.

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Although some of the masters mistress were well taken cared of, there were times were the African American women was forced into having sexual relations with the master or his children and were still forced to work outside with the others. The role of an African American women compared to the role of a white women were very different. In antebellum because of their sex most women were assumed to be weaker, and believed to be intellectually and physically suited for only domestic work.

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Imagine growing up on a cotton plantation to former slaves in Delta, becoming an “orphan at the age of 7, becoming a wife at the age of 14, a mother at 17 and a widow at 20?” This all describes the early life of Sarah Breedlove, better known as Madam C.J Walker. “She supported her family by washing laundry and she used her earning as a laundress to pay for her daughter’s education at Knoxville College” .In 1889, Madam C.J Walker moved to St. Louis in search of a better future.

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It is the 1960’s and racism is still a major problem in the United States; however, there were those such as Martin Luther King and Flannery O’Connor who use speeches and stories to fight the ever growing problem of discrimination. As read in O’Connor’s short story “Revelation” , Mrs. Turpin is a prejudiced woman who believes she is better than African-Americans and “white thrash”. She even states at one time, “You can’t get the white folks to pick it and now you can’t get the blacks because they got to be right up there with the white folks (O’Connor 9).” She says this while she waits in a waiting room of a doctor’s office to a nice lady of her status.

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The culture, history, economy, and politics of the Southern states have been studied extensively. Yet, one element of life in the South has received much less attention: women 's experiences during childbirth (Simon, Richard M. "Women 's Birth Experiences and Evaluations: A View from the American South" no. 1, 2016, pp.1-38). Childbirth plays a substantial role in enslaved woman 's lives positively and negatively. During slavery, enslaved poor women who were wet-nurses were forced to give up their milk just to feed another women’s child. Feeding another woman 's child with one 's own milk constituted a form of labor, but it was work that could only be undertaken by lactating women who had borne their own children (West, E. and Knight, R. "Mother 's Milk: Slavery, Wet-Nursing and Black and White Women in the Antebellum South" no. 37, 2017, pp.

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The excerpt I chose to reflect on is called “An End to the Neglect of the Problems of the Negro Woman!” by Claudia Jones (1949). Jones express the concerns that women of color in her time suffer from the neglect and degradation they receive throughout their lives. During this time, the reason many African American women go through the struggles in their community originated from the notion that the “bourgeoisie is fearful of the militancy of the Negro woman” (108). In my opinion, they have every right to be afraid of African American women. As Jones stated nicely "once Negro women undertake action, the militancy of the whole Negro people, and thus of the anti-imperialist coalition, is greatly enhanced" (108).

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Her tragedy reflects not only the sexism in the African American families in early 20th century, but also the uselessness

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Boydston writes, “But if middle-class women were encased in the image of the nurturant (and non laboring) mother, working-class women found that their visible inability to replicate that model worked equally hard against them.” The standard during the Antebellum period was a woman that didn’t do any kind of laborious task other than housework which was thought as being an enriching and awarding process. However, wage-earning women visibly were unable to live up to these new standards because they were forced out of their own gender sphere of domesticity just to find work. During the Antebellum period, it was believed to be a men’s sphere to work and men masculinity was based on the fact of being the main “breadwinner” for the family. By a woman going into this sphere they went against the formation of the two gender spheres.

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The 1920’s were a period filled with an overflow of social change and the literature of the time showcased this change, from the changing viewpoints on woman, to the voice of the black community gaining grounds, and the

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However, it’s a known fact that the majority of enslaved women worked in the fields. In this novel, the enslaved women experiences mostly consisted of having to work in households as cooks, housekeepers; some as sexual slaves, and how some women became so used to the abuse that it was a norm. One of the experiences enslaved women happened to go through was having to work in households as cooks. While living in the Weylin household Dana meets various slaves including one whose name is Sarah. Sarah was a “stocky middle-aged woman” who not only struggled as an enslaved women but also as the cook of the Weylin household (Butler 72).

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As miserable as it is to be a slave in the South, being a black women worsens the condition. The role of a black women in both the Union and the Confederacy have always been portrayed and elaborated on the orthodox that black women are meant for manual labor, for being tools and for assisting men. However, black women in the South are treated much harsher of course. Majority of black women enslaved were vulnerable to rape, physical abuse and having their families taken away. While the Confederacy took black male slaves into the camp, black women were left to care for their children themselves while managing their plantations and other labor.

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Have you ever imagined what it was like for an African American person back in the 1800’s when they were considered “free”? Back then, black people were used as slaves, and they didn’t gain their absolute freedom from slavery until 1865 when it was completely abolished. They gave Africans certain rights that weren’t completely fair. It really makes you question whether black people were really free in that time. When all blacks were released from slavery, what rights did they really have?

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The discrimination against the white race begins with a gradual distinct treatment of the African Americans who appear to have a trace of the white race. Helene proves to have a more formal dialect as she asks for “the bathroom” (23) and the black woman cannot understand until Helene finally refers to it as “the toilet” (23). The difference in word choice distinct Helene from the African Americans in the Bottom. The fact that Helene also has fairer skin than the African Americans gives the black woman a reason to believe Helene has a trace of white. Therefore, when Helene approaches the black woman on the train, “[the woman fastens her eyes]…on the thick velvet, the fair skin, [and] the high tone voice” (23), as if surprised and shocked to see an African American women appear in such a manner.

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Black women are treated less than because of their ascribed traits, their gender and race, and are often dehumanized and belittled throughout the movie. They are treated like slaves and are seen as easily disposable. There are several moments throughout the film that show the racial, gender, and class inequalities. These moments also show exploitation and opportunity hoarding. The Help also explains historical context of the inequality that occurred during that time period.

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