Mernissi does not discuss the three sets of parents
1 biological
2 in-laws
3 teachers
In this way the mother gets three times the rights as the father
Mernissi also does not discuss the impact of religion on this family
structure
The Mother-in-law / Daughter-in-law conflict suggests what about
reproduction/production and relations between the sexes?
the mother-in-law is the supervisor in the factory of the couple's
reproduction
girls do not grow up to be a woman, but a mother-in-law
women can enter the lw by being the mother in law
Think about the kinds of relationships that we are supposed to have, and how we reproduce them?
Why are there many mother-in-law jokes, but no father-in-law jokes?
the father is always law.
bell hooks
Black men focus on racism and downplay the effect/impact of sexism for
Black women
Young Black men are given role models, but Black women are not
Black women who speak out against sexism are looked at as traitors to the
race ex. Anita Hill
A hierarchy of issues is created--racist then sexist
The structure of society pits Black men against Black women
Hortense Spillers
Now is the time to reestablish the women's role in African-American
families
Feminiity and enslavement are equated because they both lack the father
Blackness=feminine=mother=refusal of the mother
this makes discussing it impossible
The Idea of Bodies
In a society where the truth is the body (Thomas Laqueur), we must
recognize the body
Marking the body is a way to claim identity and to shield society from the
identity it does not want
ex. clothing and haircuts as a marker of identity
ex. watching hysterics--representations of hysterics create the discourse
a symptom is that when the skin becomes red, doctors would write on the
skin and then take pictures of the words
Dicipher how much the body is a signifying agent
general discourse about marking of the black body
Sub-discourse about marking of the female body
Black culture is perceived as pathological because-
it is perceived as matriarchal so-
it is out of the law
Page 385, top paragraph is about reclaiming the father/daughter relationship
Defining Ethnicity
lack, darkness, a look
Gallop says that the concept of ethnicity needs to be enlightened
On page 386 Spillers examines the rlationship of ethnicity and the body
and the intimate relationship between words and the body
the captive body, the stolen body
Black bodies are branded bodies
Chapter 2, page 389+
Ways people have been described
all is perceived as hierarchy (392)
regendered/gendered
on slave ships, men are gendered as females and females are gendered as
female
double jeopardy and how this affects the male
The Balck community is not feminized or matriarchal because-
the slave community was cut off from their mothers, they are motherless
really and symbolically
Motherhood is an impossible institution
African-American males lsot motherhood
this is more important than being fatherless
Class Notes by Janice McCabe