JoAnn Marshall - The Roles of Southern Women, Black and White, in Society :: Essays Papers

JoAnn Marshall - The Roles of Southern Women, Black and White, in lodgeLillian Smith provides a description of the representative fateful woman and the typical bloodless woman of the pre-1960s Ameri stand South (Gladney 1) in her autobiographical reexamine of gray culture, Killers of the Dream. The typical black woman in the South is a cook, housekeeper, nursemaid, or all three wrapped up in matchless for at least star sporty family. Therefore, she is the double matriarch of the South, facts of bread and butter her own family and the families of her white employers It was not a rare sight in my generation to see a black woman with a unknown baby at one breast and a white one at the other, rocking them both in her wide lap (Smith 130). The southern black womans duties extend far beyond rearing children, as she also serves as a family counselor, confidant, and nurse for the entire white family (Smith 129) and her own if time permits. She can do all this and more because she is strong, wise, and insightful in all areas of life (Smith 119). In short, the southern black woman is the cornerstone of the southern, domestic life. The white woman in the South has an equally important role. The southern white woman is responsible for maintaining southern social order, better known as Southern Tradition.She establishes the do and the dont of behavior (Smith 132) in her children and believes, If you could just keep from them all the things that essential never be mentioned, all would be well (Smith 142). At the akin time, the southern white woman sits atop the pedestal of Sacred femininity that her husband and his ancestors built for her (Smith 141). She meekly sits there, a symbol of southern rules of order used to benefit mens ideals, feeling empty and powerless against everything pass on around her (Smith 141-2). The whispers in her childrens ears and her presence on that pedestal satisfy the white womans role as protectress of Southern Tradition, but d oes not put through the southern white woman. In fact, the roles of the southern black woman and the southern white woman are equally important and equally despotic In a culture where marriage and motherhood were womens primary roles, neither black nor white women were free to be fully wives or mothers, and neither were able to shield their children from the physical and psychic destruction of the racist decree in which they lived (Gladney 6).