UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARK

AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES/WOMEN’S STUDIES

AASD 298/WMST 265

Constructions of Manhood and Womanhood in the Black Community

Tues/Thur 12:30-1:45

1201 LeFrak

General Description:

      This introductory course examines the ways that African Americans have constructed their identities as men and women. Manhood and womanhood encompasses ideas about sexuality and gender roles, shaping the ideas people have about family, citizenship, employment, education, cultural production, religion, and political participation.

      This course takes the view that manhood and womanhood are racialized concepts. As racialized concepts about gender and sexuality, they are also historical and political. Slavery was a racialized system that thrust African men and African women into brutally exploitative economic production, and forced disruptions and accommodations of African ideas about men’s and women’s roles in the family, in economic production, political participation, religion and culture. As a politicized concept, African American men and African American women have struggled with and against each other for free self-expression and personal fulfillment despite systemic race and sex/gender oppression.

      Neither gender nor race have fixed meanings. “One is not born a woman,” nor is a person born “raced.” Both are constructions created through social (and political) interactions over time. Many scholars hold that sexuality is also a construction, shaped by personal experience, culture, and social-historical factors, rather than genetically determined. Because gender, sexuality and race are constructs, they are plastic: amenable to revision, re-configuration, re-conceptualization and renewal. They are also subject to class and wealth: money, and lack of it, make many gender behaviors and lifestyle choices possible and impossible.

      It may appear that a majority of people - black white male female straight queer - remain in the broad middle-ground, and live their lives like the “normal” people on TV. Yet we also know that the Huxtables aren’t at all “normal”: few people live like they do. Some people may aspire to live like them – or to have their wealth – but most everyone’s daily realities are far different. And their personal inclinations may rebel against gender prescriptions: Men will wear “skirts” and women are warriors, even when laws, customs and expectations say these behaviors aren’t “normal.” One task for this class will be to consider the varieties of gender roles that are possible in a world that includes Harriet Wilson, Shoshona Johnson, RuPaul, Cornel West, Mike Tyson, Michael Jordan, Barack Obama and you.

Course Objectives:

1.   Understand the terms gender, gender roles, gender identity, patriarchy, matriarchal, butch, femme, manhood, sexuality, color, race.

2.   Understand what is meant by the “sex/gender system”

3.   Be able to identify stereotypical representations of African American and women in U.S. popular culture, past and present.

4.   Understand how self-determined constructions of manhood and womanhood differ from those created by political and social reformers and in popular culture

5.   Understand the role of gender and sexuality in African American history, culture and politics/movements for citizenship rights, including the effects of gender expectations in the diasporic African American population.

6.   Understand some of the basic policy outcomes of gender and race in contemporary U.S. life, such as political rights, military service, wage differences, educational achievement, occupational attainment, crime/violence, and health and reproduction.

Required Books:

Beverly Guy-Sheftall, editor. Words of fire: An Anthology of African-American feminist thought. With an epilogue by Johnnetta B. Cole. New York : New Press : Distributed by W.W. Norton, 1995. Price: $21.95 (new)

ISBN: 1565842561    LCCN: Stacks E185.86.W927 1995

Rudolph P. Byrd and Beverly Guy-Sheftall, editors. Traps: African American men on gender and sexuality. Bloomington, IN : Indiana University Press, 2001. Price: $24.95 (new)

ISBN: 0253214483   LCCN: Stacks E185.86 .T72 2001

Melinda Chateauvert. Marching Together : Women of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998. Price $18.95 (new)

ISBN: 0252066367    LCCN: Stacks HD6515.R362 - B763 1998

Teaching Methods:     

      We will ask a lot of questions in this course. We may agree on some answers, and we may agree to disagree. Our goal is to question, to learn to question, and to consider the relative merits of many different answers. By the end of the semester, it would be better if you are able to ask a really thought-provoking question, and to comprehend its depth, rather than answer one. Examples of provocative questions include:

1.   How do ideas about gender shape the life decisions of men and women in the African American community?

2.   How have concerns about gender roles determined the agenda for racial equality?

3.   What do African American cultural traditions such as playing “the dozens” teach children about gender roles?

My Expectations of Students

      I expect all students to work for A grades.

      I expect all students to complete the reading assignments prior to class, and as A students, to come to class prepared for discussions that scrutinize, question, analyze, and interrogate the author’s claims and evidence.

      I expect students to ask questions during and after all lectures. I also expect students to listen to new ideas, and to be courteous when hearing views that they find objectionable.

      I expect all students to integrate material learned in other classes and to draw on their own observations and experiences.

      I expect students to turn in all assignments. On time.

      I expect all written assignments, whether done in class or out, to employ proper grammar, correct spelling, and good organization.

      I expect students to attend all classes, except for verifiable medical reasons or family emergencies, and not to schedule appointments for doctors, dentists, jobs, etc. during class hours.

      I expect students to eat lunch outside of class hours, although beverages will be allowed in the classroom.

Grading and Assignments:

      This course combines lectures with discussions of readings and personal experiences. Reading assignments should be done prior to class. Students should be prepared for discussion each class meeting. Attendance will be taken regularly.

      Grades will be determined on the following scale: 91-100 points = A; 81-90 = B; 71-80 = C; 61-70 = D; 60 and below = F.

      Extra credit opportunities will be announced in class. As much as an extra 5% may be added to your final grade through extra credit.

      In-class writing exercises: Occurring about every other week, there will be written exercises based on recent reading assignments, and/or lecture/discussions. These permit you to explore the implications and significance of new information and relate it to other learning, to respond immediately to issues, ask questions, practice using analytical tools and concepts, and to reflect on evidence.

Homework assignments: Will require research outside of class.

Class Notes: Any one set of notes, which you believe demonstrate your best efforts to record critical questions and useful data relayed orally through discussion or lecture.

The Project: Described on a handout to be distributed separately. This may be creative in its presentation: a tri-fold poster; a scrapbook; a travel journal; a short video or voice recording; a short story or set of poems. Alternately, the project may be cerebral: a research paper on a topic decided in consultation with the professor; a thematic, annotated bibliography with an introduction; a critique of a body of artistic works; a narrative website; possibly even an organizing kit. Proposals for small group projects will be considered.

The midterm and final examinations will permit you demonstrate your knowledge of key terms and concepts (see course objectives above), and to apply them in the context of new information.

Students are also encouraged to form study groups. Study groups may be especially useful for discussing the assigned readings and preparing for exams. However, all coursework must be your own!

Academic Honesty and Notes on Grading:

      *)  All assignments are due on the date listed. In-class writing assignments can not be made up. Make-up exams will be given only with proof of a medical or personal emergency.

      *)  You are expected to attend class regularly. Exams will cover material presented in lectures, films and readings. Some reading materials will not be discussed in class; some lectures will not cover materials in the reading assignments. Students who miss class are responsible for obtaining the material.

      *)  The University's policies regarding cheating, plagiarism, fabrication, and academic dishonesty will be strictly observed. Academic dishonesty is defined in the undergraduate catalog as cheating, fabrication, facilitation of academic dishonesty, and/or plagiarism. Students who engage in academic dishonesty on a test or an assignment will receive an F for that exercise and may receive an F in the class. All instances of academic dishonesty will be reported to the Student Honor Council for additional resolution.

      The University has a nationally recognized Honor Code, administered by the Student Honor Council, which includes an approved Honor Pledge: “I pledge on my honor that I have not given or received any unauthorized assistance on this assignment/examination.” http://www.inform.umd.edu/honorpledge/

      Unless you are specifically advised to the contrary, the Pledge statement should be handwritten and signed on the front cover of all papers, projects, or other academic assignments submitted for evaluation in this course. Use of the pledge is voluntary and those students who object to writing and/or signing it should talk with the instructor.

Special Needs:

      The University has a legal obligation to provide appropriate accommodations for students with disabilities. If you have a documented disability and wish to discuss academic accommodations, please contact me as soon as possible.

      Also, if you are experiencing difficulties in keeping up with the academic demands of this course, contact the Learning Assistance Service, 2201 Shoemaker Bldg., X4-7693. Their educational counselors can help with time management, reading, note-taking and exam preparation skills.

Course Calendar and Reading Assignments:

Note: Please be sure to read the brief biographical paragraphs about the authors that appear before each article in Words of Fire and on pages 353-361 in Traps.

26 Jan

Introduction

Set up and organization

      In class writing exercise #1: “Reading” images slide show

What do we “see” – what do we think – when viewing various images?

What stories or narratives do we impose on various images?

What markers destabilize culturally created categories?

31 Jan

Conceptual Tools: Social Constructions of Manhood

Cultural constructs in popular entertainment

      Reading:

Black men in the movies: How Does It Feel to Be a Problem (and an Answer)?, Edward Guerrero (Traps)

      Black macho revisited: Reflections of a SNAP! Queen, Marlon Riggs (Traps)

      Thirteen ways of looking at a Black man, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (Traps)

      OPT: Prologue: The Tradition of Iron John, Rudolph Byrd (Traps)

2 Feb

Feminist Critiques of Black Patriarchy

      Reading:

      Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference, Audre Lorde (Words of Fire)

      The New Politics of Sexuality, June Jordan (Words of Fire)

      The Last Taboo, Paula Giddings (Words of Fire)

      What Can I Say, Pearl Cleage (Words of Fire)

7 Feb

Putting it All Together: Women of the Brotherhood

      Reading:

      Marching Together Chapts 1- 4 (you can skim Chapter 2)

      In-class writing exercise #2, TBA

9 Feb

Gender in the Family

Growing up stories

      Reading:

      In the days of my youth, Benjamin E. Mays (Traps)

Anger in Isolation: A Black Feminist’s Search for Sisterhood, Michelle Wallace (Words)

      Here be dragons, James Baldwin (Traps) 

      The Opposite Point of View, Gertrude Bustill Mosell (Words of Fire)

14 Feb

Gender in the world

Sexuality and Gender Roles

Homework Assignment #1: Bring three examples of Valentine’s Day propaganda to class, and be prepared to discuss how each example conveys constructs of race, gender and sexuality.

16 Feb

Boys to Men

      Reading:

      Mike's brilliant career : Mike Tyson and the Riddle of Black Cool, Gerald Early (Traps)

Black Popular Culture, Counterdiscourse, and African American Nationalism, Barbara Ransby and Tracye Matthews, (Words of Fire)

A Phenomenology of the Black body, Charles Johnson (Traps)

      [Thirteen ways of looking at a Black man, Henry Louis Gates, Jr.(Traps)]

21 Feb

Sexuality and Taboo

      Reading

      Black sexuality: The Taboo Subject, Cornel West (Traps)

      Hearts of Darkness, Barbara Omolade (Traps)

      Brother to brother: Words from the Heart, Joseph Beam (Traps) 

      In-class writing exercise #3: TBA

28 Feb

Sexuality and Desire

      Reading

      Does your mama know about me?, Essex Hemphill (Traps)

“Ain't nothin' like the real thing”: Black Masculinity, Gay Sexuality, and the Jargon of Authenticity, Kendall Thomas (Traps)

      Lesbianism: An Act of Resistance, Cheryl Clark (Words of Fire)

7 Mar

Sexual Violence

      Reading

      The damnation of women (1920), W.E.B. DuBois (Traps)

      On becoming anti-rapist, Haki R. Madhubuti (Traps)

Rape and the Inner Lives of Black Women in the Middle West: Preliminary Thoughts on the Culture of Dissemblance, Darlene Clark Hine (Words of Fire)

      OPT:   When and where [we] enter: In Search of Feminist Forefather–Reclaiming the Womanist Legacy of W.E.B. DuBois, Gary L. Lemons (Traps)

9 Mar

Domestic Violence

      Reading

      Men: We Just Don’t Get It, Nathan McCall (Traps)

      The sexist in me, Kevin Powell (Traps)

Battered Black Women: A Challenge for the Black Community, Beth Richie (Words of Fire)

      Dear Minister Farrakhan: A Letter, Men Stopping Violence (Traps)

      In-class writing exercise #4: TBA

14 Mar

Sexual Politics

      Reading

      Lynch Law in America, Ida Wells-Barnett (Words of Fire)

Mission Statement of the Black Men for the Eradication of Sexism, Morehouse College (Traps)

      The Black woman of the south, Alexander Crummell (Traps)

      Breaking silences, Calvin Hernton (Traps)

      A Black Feminist Statement, The Combahee River Collective (Words of Fire)

      [What Can I Say?, Pearl Cleage (Words of Fire)]

16 Mar

      Homework Assignment #2: Documenting intra-racial sexual violence

21 Mar

SPRING BREAK

NO CLASS

23 Mar 

SPRING BREAK

NO CLASS

28 Mar

Black Men on Masculinity and Feminism

      A Black man's place in Black feminist criticism, Michael Awkward (Traps) 

      In the limelight, Arthur J. Robinson, Jr. (Traps)

      Women's rights are human rights, Kalamu Ya Salaam (Traps)

      The sexual diversion: The Black Man/Black Woman Debate in Context, Derrick Bell (Traps)

30 Mar

      MIDTERM

4 Apr

History and Politics: Nineteenth Century

      Readings:

The rights of women, Frederick Douglass (Traps)
Give women fair play, Frederick Douglass (Traps)
I am a radical woman suffrage man, Frederick Douglass (Traps)

      Woman’s Rights, Sojourner Truth (Words of Fire)

      What Woman Gets Her Rights Man Will be Right, Sojourner Truth (Words of Fire)

      Women’s Political Future, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (Words of Fire)
      OPT: Lecture Delivered at Franklin Hall, Maria Miller Stewart (Words of Fire)

6 Apr

History and Politics: Twentieth Century

      Readings:

A letter from Huey to the revolutionary brothers and sisters about the women's liberation and gay liberation movements, Huey P. Newton (Traps)

An Argument for Black Women’s Liberation as Revolutionary Force, Mary Ann Weathers (Words of Fire)

      The Black Movement and Women’s Liberation, Linda La Rue (Words of Fire)

A Historical and Critical Essay for Black Women, Patricia Haden, Donna Middletown and Patricia Robinson (Words of Fire)

      Some Home Truths on the Contemporary Black Feminist Movement, Barbara Smith (Words)

      It's raining men: Notes on the Million Man March, Robert F. Reid-Pharr (Traps)

11 Apr

      PROJECTS DUE

13 Apr

Health and Care

      Readings:

      Facing the Abortion Question, Shirley Chisholm (Words of Fire)

Missing Persons: African American Women, AIDS and the History of Disease, Evelyn Hammonds (Words of Fire)

      Feminism and equality, Bayard Rustin (Traps)

      Double Jeopardy: To Be Black and Female, Frances Beale (esp. pp 150-153) (Words of Fire)

      In class writing exercise #5: TBA

18 Apr

The Gendered Economic Division of Race

      Readings

      Negro Women in Our Economic Life, Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander (Words of Fire)

A Comparative Study: Accentuating the Similarities of the Societal Position of Women and Negroes, Florynce “Flo” Kennedy (Words of Fire)

      An End of the Neglect of the Problems of the Negro Woman! Claudia Jones (Words of Fire)

      Feminist Consciousness and Black Women, Florence Terrelonge (Words of Fire)

20 Apr

Putting it Together: Race, Gender and Trade Unionism

      Reading:

      Marching Together, Chapters 6-8

      Homework Assignment #3: Documenting gender differences in wages, occupations, educational attainment, and home ownership among African Americans.

25 Apr

Rosa Parks, not Ola Mae Quartermain: The Glass Ceiling in Black Political Leadership

Reading:

The Negro Woman and the Ballot, Alice Dunbar-Nelson (Words of Fire)

      Our Women Getting in the Larger Life, Amy Jacques Garvey (Words of Fire)

      The Liberation of Black Women, Pauli Murray (Words of Fire)

      Reflections on the Black Woman’s Role in the Community Slaves, Angela Davis (Words)

OPT: Groundings with my sisters: Patriarchy and the Exploitation of Black Women, Manning Marable (Traps)

      In-class writing exercise #6: TBA

27 Apr

Marching Together

      Reading:

      Marching Together: Chapters 9-10

2 May

Religion

Religion and the Pure Principles of Morality, the Sure Foundation on Which We Must Build, Maria Miller Stewart (Words of Fire)

When you divide body and soul, problems multiply: The Black Church and Sex, Michael Eric Dyson (Traps)

      Black Theology and the Black Woman, Jacquelyn Grant (Words of Fire)

      Women in the Gospel, Julia A.J. Foote (Words of Fire)

      In-class writing exercise #7: TBA

4 May

Education

      The Progress of Colored Women, Mary Church Terrell (Words of Fire)

      Black Women in Academia, Margaret Walker Alexander (Traps)

      Black Feminist Pedagogy and Schooling in Capitalist White America, Gloria Joseph (Words)

      The Social Construction of Black Feminist Thought, Patricia Hill Collins (Words of Fire)

      A Lofty Study, Gertrude Bustill Mosell (Words of Fire)

9 May

      Homework assignment #4: TBA

11 May

LAST CLASS (whew!)

18 May

FINAL EXAM 1:30-3:30 pm