A Woman's Worth

“In music videos, television talk shows, news shows, newspapers, and tabloids show us one-sided and oft times disfigured representations of African American females: pulsating genitals, hood rats, “successful” professional sisters alienated in corporate America for the academy, low-income single mothers, and falling stars (Richardson, 677).

        We as a group strongly agree with the author’s position on the view of black women. We feel as if black women are perceived terribly wrong in the media. As Spelman women, we know for a fact that we are more than our hips and thighs. However, throughout history literature has stereotyped black women as being promiscuous and uneducated.

          To confirm research, we went to various search engines to confirm the results on “black women”. We found that the first page was filled with sexual websites exploiting black women’s bodies. We also compared the search results of “white women” “black men” and “white men”. While we found that white women were exploited as well as black women, the total opposite was shown for white and black men. Search results for white men displayed professionals, intellectuals, and politicians. While on the other hand, black men were not exploited sexually, they did contain negative connotations.

        In literature such as the book, “Push” by Sapphire, the main character grows up in a low-income and uneducated household. She is faced with so many adversities and obstacles that she must overcome. Novels similar to Push, should be respected, however, they should be counteracted with different perspectives. This can also be said with music lyrics and videos. As we watch our favorite music artist’s video, women are constantly objectified and degraded. While authors like Elaine Richardson disagree and try to give an opposite view on black women, some authors and average black women perpetuate these negative stereotypes.

        While we agree on Elaine Richardson’s point of view of the state of black women in media, it’s going to take more than just her article to change a worldly view on the black woman. Many novels portraying black women as uneducated should be acknowledged, but not used to generalize all black females.

Works Cited

Richardson, Elaine. To Protect and Serve:African American Female Literacies. 4. 53. National Council of teachers of English: 2002. 675-704. Print.