Womanhood and the Nation
The three articles from the Ore book discuss the ways in which the idea of a family is socially constructed through the interconnection of race, class, gender, and sexuality. Whether it was in the early American colonies, the Industrial Revolution, or even contemporary modern society, the idea of family has been shaped and reshaped through defined social categories which dichotmize the (assumed) ‘fit‘ (white, male, etc.) from the ‘unfit‘ (non-whites, females, homosexuals) groups in American society. In “Our Mothers’ Grief…� Dill writes, “…While white women had fewer legal rights as women, they were protected through public forms of patriarchy that acknowledged and supported their family roles of wives, mothers, and daughters because they were vital instruments for building American society� (Dill 1998, p. 224), whereas ethnic women (blacks, Chicanos, and Asians) did not enjoy such privilege. There is a contradiction here: on the one hand, white women become the representative of the nation, since they reproduce and raise the nation’s future; on the other hand, that same nation, where the women are the “vital contributors to the stabilization and growth of [the American] society� (p. 225), is masculinized and the ‘building blocks’(women) are oppressed. In addition, non-white women and men do no play a role in this representation; they only contribute to growth of the nation, but are not true representatives of America. This is yet another contradiction where the labor of the non-white populations is very important to the new nation, but, because they are the ‘Other’ they do not fit into the ‘normal’ categories laid out for the white population. Class distinction is also important when looking at how the “American Family� was constructed.
This article, more than the other two, interested me personally because my course paper looks at the interconnection of women and nationhood. Not just in America, but in many societies, the world over, symbolize their nations through women ( ‘motherland’, ‘mother tongue’, etc.). The women’s reproduction system becomes synonymous with the growth of a nation, the future of the nation, and so on. Yet these same women are subjugated in the nations they build.
Another important aspect of this article is the exclusion of the non-white as the representatives of the nation. While slave labor, as well as other ethnic groups’ labor were essential in building this nation, they were not the ideal Americans (in fact, they weren‘t considered Americans at all). The liberation of these ethnic groups has taken a very long time. Yet when the so-called liberation for each ethnic group has taken place, they still were/are not considered true representatives of America. Today we have African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Chicano-American, etc. Hyphenated identity tells us that no matter how long the group has been here and how much they have helped build this country, they will never be considered the ’true’ representatives of this nation. Furthermore, the situation for white women might have changed, however, even they are second to the ultimate representatives of this nation: white males.
Questons:
In what ways are the categories of race, class, gender, and sexuality used to construct differences between different groups, as illustrated in the three articles?
How is the family unit used as representative of the nation, and therefore indicative of the those who are considered ‘true’ Americans?
In what ways do these differences maintain the dominance of the white race, particularly the white male, over other race as well as women of all colors?