African American Womens Experience

1
African American Womens Experience

• The experience of African American is unique and
  part and parcel of the African American
  experience overall.

2
Problems through experience

• Sexuality, cultural roles, and gender relations
  early became central problems in the
  organizational and cultural responses of
  African-Americans to their enslavement and to
  their subsequent experience
• AAC, 82

3
Causes of the problems

• African reality
• 1. Women worked beside the men in the fields.
• 2. Women were degraded along with the men.
• 3. Families were intentionally broken up.
• 4. Roles of men and women were made the same.
• 5. The church was reluctantly, belatedly and
  tenuously given approval

• Euro-American ideals
• 1. Men and women have different spheres.
• 2. Women are protected.
• 3. Families are kept together.
• 4. Different roles for men and women.
• 5. Freedom to associate.

4
Women faced problems

• 1. Race
• 2. Class
• 3. Gender

5
A Black Womans context

• Although their circumstances created problems it
  also gave African American women a unique
  perspective on life.
• Black women developed a multiple consciousness
  which enabled them to have a critique unique only
  to them.

6
Role Models Characteristics

• Autonomous
• Independent
• Strong
• Self-reliant

7
Religious Imagination

• Priestesses
• Cult Leaders
• Female deities
• Female images of the divine

8
African American Church Realities

• The African-American church is male dominated for
  a couple of reasons
• Most African societies are patriarchal
• America is patriarchal
• African American churches were theologically
  influenced by their evangelists

9
Result of the tensions

• African American women supported one another in
  child rearing and child bearing (e.g. many became
  midwives)
• Helped each other in religious life
• Became religious leaders in the slave community

10
Two dominant aspects of the dual oppression of
race and gender.

• 1. Development of dual-sex politics in
  historically Black churches.
• Autonomous
• independent
• self reliant

• 2. Development of the tradition of conflict.
• Politically active
• Community work
• Resist the imposition of Euro-American
  patriarchy

11
The Tension Between

• European Religious Thinking
• Compartmentalization
• Specialization vs.

• African Thought
• Thorough integration
• Group responsibility

12
Importance of Women in African Societies

• This created unique problems and yet was the
  strength of resistance for the women to total
  enslavement.
• Women were able to impose themselves onto the
  political process through cooperation among
  themselves.
• Women provided a strong economic base.

13
African Roles for Women

• Business Persons
• Politically Organized
• Mutually Supportive

14
Economic

• Controlled certain industries
• High economic position
• Were traders
• What they traded or negotiated belonged to them
  (usually)
• Raised food--planted and maintained crops

15
Political Organization

• Expressed their disapproval and secured their
  demands by
• public demonstrations
• through ridicule
• satirical singing and dancing
• group strikes

16
Mutual Support

• Supported each other through organizations which
  dealt with problems of
• violations of domestic law
• decisions concerning agricultural labor
• mutual aid
• situations involving men

17
African Womens organizations were based on
economic status, age and social status
18
Black Womens Support

• Women were members of organizations with like
  status.
• Peers were called sister and elders were called
  mother.

19
Sometimes the women had institutional authority.
20
Authority in titles

• Omu -- Queen
• Ilogo -- Womens cabinet
• These women held real power and the queen was not
  necessarily the wife of a king but were important
  contacts between mens world and womens world.

21
Dual-Sex Politics of Black Churches

• African American women played and continue to
  play a very powerful role in Church life.

22
Various Roles

• Teacher
• Evangelist
• Missionary
• Deaconess
• Sister

23
Recognized Role

• Church Mother
• older woman
• spiritually mature
• morally upright
• Mother
• spiritual/moral leader
• highly influential
• state mother

• Political Activist
• active in community
• active in church
• stressed education
• were educators
• started national organizations

24
Recognized ability

• Baptist and African Methodist women were highly
  sought after by the founders of Holiness and
  Pentecostal churches

• In the new denominations they
• established schools
• educated members
• preached at various services
• founded churches
• maintained a church until a pastor arrived
• became wives of pastors and bishops

25
Structural Importancein COGIC congregations

• The womens department was built on the role of
  church mother
• The term missionary and evangelist developed
  out of the prohibition against women preaching
• Missionary and evangelist needed to have the
  signatures of both the Bishop and Church Mother
  on their certificate

26
Structural

• Sometimes the title missionary referred to all
  of the various roles of women
• While the term minister encompasses the male
  roles
• There were also double pulpits one for non
  preachers and another one for preachers

27
Some of these structures also exist in the Black
Baptist Churches
28
Handling Black Male Domination in Black Churches
29
Methods used by Black Women

• Black Female Hermeneutic
• Womens Day
• Changing church membership
• Founding churches
• Militant assertion of personhood
• Confidence in their own abilities for the larger
  society

30
Origins of Black Biblical Feminism

• Jarena Lee (1783? - )
• Although the AME Church did not ordain she was
  permitted to speak meetings.
• Rebecca Cox Jackson (1795-1871)
• Became a member of the Shakers because of their
  stand.
• Amanda Berry Smith (1837-1915)
• Holiness
• Gifted singer, preacher, evangelist, and
  missionary
• There are quite a few churches in AME which have
  women as pastors.

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31
An Influential Women

• Ida B Wells-Barnett

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32
Response by Men

• Although the large Black Baptist Conventions have
  a number of churches which oppose women pastors
  some of these churches do have women as pastors

33
Some of the Biblical arguments used by women

• God used women in every capacity--owners,
  evangelists, teachers, helpers, military
• God made women equal to men
• Men come from women

34
Women fought Black patriarchyin two ways

• 1. Expanded analysis of womens role. They used
  Biblical arguments in defense of women their
  work. They did it to the point where sermons
  were affected--men had to finely tune and
  elaborate their argument. One practice was for
  the women to name the unnamed woman in a text.
  (woman with the issue of blood Safronia

35

• 2. They fully developed the Womans Day
• One Sunday each year the women would lead in the
  worship in everything from Sunday School to the
  main worship service to special program to the
  evening service.
• It became and still is a national event in that
  it is practiced by many Black Churches

36
Dilemmas of Commitment

• In spite of male domination, the black church
  functions for women as a womens institution.
  Dual-sex politics mean that women have the
  autonomy necessary to provide their own
  leadership training. While their access to
  authority within the church is limited, women
  occupy roles which are authoritative within the
  scope of the entire tradition.