Blog #5 Tonisha Spratte

The State of Womanhood; Esp. Minority Womanhood

Womanhood.  What is this word?  What does it mean to be a woman?  It seems that women have always come after men.  From the workforce to voting, women have been historically seen as weaker, mostly fit for domestic jobs and most importantly taking care of the home and children.  In the past women, especially minority women, have been viewed as property, something to rule over and use as you please.  This is definitely seen in the movie La Noire de… by Ousmane Sembene.  In fact the title of this move does not translate perfectly into English; translated literally it says “the black of/from”, which is definitely an example of women as the ostracized and oppressed.  Even feminism, being a response to marginalization of women in a patriarchal society, is strained and made complicated by race issues between the women.  In Chakraborty’s article “Waving it all away: Producing Subject and Knowledge in Feminisms of Colours” she elaborates on these racial challenges within feminism. 

In the English translation of “La Noire de…” the “de” gets left out in translation, (as do the ellipses).  I believe this can be quite important in the exegesis of the movie/title.  “De” can mean either from or of depending on the context.  If it means from then it could mean ‘The black girl from…’ and the ellipses leave the phrase purposely incomplete.  In doing so, it signifies that the place where the girl is from is unimportant because she is unimportant.  If it were to mean ‘The black girl of…’ this would imply possession, meaning that someone owned or had the potential to own her.  Which I believe was a common thing in Senegal at that time, to have a ‘maid’, to practically own some poor African woman because there were no other jobs for her to be able to do in those times.  Ousmane Sembene wanted to show the conditions that the women of his day had to endure.  He wanted to show how they were being treated and that they are people too. 

Chakraborty’s ariticle highlights the racial tensions within feminism.  As noble of a cause as feminism is, it cannot continue to grow and build on such a fractured foundation.  White privilege is still in effect and the colored woman is constantly “hotfooting” from all of the various roles she is expected to fill.  “…whereby the feminist of colour hotfoots between being and not-being the race-maid in the academic kitchen, between trying to negotiate her newly acquired job profile and, at the same time, self-reflexively, interrogating the conditions of possibilities that make her presence viable.”  Therefore, the colored woman is still trying to prove herself within the feminist community, which seems counterintuitive because the feminist movement was supposed to be one that uplifts women.  Even in 'The Colored Museum' the bald woman felt that she had to choose just the right hair in order to prove her worth to the man she was about to break up with. Why didn't she feel that she could be just as empowered as she was?  Why was her as herself not good enough?  This seems to be the common theme for the woman.  Constantly trying to prove herself and demonstrate her value to the skeptics, the doubters, and deriders.

Ousmane Sembene wanted to show the difficulties and distressed situation of the Senegalese woman and Chakraborty wanted to emphasize the racial tension between women within the feminist movement.  Both people wanted to highlight the difficulties of the colored woman and the fact that, even within feminism these women still feel the need to prove themselves to other women.  If the women are constantly bumping heads with each other then how can they pull themselves together in order to further the goal of feminism?