A Black Feminist Statement

While reading A Black Feminist Statement, an article from Women's Lives, there were many things in the article that I related to and disagreed with. I felt that the author did a great job in telling me, the reader, the struggle that her and her colleagues went through to get any form of equality, not just within white society, but with black men as well. She quoted a black man who said, "Women cannot do the same things as men-they are made by nature to function differently" (39). I wish that I could say that this is the first time I've heard this. She talks about sexism within the black community, and how it was just another struggle for equality for black women. I think that the struggle for equality is not always about white against black, female against male; I think the hardest battle is not just breaking through those barriers, but also just within your own culture-your own community that you have to fight through.
Something else that she talked about was a stranger, more subtle form of sexism. She does not want to be seen as a queen or put on a pedestal. "To be recognized as human, levelly human, is enough" (39). When I first read the quote, I laughed a little. Not in a mocking sense, but in agreement. Instead of being taught that women are lesser beings then men, some younger men are taught to put their girlfriends, and the girls they are courting on a pedestal.. To treat her like a princess, buy her pretty things, take her pretty places, open the door for her, stand up for her. Why can't I do these things myself? I'm not gonna lie, it's nice when someone opens the door for me, but is it a symbol for women being weak? Am I not able to buy myself that purse I'm looking at, or to be the one who asks you out, or when some jerk cuts me off, is unladylike for me to flip them the finger; does this make me scary? More manly? Am I too aggressive?