Women’s roles in the US

The varieties about women’s roles were constructed In ways that have been altered or erased for social and political purposes. The roles of black women were undermined during slavery and Hawaiian women’s roles were taken away after colonialism. Women’s roles should be recognized because it makes a significant contribution to decentralization and resistance. The erasure of women’s roles have been constructed In favor of white supremacists and colonists, thus, keeping knowledge about women’s roles away from the public view.

This week’s readings reflect the counter-forces that fight against this trend. The two examples discussed In this paper will help demonstrate how the recognition of women’s roles make significant contributions to decentralization and resistance. Black women’s role during slavery was undermined In the Monomania Report. Angela Davis critiques the history of slavery aspect of the Monomania report because it fails to recognize the significance of black women’s role in slavery claiming that matriarchy comes from the legacy of slavery.

Davis challenges this Idea by arguing that matriarchy did not come from slavery since matriarchy Implies power, which enslaved black women did not have. Davis indicates that although black women did not have power of the law/state, they created their own modes of power. She also indicates the reason why black women played a significant role during slavery is because they made resistance possible for others in the African American enslaved communities. Since women had the double burden of working in the fields and doing domestic work, they became the maintainers of the slave headquarters.

This allowed women to recognize how much the master depended on them, giving women the consciousness of resistance. This is an example of how knowledge Is distorted In he Monomania report since It falls to address the truth about women’s roles In slavery and falsely concludes that black families are unstable because they are matrilineal. Recognizing black women’s roles during slavery is imperative to eradicate the myth that black families are unstable because they are matrilineal and how they made resistance possible for others.

Another example of the recognition of women’s roles is the inclusion of indigenous feminism. Lisa Keelhauled Hall indicates the importance of recognizing the erasure of indigently, specifically Hawaiian women in the united States as a result of colonialism. She critiques the conceptual erasure of U. S. Imperialism In the Pacific. The erasure of Hawaii in contemporary understandings of the united States, and the racial erasure of indigenous peoples.

She argues indigenous feminism should counter these erasures “because colonization relies on forced forgetting and erasure, the need to bring the past forward Into our consciousness” Is Important for decentralization (Hall, 279). Although Hawaiian women’s roles were unrecognized, Hall contends that Hawaiian women held significant power until the colonists stripped political power and voting rights from them. Additionally, Hawaiian women were aced with the imposition of Christianity, monogamy, and heterosexual marriage.

Indigenous feminism Is Important to the process of decentralization for Hawaiian women and other indigenous women because it “grapples with the ways patriarchal 1 OFF analyzing the sexual and gendered nature of the process of colonization” (Hall, 278). Although women’s roles were constructed in ways that were altered or erased, which favored white supremacists and colonists, Hall and Davis produced scholarly works that enabled people to recognize that women’s roles made a significant contribution to the process of decentralization and resistance.