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Assignment 8

Black women that worked for white households were able to see the differences that separated the “insiders” and the “outsiders” since they would do domestic work such as cleaning, cooking, and even taking care of the white families’ children. However, they were never considered part of the family and sometimes even ignored which made them “outsiders”. Since they were able to experience both of these worlds, it allowed black women to look at the oppression they were experiencing objectively. This lead to black women setting their own ideas about who they were and being able to see what was really oppressing them and how, which is important so that other black women could identify with something that they could relate too, such as a culture, that wasn’t seen as completely negative. These ideas helped contribute to sociology and our understanding of culture because this objective standpoint black women had allowed them to pinpoint what were actual problems that that were oppressing them in society. For example, Sojourner Truth pointed out that even if black men get their rights, black women would still be oppressed by the black men if they don’t also get theirs. Black women have a better understanding of oppression because they experience it from multiple sides instead of contradictory sides. They experience being oppressed as a woman and being oppressed as a black person,  whereas a black man might only experience being oppressed as a black person since men in general are still seen as superior. This also questions things that might not have been brought up or talked about as much such as the “white male insiderism” which fits a lot of people, including black women, into a society where the world, cultures, and how certain people and genders should act, are viewed through a white male standpoint, instead of one that represents multiple races, genders, and classes.