IM_SexandWomen

=Sex and the Degradation of Women=

Stereotypes in Literature and their Historical Underpinnings

 * Black rapist**

__Sterotype__ : After emanicipation, blacks were no longer portrayed as simplistic, childlike creatures, but rather as "innately savage, animalistic, destructive, and criminal" beings. They were considered hazards to the well-being of society, and as predators who targeted whites, especially white women (Pilgrim). According to George T. Winston, another "Negrophobic" writer, "When a knock is heard at the door [a White woman] shudders with nameless horror. The black brute is lurking in the dark, a monstrous beast, crazed with lust...A whole community is frenzied with horror, with the blind and furious rage for vengeance" (Winston). This stereotype especially prevailed in the North, while the theory of paternalism was the primary attitude of whites towards blacks in the South. __Historical Context__: During the 1800s, white members of society justified slavery by promoting the image of a docile and harmless slave. This pacified fears of uprisings in the south and depicted slave owners as paternal guardians of these simple beings. They were rarely depicted otherwise as this stereotype may have promoted “a self-fulfilling prophecy” (Pilgrim). After the Civil War, many writers of the Radical Reconstruction period (1867-1877) claimed that without the guidelines of slavery, blacks were reverting to their animalistic barbarism. This aggression was reported to be focused on criminal behavior toward white women- specifically, the raping of white women. This epidemic justified the lynching of blacks without any hint of a fair trial or proven justification. Up until the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, lynching was common. Despite the government's efforts to protect the people from lynch mobs, legislation remained highly ignored and the rape claims continued.

__Archetype__: The Seductress often uses her body as a tool to achieve power, which is usually manifested by control over herself or others, or for survival. She typically targets wealthy or influential men whom she uses to achieve her goals (Bekman). A Seductress is mainly characterized as "attractive, sexual/sensual—pleasure producing, exalted/adored by men in an earthy way, envied by other women, free of wifely-motherly qualities or tasks, powerful in a limited sense—can bring men to failure or also move them to great works, [and] somewhat “evil” by nature of her sexuality" (Savitt). The role of the Seductress brings a two dimensional quality to a character, as she is defined and constrained by her sexuality; it has been argued, specifically by Mary Ellmann as paraphrased D. Jill Savitt, that such an archetype brings a certain dullness to the female character by narrowing the reader's expectations of her.
 * Seductress/Adultress**

__Historical Context__: Throughout history, women have gained power through their children and thus through sex. Cleopatra IV aligned with Mark Antony and gave him three children by which she rose to the title of pharaoh. At a young age she was married to her younger brother Ptolemy XIII and made joint monarchs. However, she showed no intentions of taking the traditionally subordinate female role in the monarchy. She dropped his names from official documents and appeared solo on official coins. After much turmoil Caesar took control of the throne and became angered with Ptolemy. Cleopatra took advantage of this and physically presented herself as a gift to Caesar in a rolled Persian carpet. She became his favorite mistress and thus used her womanly stature to bear a son to him nine months later. During her rule she claimed to be the physical re-incarnation of the goddess Isis, patron goddess of wisdom. __Archetype__: The Virgin is often put on a pedestal and valued for her purity. Her innocence, which is often tied to her sexual purity, is coveted. However, she can easily turn into a Whore/Fallen Woman if she engages in carnal delights (Savitt). The Virgin is characterized as "pure in thought, word and deed, chaste, angelic, innocent (1. untouched, 2. ignorant of worldly life), passive, worshipped in a spiritual way, religious/pious/spiritual, comforting/healing, life-giving [and] asexual/nonsexual" (Savitt). She is often symbolically described with respect to "//lightness//, //clarity//, //whiteness//, //shapelessness//, [and] with an //ethereal luminescence//" (Savitt). While the Virgin's lack of sexual activity can be perceived as independence from men or unwillingness to be conquered (for example, Artemis or Athena in Greek mythology, Queen Elizabeth I), it can also be interpreted as a fragile state. The Virgin's dependence on others is representative of the perspective that women are incapable of survival on their own and are subservient to men. Just as the Virgin must be taken care of and supervised, so must the supposed child-like negro.
 * Helpless Virgin (as a parallel to the child-like negro/paternalism)**

__Historical Context__: The Virgin Mary is used as the purest vesel for God's son to enter the world as described in the Bible. She represents an ethereal purity and is often portrayed with a ring of God's light around her head. Her childhood is described as a pious, and innocent existance in God's shadow.

__Stereotype:__ Paternalism during the slavery and post-slavery eras was the prevalent Southern view of blacks as childlike beings who were to be pitied and given work so as to prevent them from idleness and the evils of life. It is "to act for the good of another person without that person's consent," and is highly controversial because though it has good intentions, its means are coercive (Suber). Rudyard Kipling, in his poem //The White Man's Burden//, published in 1899, summarizes the basic sentiment behind paternalism at time. He describes the colored people as "half-devil and half-child," and urges them to be "done with childish days," thereby showing that whites of the era looked down upon blacks as people to be pitied, rather than to be feared (Brians). This attitude predominated in the South, where the paternalist philosophy had been more heavily incorporated, and for a longer period of time, than in the North.
 * Paternalism**

//Rudyard Kipling// Take up the White Man's burden-- Send forth the best ye breed-- Go bind your sons to **exile** To serve your captives' need; To wait in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild-- Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
 * __The White Man's Burden__**
 * Half-devil and half-child**.

Take up the White Man's burden-- In patience to abide, To **veil the threat of terror** And check the show of pride; By open speech and simple, An hundred times made plain To seek another's profit, And work another's gain.

Take up the White Man's burden-- The savage wars of peace-- Fill full the mouth of Famine And bid the sickness cease; And when your goal is nearest The end for others sought, Bring all your hopes to nought.
 * Watch sloth and heathen Folly**

Take up the White Man's burden-- No tawdry rule of kings, But toil of serf and sweeper-- The tale of common things. The ports ye shall not enter, The roads ye shall not tread, Go mark them with your living, And mark them with your dead.

Take up the White Man's burden-- And reap his old reward: The blame of those ye better, The hate of those ye guard-- The cry of hosts ye humour (Ah, slowly!) toward the light:-- "Why brought he us from bondage, Our loved Egyptian night?"

Take up the White Man's burden-- Ye dare not stoop to less-- Nor call too loud on Freedom To cloke your weariness; By all ye cry or whisper, By all ye leave or do, The **silent, sullen peoples** Shall weigh your gods and you.

Take up the White Man's burden-- The lightly proferred laurel The easy, ungrudged praise. Comes now, to search your manhood Through all the thankless years Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom, The judgment of your peers!
 * Have done with childish days**--

(Brians).


 * Scenes with Sex as Power:**

//**The Black Rapist/Paternalism in Jim Trueblood**// Upon introduction, Trueblood is described as "a sharecropper who had brought disgrace upon the black community," by raping and impregnating his own daughter (Ellison, 46). The students of the college looked down upon him and the other poor famililes living upon the fringes of the college's boundaries for tarnishing white mens' view of black society and culture. Within the context of the novel, Trueblood epitomizes the stereotype of the black rapist, and his actions show the paternal attitude of white southerners during this era. Sleeping beside his daughter on a particularly cold night, Trueblood noticed that she looked exactly as his wife had when she was younger. From that thought onward, he begins to notice her feminine, sexual characteristics, and views her as a woman, rather than his daughter. Throughout the night, under the spell of a dream, he rapes and impregnates his own daughter. Trueblood cannot control his sexual instincts, even when around his own daughter, leading to both rape and incest. While Mr. Norton is both repulsed and fascinated by him, the townspeople react differently, offering help for his family in the form of money for moving his family out of the town. They guise their ulterior motives with the mask of paternalism, pretending to shower their pity upon the ignorant Jim and his heathen ways. However, even Trueblood, who is for the most part uneducated, can see through them. As he tells Mr. Norton, "But I got mad when I found out they was tryin' to git rid of us 'cause they said we was a disgrace" (Ellison, 52). In this instance, paternalism is used as a means for expressing disgust and shame at first; however, after some time, Trueblood gains fame, and his business does better than ever as white men come from all around to visit him.

//"The more wringlin' and twistin' we done tryin' to git away, the more we wanted to stay. So like that fellow, I stayed, I had to fight it on out to the end. He mighta died, but I suspects that he got a heapa satisfaction before he went"// (60). After raping his daughter in his dream, Trueblood cannot control himself enough to even stop the action when he awakes. Instead, he dwells on how it feels good, and decides to stay in that position. Staying true to the black rapist stereotype, he cannot control his sexual desires, even if these needs harm his family and position in society in the long run.

//"And the white folks took to coming out here to see us and talk with us. Some of 'em was big white folks, too, from the big school way cross the State. Asked me lots 'bout what I should 'bout things, and 'bout my folks and the kids, and wrote it all down in a book. But best of all, suh, I got more work now than I ever did have before" (53).// This paternalistic approach is what prevents Trueblood from realizing that he has been judged. The "white folks" lavish attention upon him because they are both intrigued and repulsed by his actions; wanting to glean more information as to the cause of his daughter's rape, they interview him and pay him special attention. Since this favoritism has helped his business, Trueblood is unable to see that the white folks are drawn to him because he committed a sin for which has no regret.

//**The Seductress as seen in the character, Emma**// Emma is described upon introduction as "//a smartly dressed woman whose hard, handsome face broke into smiles//" (Ellison, 300). Her attractive and elegant appearance quickly denotes her as powerful, her description as //hard// connotes experience, and the use of the word //handsome//, usually applied to men, creates an immediate air of masculinity and therefore power surrounding Emma. Her advice that "leaders are made, not born, and then destroyed" (302) and her suggestion that the Brotherhood leader in Harlem be darker characterize her as cynical and anaylitical. Brother Jack, the leader of the Brotherhood, listens to her advice although he disregards the comment that IM is too light; as Jack's mistress, Emma uses him as a source of reassurance that her opinions are listened to and acted upon. She is the only truly strong female character that the IM fears or respects, and the fact that she achieves her power through sex suggests that all successful women must.

"//I had felt strong restrictions and resented Emma's boldness and her opinion that I should have been blacker to play my role of Harlem leader//" (512). The IM initially chooses Emma as his target of seduction because he resents her empowerment, her ability to voice her opinions and not immediately be chastised. His feelings are representative of the conflicting struggle for women's empowerment and black empowerment in order of importance. In addition, his uncomfortableness with a strong woman's opinion and desire to use her suggests that women should be punished for stepping outside the role that society gives them as pawns.

Later in the novel, the Invisible Man chooses not to use Emma in order to get information about the Brotherhood.

"//I felt highly confident, but here my plan went slightly wrong. Emma was quite gay and responsive, but something about her hard, handsome face warned me to lay off. I sensed that while she might wilingly surrender herself (in order to satisfy herself) she was far too sophisticated and skilled in intrigue to compromise her position as Jack's mistress by revealing anything important to me. So as I danced and sparred with Emma, I looked over the party for a second choice//" (515). The repeated description of Emma as hard and handsome further emphasizes the connotation of the words. Her willingness to surrender only on her own terms and for her own satisfaction denotes the power of choice and her control over herself and in her actions. The IM recognizes her self control in that she is the unlikely to betray Jack or the Brotherhood. Still he has a connection and identifies Emma as a superior (//too sophisticated//), whom he can relate to because they are both playing the system for their own purposes.


 * //The seductress as seen in the "Women Question" Lady//**

"'[The Brotherhood] //provides women the full opportunity for self-expression, which is so very important, Brother...Women should be absolutely as free as men"// (414). The wealthy woman who invites IM back to her apartment to "discuss the Brotherhood and ideology" (411), outright states her desire for autonomy and the equality of women. Through discussions with the IM she wishes to have an impact on the Brotherhood, but sincer her true motive is to bed him, it can be assumed that she wishes to make a lasting impression through sex. Dressed only in a satin gown, she appears ready for bed i.e. sex.

"//My vision seemed to pulse alternately clear and vague, driven by furious bellows, as her lips said soundlessly,// I'm sorry//, and then impatiently into the telephone, 'Yes, this is she,' and then to me again, smiling as she covered the mouthpiece with her hand...//" (416). WQL's concentration, split between a telephone conversation and sex, adds an air of nonchalance to her actions. IM's inability to control his vision shows his lack of control in the situation. She, a rich member of high society, is using him to rebel from her husband who does not care about her. Similarly, the scene conjures images of male servants and masters' wives in IM's mind; both are fulfilling their historical roles as she, a white woman, uses him for her own sexual liberation.

"//I was lost, for the conflict between the ideological and the biological, duty and desire, had become to subtly confused//" (416). This quote expresses the fears of the Invisible Man. When he has sex, he loses his grip on reality and borders between reality and dreams because he loses control of himself. This crash into carnality is representative of the primal nature of man, but it also relates to the archetype of the black rapist who cannot help himself.


 * //The vision of a black rapist/the helpless virgin, as seen in Sybil//**

//"'But I need it,' she said, uncrossing her thighs and sitting up eagerly. 'You can do it, it'll be easy for **you**, beautiful. Threaten to kill me if I don't give in. You know, talk rough to me, beautiful"// (518). Sybil's sexual fantasy reveals the prevalent Northern stereotype of the black rapist. She sincerely believes that all black men desire to rape white women, and that this desire is uncontrollable; thus, she thinks it will be easy for the Invisible Man to rape her. She even gives him instructions, citing the words of a friend who was raped by a black man, who told her friend to "drop her drawers." Her fascination with rape embarresses the Invisible Man, who has spent his entire life trying to avoid acting as a stereotypical black man.

//"She was blushing quite deeply. Was this meant to excite me, or was it an unconscious expression of revulsion?"// (518). While trying to convince him to rape her, Sybil blushes deeply, and IM becomes even more confused. His southern background does not permit him to believe that she is genuinely entranced by him, and her childish obsession with being raped contributes to the absurdity of the situation. Thus, he cannot help but wonder //why// she seeks to be raped- especially if her blushing is actually a sign of revulsion. If not, then perhaps her blush is to bring out his "inner rapist," the sexual monster who cannot control his desires, as was seen in Trueblood earlier in the novel.

"//Suddenly, she looked at me mysteriously. 'Can I trust you with a deep secret?'...'I think I'm a nymphomanic'// (519). By misdiagnosing herself as a nymphomaniac, Sybil inadvertently reveals her lack of knowledge of sex. Her desire for sex has thus far gone unfulfilled, therefore her innocence is preserved and she can be catagorized as the Virgin. Her desire to be raped and dominated ("'Look //at me like that; just like you want to tear me apart. I love for you to look at me like that!//'" (520)) allows her to feel desired and take out her sexual frustrations. At the same time, the act of rape relieves her of any blame she would have had, having crossed the racial divide. Her passive behavior and desire for IM to act are other qualities that allow her to maintain her status as the Virgin. At the same time, Sybil's ignorant desire for IM to act out a stereotype denotes her innocence and lack of understanding with the world. She is vulnerable and therefore helpless in her drunken state, and IM is forced to take care of her, which includes dressing her and calling a taxi for her. Her inability to let go of IM, following him, parallels her chase for consumation of her sexual frustration. Since IM never actually rapes her, she remains virginal.


 * Scenes with Sex as Temptation:**

"//A sea of faces, some hostile, some amused, ringed around us, and in the center, facing us, stood a magnificent blonde- stark naked. There was dead silence. I felt a blast of cold air chill me. I tried to back away, but they were behind me and around me. Some of the boys stood with lowered heads, trembling. I felt a wave of irrational guilt and fear. My teeth chattered, my skin turned to goose flesh, my knees knocked. Yet I was strongly attracted and looked in spite of myself...the hair was yellow..., the face heavily powdered and rouged, as though to form an abstract mask, the eyes hollow... I felt a desire to spit upon her as my eyes brushed slowly over her body. Her breasts were firm and round...__I wanted at one and the same time to run from the room, to sink through the floor, or go to her and cover her from my eyes and the eyes of others with my body; to feel the soft thighs to caress her and destroy her, to love her and murder her__, to hide from her, and yet to stroke where below the small American flag tattooed upon her belly her thighs formed a capital V. I had a notion that of all in the room she saw only me with her impersonal eyes//" (Ellison, 19). Emphasis mine. This scene marks the Invisible Man's first introduction to sex. The Seductress in unmistakeably white, as denoted by her blond hair, and therefore untouchable. Her sexuality appeals to the narrator and causes him fear and nervousness (buckled knees, //gooseflesh//). Her introduction to the black boys is meant to taunt them, so while she is portrayed as a seductress she is actually a tool being manipulated by the white men - in such a way she is objectified, and she, like most women in the novel, is seen in a purely sexual light. The narrator's desire to both "//caress her and destroy her...to love her and murder her//" introduces his need to possess and dominate in order to feel power and control; in addition his need to destroy demonstrates a negative view of women, which remains throughout the novel as the narrator's attitude towards women as contributors to society tends toward disdain. Several mentions to detachment, //abstract mask//, //hollow eyes//, //imperonal eyes// are made. In this sense, the exotic dancer is separated from her body; her participation in the activities is clearly as a worker, not as a sexual being who desires attention.

"//They caught her just as she reached the door, raised her from the floor, and tossed her as college boys are tossed at a hazing, and above her red, fixed-smiling lips, I saw the terror and disgust in her eyes, almost like my own terror and that which I saw in some of the other boys//" (Ellison, 20). Nearly raped by the white men in the ballroom, the exotic dancer elicits instincual responses from the white men, causing them to engage in primal behavior as sex comes before dignity on their list of priorities. These men, at once the narrators idols, are also evoked as his oppressors. The dancer's helplessness ironically connotes virginity, and for the first and last time, the degradation of women is treated on the same level as that of blacks. In contrast, the Woman Question, the chapter of the Brotherhood relating to women's suffrage and opression, is portrayed as a laughing matter ("//I had just been made the butt of some outrageous joke//" (Ellison, 407), busywork to be given the IM while they investigate his actions.

//"Why did they have to mix their women into everything? Between us and everything we wanted to change in the world they placed a woman: socially, politically, economically. Why, goddamit, why did they insist upon confusing the class struggle with the ass struggle, debasing both us and them - all human motives?//" (Ellison, 418). The IM begins to see women and their temptation of sex as a barrier; they lure the workers away from their intended goals (in this case, the //class struggle// [primarily of blacks] to succeed). Women, as temptresses, are portrayed in a negative light, as distractions. In with the narrator's increasingly anti-feminist progression of thoughts, the novel becomes increasingly misogynistic in its undertones. Women are perceived as tools and nothing else, used by the "others" (while IM is with the Brotherhood, it is the upperclass, as he veers toward black nationalism, it is all whites) to dominate the lower class (specifically blacks.)

"//'Most of the time he'll be working, and so much of his freedom will have to be symbolic. And what will be his or any man's most easily accesible symbol of freedom? Why, a woman, of course. In twenty minutes he can inflate that symbol with all the freedom which he'll be too busy working to enjoy the rest of the time. He'll// see'" (Ellison, 153). The vet's advice the narrator portrays the white woman as a symbol of white culture. Domination of another man's woman is a mode of revenge, and for a black person, the ability to dominate and control another person and to make choices through them is freedom because there is no chance of freedom through equality. The vet's knowing tone (//you'll see//, //his or any man's//) suggests that this method of freedom is often achieved by young blacks.
 * References to White Women as Seductresses:**

"//'What they do to you black mahn? Give you them stinking women?' ...'Women?// Godahm//, mahn! Is that equality? Is that the black mahn's freedom? A pat on the back and a piece fo cunt without no passion?...These women dregs, mahn! They bile water!...The good white women he tell the black man is a rapist and keep them locked up and ignorant while he makes the black mahn a race of bahstards'// (Ellison, 372-73). Through Ras the Exhorter, the theme of freedom through sex is brought up again. The white woman is portrayed as a blind tool (//no passion//, told that the black man is a rapist - willing to follow whatever she is told), a seductress as a tool used to control the black man by putting him in jail on the account of rape. In this method, the myth of the black rapist is outright mentioned in the text. Women are seen as a false prospect of freedom because they are being controlled just as much as the black men. Both aid in the other's opression, through rape and the accusation thereof.


 * Works Cited**

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Bekman, Stas. "A Gallery of Archetypes." __Meta Religion__. 25 Feb 2008. Stasosphere. 2 Mar 2008 <[|http://meta-religion.com/Psychiatry/Analytical_psychology/a_gallery_of_archetypes.htm>.]

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Ellison, Ralph. __Invisible Man__. Vintage International Edition. New York: Random House, Inc., 1995.

"Freedom." http://philsland.blogs.com/photos/uncategorized/martin_luther_king_jr_freedom.jpg

Pilgrim, David. "The Brute Caricatature. "Ferris State University." Nov 2000 http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/brute/

"Rudyard Kipling." http://www.mackinac.org/media/images/2002/v2002-17a.jpg

Savitt, D. Jill. "Female Stereotypes in Literature (With a Focus on Latin American Writers)." Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute. 2 Mar 2008 <[|http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1982/5/82.05.06.x.html>.]

Suber, Peter. "Paternalism." Earlham College. 1999. http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/writing/paternal.htm

"Telephone." http://www.enterprise-ireland.com/NR/rdonlyres/EED5176A-6216-4E9C-B850-8F1048990973/0/Telephone2.jpg

Winston, George T. "The Relations of the Whites to the Negroes." __Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science,__ Vol. XVII, (July 1901), pp. 108-109.