In the third chapter of her 1990 work, Black Feminist Thought, sociologist Patricia Hills Collins presents a critical response to highlight the inadequacy of both the class conflict and status attainment models in depicting the Black female experience. Specifically, she argues that these models, which have prevailed in sociological theories of stratification, are inapplicable in capturing the role of Black women in either the paid labor force or the unpaid family labor arena. Therefore, Collins (1990) attempts to advance an “Afrocentric feminist analysis of social class and oppression” by identifying four historical periods—slavery, the Great Migration, urbanization, and post-World War II—which she believes are integral to the discussion of
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She argues that the class conflict model is flawed because it does not consider the intersection of race and gender that is unique to women of color in general, and Black women in particular (p. 45). Historically, Black people’s position in the paid labor market has not been reflective of the property owning/non-property-owning class dichotomy that Marx and Weber have described. On account of the fact that Black people were treated as property to be bought and sold on the market during slavery, their role in the market economy was central, yet external. Essentially, their relationship to the market economy was paradoxical, because in spite of having a central role, slaves were effectively barred from having any input in the market, and in fact were external to it (Collins 1990: p. 52). Notwithstanding, Black slaves did not aspire to belong to a capitalist society. Rather, “the entire slave community/family stood in opposition to the public sphere of a capitalist political economy controlled by elite white men” (Collins 1990: p. 49). Black women specifically, retreated to the private domestic sphere where they strived to recreate the African tradition of families as extended kinship networks (Collins …show more content…
At this time, Black women’s paid labor was concentrated in either two locations: agriculture or domestic work. Collins (1990) emphasizes that such labor has been omitted from discussion, as class conflict theorists have traditionally focused on industrial factory jobs, especially those that are unionized (p. 45). Since Black women have customarily labored in non-unionized work, their paid labor is neglected. What has also been neglected is the exploitation and harassment that Black women experienced in both domains. The grueling nature of agricultural or field labor was nearly identical to that during enslavement. Domestic labor (i.e., working as live-in servants for White families) was equally troubling as Black women and girls were underpaid and exposed to constant sexual harassment by their white employers and even other Black men. Racial discrimination augmented the negative circumstances of Black women who were forced to work under these deleterious conditions because Black male wages were also diminutive. As a result, the class conflict’s assumption that a woman’s class position originates solely from that of her husband’s or father’s is inaccurate for Black women; as racism, sexism, exploitation, harassment, and the absence of a nuclear household by normative standards
She argues that the class conflict model is flawed because it does not consider the intersection of race and gender that is unique to women of color in general, and Black women in particular (p. 45). Historically, Black people’s position in the paid labor market has not been reflective of the property owning/non-property-owning class dichotomy that Marx and Weber have described. On account of the fact that Black people were treated as property to be bought and sold on the market during slavery, their role in the market economy was central, yet external. Essentially, their relationship to the market economy was paradoxical, because in spite of having a central role, slaves were effectively barred from having any input in the market, and in fact were external to it (Collins 1990: p. 52). Notwithstanding, Black slaves did not aspire to belong to a capitalist society. Rather, “the entire slave community/family stood in opposition to the public sphere of a capitalist political economy controlled by elite white men” (Collins 1990: p. 49). Black women specifically, retreated to the private domestic sphere where they strived to recreate the African tradition of families as extended kinship networks (Collins …show more content…
At this time, Black women’s paid labor was concentrated in either two locations: agriculture or domestic work. Collins (1990) emphasizes that such labor has been omitted from discussion, as class conflict theorists have traditionally focused on industrial factory jobs, especially those that are unionized (p. 45). Since Black women have customarily labored in non-unionized work, their paid labor is neglected. What has also been neglected is the exploitation and harassment that Black women experienced in both domains. The grueling nature of agricultural or field labor was nearly identical to that during enslavement. Domestic labor (i.e., working as live-in servants for White families) was equally troubling as Black women and girls were underpaid and exposed to constant sexual harassment by their white employers and even other Black men. Racial discrimination augmented the negative circumstances of Black women who were forced to work under these deleterious conditions because Black male wages were also diminutive. As a result, the class conflict’s assumption that a woman’s class position originates solely from that of her husband’s or father’s is inaccurate for Black women; as racism, sexism, exploitation, harassment, and the absence of a nuclear household by normative standards