Mat Mathews
Dr. Thomas Aiello
AFAM 4232
11 February 2016
Manliness and Civilization
The book Manliness and Civilization by Gail Bederman was very interesting. Bederman argues that race, gender, and power played a huge role in defining the discourse of civilization. She shows that people used the ideas of race, gender and power in different ways to show that their group was better and more civilized then other groups. She also argues that race and gender have to be studied together rather than separate because they both played such a huge role in the ideology of what it meant to be manly.
Chapter 1 covered Jack Johnson and Jim Jeffries, two very famous boxers who were both saw as strong manly men at the time. The only difference between the …show more content…
They believed that they were most civilized because of these certain ideas of race and gender. In this chapter Bederman further breaks down these ideas. We also see Ida B. Wells challenged dominant middle-class ideas about race, manhood, and civilization. She wanted white men to address the ideas of lynching. She often spoke about this topic in anti-lynching campaigns in northern cities and convinced many of people that they should takes these ideas serious because it was bad for the ideas civilization and manhood that they perceived. While many of white men argued that they lynched blacks because they were uncivilized, rapists and savages and they were cleaning up the country. Wells argue the opposite of white men being the most civilized people. She argued that because black men were more civilized because they were the ones being murdered in such a savage manner. Although Wells’ challenged the ideals of masculinity, white men still linked lynching to manhood and built more primitive form of masculinity so that they could continue to control and dominate black people. They would argue the ideal man was a perfect blend of civilized and
Dr. Thomas Aiello
AFAM 4232
11 February 2016
Manliness and Civilization
The book Manliness and Civilization by Gail Bederman was very interesting. Bederman argues that race, gender, and power played a huge role in defining the discourse of civilization. She shows that people used the ideas of race, gender and power in different ways to show that their group was better and more civilized then other groups. She also argues that race and gender have to be studied together rather than separate because they both played such a huge role in the ideology of what it meant to be manly.
Chapter 1 covered Jack Johnson and Jim Jeffries, two very famous boxers who were both saw as strong manly men at the time. The only difference between the …show more content…
They believed that they were most civilized because of these certain ideas of race and gender. In this chapter Bederman further breaks down these ideas. We also see Ida B. Wells challenged dominant middle-class ideas about race, manhood, and civilization. She wanted white men to address the ideas of lynching. She often spoke about this topic in anti-lynching campaigns in northern cities and convinced many of people that they should takes these ideas serious because it was bad for the ideas civilization and manhood that they perceived. While many of white men argued that they lynched blacks because they were uncivilized, rapists and savages and they were cleaning up the country. Wells argue the opposite of white men being the most civilized people. She argued that because black men were more civilized because they were the ones being murdered in such a savage manner. Although Wells’ challenged the ideals of masculinity, white men still linked lynching to manhood and built more primitive form of masculinity so that they could continue to control and dominate black people. They would argue the ideal man was a perfect blend of civilized and