Single Black Female: Fear Mongering as Patriarchal Propaganda

I came upon this video over on Black Girls Rock! and SMH:



I'm one of those "single black women" in my 30s, who's not worrying about her biological clock (I have a cousin who recently had her first child at 42) and who will admit that I've overlooked many good enough "he'll do" brothers and non-brothers alike, vs. "he's just what I'm looking for," and, honestly, I'm not feeling regretful about living in my singleness - multiple degrees and somewhat secure profession in tact with artistic pursuits, even if, now and then, I'm contemplating, "Gee, I'm all by myself tonight. Oops!" And that's really my assessment: "Oops, I forgot - while overachieving - to devote more attention to this aspect of my life; I guess I should start" (without really rushing to do so because I get so preoccupied with other things) instead of crying myself to sleep because, "Oh My God, I don't have a man! Oh, let me slit my wrists! Oh the agony!!"

So, all this is to say: I really get offended when I see these pathetic, fear-mongering propaganda telling unpartnered black women that something is wrong with them. It reminds me of the way single black mothers on welfare used to be demonized back in the '80s, because of societal fear that they were draining all of our public resources. Now, in the 21st century, more and more upwardly mobile black women, who are on the polar opposite of this spectrum of the "single black female," are still being punished for being unpartnered, for achieving educational and economic success on our own. Obviously, we, who are supposed to be "downtrodden," or as Zora Neale Hurston once put it in her novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, "the mule of the world," we who are supposed to be on the lowest totem pole of feminine beauty (i.e. if our looks are not valued by the most successful of the patriarchs, then we are destined to slavery or drudgery or dependent spinsterhood) are doing remarkably well on our own (as in, we didn't need a black man or a white man to achieve our success, and that does rub a lot of sexist men the wrong way). Obviously, certain men are about to lose their minds because we may have inadvertently sent the message that they just might be redundant.

Except in the arena of sex of course (and even then, sorry fellas, but interracial dating, queer sexuality, and vibrators are showing black women they've got some options, you know?). One can achieve their "O" in a variety of ways (so long as you dismiss the sexual misinformation promoted in porn videos, erotic novels, and even various patriarchal texts interpreting the Bible wrongly - for example, I imagine the 45-year-old virgin in the video has remained that way because of religious beliefs that told her to wait until marriage for sex and, sadly, marriage didn't come her way. But, unlike many in our sex-obsessed, pornographic culture, I would hardly label her a "freak" or "frigid" or "repressed" for her choices, or lack of choices; I would only say that, as black women, we've got to find our "O" beyond patriarchal limitations - be they pornographic or religious, two sides of the same coin - of how we can define and express our sexuality and, better yet, how to intertwine our sexuality with our spirituality; i.e. penetration isn't the only way to get your "O" on).

Even when it comes to motherhood, single women who want to have children can turn to medical technology for such options (of course, not enough men of color contribute their sperms), but such technology is ridiculously expensive and not always covered by health insurance (and too many in the health care industry are so not trying to help black women reproduce, you know what I'm saying?). Not to mention that such technology will never substitute for real companionship, love, romance, and friendship.

I certainly wouldn't want to speak for other single black women, some of whom may share my opinions and some who may actually be crying themselves to sleep because they are alone. However, what I want to do in this post is to call attention to the obvious ways that this discourse, which pathologizes black women for being unpartnered, is completely entrenched in racialized misogyny. The black feminist sociologist Patricia Hill Collins, in her book Fighting Words, calls this phenomenon "the politics of containment," in which "the visibility of African-American women ...generates the invisibility of exclusionary practices of racial segregation ...this new politics of containment [fits] in with long-standing mechanisms of control..." (Collins, 14). In other words, by highlighting the so-called high numbers of unpartnered black women (and that's just my interpretation, mind you, for the "single" statistics could very well include black women in non-marital relationships, in same-sex relationships, or those who were recently widowed or divorced), the stereotype or "marriage crisis" places the onus on black women while conveniently ignoring high rates of black male incarceration, which reduced the number of eligible heterosexual partners, or the ways that upwardly mobile women of color in general (I know enough non-black women struggling with the same problem) have moved out of our socioeconomic bracket and, due to the exclusive social segregation of various ethnic middle-class groups, have aced ourselves out of eligibility with the men we have grown up with or with the men we now encounter in our new social circles but who have never learned to socialize comfortably with our new class of women of color.

I also see an insidious agenda targeting unpartnered black women - successful or economically struggling - for the propaganda promotes a belief that 1.) a woman in general needs a man; 2.) a woman, who achieves economic independence, is going to be "punished" (if one believes in the rewards of heteropatriarchy) by being alone; and 3.) a woman who is alone is an easy target for sexual violence. On another blog, I once read that some black women were targeted for rape in a certain city by a gang of rapists, who "knew" (based on this propaganda) that black women were more likely to be alone, without patriarchal protection, and more likely to not seek or find justice in the legal system for the sexual violence perpetrated against them.

I know in my experience I've encountered men, who expected me to be "desperate" for their company, and when I was not, the threat of violence was just below the surface. I do fear that, because the propaganda promotes the idea that this "single" status will prompt black women to do anything to find and keep a man (from masochistic behavior to man-sharing), then racist misogynists (yes, this includes black men who have internalized racism) are going to react negatively and even violently when we "resist" their advances. It's a horrendous new "controlling image," to borrow from Collins again, because these stereotypes are designed to blame black women for the racialized misogyny that's directed towards us.

The bottom line for me is this: this so-called "marriage crisis" would really be a crisis if the rest of the heterosexual community, across races, ethnicities, and classes, was a stable and thriving one. It so isn't! One of my close friends, who is an attractive white woman, behaved in such a desperate way when she realized that she reached 36 (this was a while back) and had not gotten married yet. She made some awful mistakes, twisted herself in a pretzel to get married to a guy (also white) who had a vasectomy and neglected to tell her a few days before the wedding, even though she wants to be a mother, and although she smiles that painted-on smile that says she's "happy" with her marriage (her husband made an attempt to reverse his vasectomy but they are still struggling to have a child because of this), she never misses an opportunity to tell me how she envies me my single status (I predict that she will wait a few more years before she decides to divorce).

If I, as a black woman, bought into the propaganda that I'm so unfortunate to not be a white woman or any other non-black woman because they're so desired above me (rolling my eyes because I get enough affirmation of my attractiveness - here and abroad - on a regular basis) and are living these happily married lives, then I too would be rushing into equally bad marriages like our white counterparts. Sisters, don't believe the hype!

Yes, some women definitely have more options than we do (but usually this means more options to get into really screwed up relationships; think about it - more men does not equal more quality men!), but this to me only reinforces the problem, not that there is something wrong with black women, but that there is something wrong with a society that promotes the belief that a quality man, who believes in women's equality and who values a woman with educational and economic success, is somehow not the norm. If a man prefers an emptyheaded skank (I know, not very feminist, but you get the picture) to someone like myself, the solution is not for me to make myself over into an emptyheaded skank but to avoid such men at all costs, even if such men are the norm. I'm valuable, I'm a good woman, and I expect to find a good partner and not settle for less (once I actually start actively "searching" - hee). If I bought into the propaganda, I will believe that no good man exists and that I must somehow stop being a good woman or accept any man with less than acceptable qualities (because the pickings are slim, the saying goes).

The natural world doesn't work like that (I've yet to see any female animal of any species mate with a deficient male. They just don't! Why should the female sex of homo sapiens react with less intelligence than other animals?) While Shecodes, over on Black Women Vote!, has said that the 70% single status for black women is just not a naturally occurring phenomenon for any of us to be comfortable with, and I can agree with that, I do want to caution us to not respond to this phenomenon through the lens of a racialized heteropatriarchal viewpoint that immediately positions single womanhood as a problem. I come from a line of women who've had to raise their children on their own - my grandmother was widowed with eight children and my mother was divorced with me. I am the first in a long line of black women who is now in a position to choose to be a mother.

Many of us are "alone" (loosely quoted because, seriously, I know few unpartnered black women who aren't constantly surrounded by their family and friends) because we've had models of how a woman in singleness can live her life (something my white and South Asian friends have not often had modeled for them, so even if they wanted to resist a life of marriage and motherhood, they don't always know how to comfortably go about it). We can view black women's singleness as a pathology or not, but I certainly don't.

As for the "spiritual" Christian message of the video posted here. Again, rolling my eyes. The Jesus Christ I know was most active as a thirty-something single (he started a revolution, for Christ's sake - pun intended) and even encouraged his disciples to leave their wives, husbands, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, brothers, and sisters to form a new model of family. Many of our early Christians flocked to this movement precisely because they found a way to break the shackles of arranged marriages and family/community duties and discovered a new meaning for a spiritual family. Isn't it time we start exploring new models for family and community that value those of us who are single (with or without children) in this new century?

Furthermore, if Jesus wasn't worrying about not being married in his 30s, why should I? (Different gender, culture, ethnicity, and historical context notwithstanding.) But, seriously, the "family values" religious conservatives and the pornographers alike need to get over their angst about single black women.

I'm thriving on my own and will not do desperate. And I most certainly will not buy into the fear-mongering propaganda that tells me there is something wrong with who I am.