Each of these articles lament the lack of differentiation within women’s and feminist studies; more specifically they talk about how racial differences are all but ignored in most studies. However, both authors come to different conclusions about the best way to address this problem, highlighting what they see as the most important aspects of racial and gender identity.
Higginbotham looks at race not as something that stands alone, but as something inexorably intertwined with other social constructs. Therefore, she finds it impossible to get a complete picture of racial identity without looking at its effect on “the construction and representation of other social and power relations, namely, gender, class, and sexuality.” (252) She asserts that current white feminist studies fail to recognize the subtle interactions of these forces, thus creating the deficiencies in current theory and scholarship. Her point is well made; lumping all women into one category tends to over-generalize their thoughts and experiences, losing the unique perspective that women from a different class/race might have to offer. Instead, Higginbotham highlights the profound effects race has historically had in defining not only gender relationships, but social and sexual ones as well. Her methodical analysis is further bolstered by her strategic use of credible sources like W.E.B. DuBois and E. Frances White.
Brown agrees with the principle that the different aspects of social history cannot stand alone. She identifies the problem not with feminist scholarship specifically, but with the tendencies of historians in general: “As historians we try isolate one conversation and to explore it, but the trick is to put that conversation in a context which makes evident its dialogue with so many others – how to make this one lyric stand alone and at the same time be in connection with all the other lyrics being sung. (298) I particularly liked this analogy likening social history to song lyrics: each piece stands alone, but can only be fully understood in the context of the whole song, the same way conversations about gender, class, etc. require each other to paint the entire historical picture. The problem with Brown’s essay, however, is that it is too informal and conversational. I understand that she is trying to engage a complicated topic in a simple way, but found that her paper lacks a clear structure. After bouncing between various metaphors and case studies, I only found myself recalling a few half-completed points about racial and gender segregation between white and black women.
Fong’s paper starts with a clear introduction, outlining its objective and putting a context around Ma Rainey, which I found very useful as a reader who had never heard of her and have very little knowledge about the history of jazz music in general. Her central question – what allowed Ma Rainey to break the racial and gender constraints of the “culture of dissemblance” – is both simple enough to be looked at thoroughly in a paper of this length, and also complex enough to provide an interesting analysis that will keep the reader interested. The problem with the paper is that this central question is never fully explored. Fong does give very elegant descriptions of Rainey and the world that she lived in, which make the paper less a theoretical discussion and more a case study that gives the reader a firsthand look at the period. There is nothing wrong with this, as long as the analysis is complete as well. There are a number of tantalizing hints towards the answer to the main question, especially the discussion of Rainey’s break from “breezy hopefulness” to create entirely new style of blues realism, singing about poverty and hardship and highlighting the struggle of black women at a time when such cries were normally silenced. However, Fong doesn’t fully tie together these different aspects of Rainey’s life and how they overcame the “culture of dissemblance.” A more flushed out analysis would turn this paper from a good one into a great one.
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