The Imperialism of Patriarchy

Bell Hooks’ chapter on “The Imperialism of Patriarchy” encapsulates all the insecurity that comes with white imperialism. Nevertheless, it is black women who find themselves becoming targets of black patriarchy that stems out of it. Hooks paints the picture of a frustrated black man who has suffered enough at the hands of racism. Then taking this bitterness out on women gives them an opportunity to “restore their lost masculinity”.

She explains that under the atrocities of imperialism, the black man is often viewed as “emasculated, effete and crippled”, providing a convenient cover for black male sexists. Hence, the great leaders of the liberation movement, whether it is Marcus Garvey, Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X or even Martin Luther King, have all furthered the patriarchal base established at the heart of the movement. Hooks’ chapter sheds light on many aspects of black patriarchy. However, I want to focus on two: the romanticisation associated with it and its manifestation in works of black creatives.

Leaders would speak in favour of patriarchal rule but their claims would always be cloaked behind a romantic image of a black man lifting (saving) a black woman. Hooks gives the example of Amiri Baraka and his romantic rhetoric to mask sexism that would resonate in the words of black leaders as well. She quotes the following from his 1970 essay:

“But we must erase the separateness by providing ourselves with healthy African identities ... For instance, we do not believe in the “equality” of men and women. We cannot understand what the devils and the devilishly influenced mean when they say equality for women. We could never be equals… nature has not provided thus. The brother says, “Let a woman be a woman… and let a man be a ma-an…”

Baraka’s essay is a perfect example of the sexist thought that was commonly romanticised in black America. Letting “women be women” does not imply embracing womanhood here; it is simply depriving them of the right to be active in the political and social sphere. Hooks also adds that these leaders, in their personal lives, wanted to limit the role of women related to them. Moreover, letting “women be women” would be a convenient cover to establish a patriarchal order that would bring the men out of racial oppression and enable them to further oppress the black woman to get rid of their own anxieties. In short, they were asking for patriarchal privileges in the name of black power. Nevertheless, it is important to stress that this image of an obedient woman and the breadwinner man stems from the basic industrial, capitalist society that was created by the white man.

The second point of discussion about this is its manifestation in the works of black creatives. The perception of women was divided into two: the pure virgin (who was the “good girl”) and the sexually liberated woman (who was the “bad girl”). Either way, the men had the desire to take back the self-respect they had lost to racism through being able to control their women. This created a culture of having strong distaste for women which manifested itself in the form of physical brutality or as the verbal denouncement of black women as “matriarchs, castrates, bitches etc”. Therefore, the devalued woman becomes a “different kind of an object; she is the spittoon “in which men release their negative anti-woman feelings.”

Such a demonstration of masculine power was common in creative displays. Hooks gives the example of Amiri Baraka’s acceptance of this culture through his play Madheart. The play shows a man beating the woman he loves in order to get her. The normalisation of such behaviour was and still is dangerous for women who would be at the receiving end of it. Moreover, Audre Lorde, in her essay The Great American Disease, narrates the murder of a black woman on stage by a playwright. Inclinations towards such behaviours are present in contemporary art as well. Hip-hop, a genre greatly related to black liberation, has endless examples of desires/confessions to inflict violence on women while referring to them with sexist slurs.

The role of the black woman is very important here. Where the liberation movement has glorified all its (male) heroes, it has often missed out the struggles of black women who are not only fighting racism but also the wrath of their own men that comes with it.