Gender Shift in Black Communities

...Though the issue will not be probed here, the flight of the black middle and upper strata from the central cities may have contributed indirectly to the crisis of the black lower class...

...Yet I believe they lie at the root of certain patterns in the experience of the black urban lower class...

...The loosening of black urban social structures is the focus of this article...

...the main offices went to black females throughout the rest of the 1970s...

...In general since 1969 the gender gap has widened sharply between black females and males...

...These peer groups often perpetuate behaviors that impede the chances of black males for success in education and employment...

...But between 1960 and 1965 the white student population fell to 42 percent and within two years to 23 percent...

...When they talk among themselves, these women commonly disparage men...

...While this analysis has only hinted at the complex, multiple causes affecting black gender relations, it should provide an insight into the ever-increasing feminization of black urban society...

...To illustrate the impact of urban mass movements and political mobilization on black gender relations, I examined school leadership patterns and graduation rates in two small, predominantly black urban New Jersey school systems...

...6 Celestine Bohlen, "Number of Mothers in Jail Surges with Drug Arrests," The New York Times (April 17, 1989...

...These trends apparently took hold in the late sixties, particularly as a result of political mobilization associated with urban racial riots...

...In the absence of positive adult models, many black boys, as young as 7 or 8, turn to their peers to explore the essence of being male...

...In 1969 a virtual revolution occurred in the gender composition of the student council at East High...

...8 Rhea Brown, Report on the Negro in Montclair—Ethnic Survey (New Jersey Archives, 1940...

...Many of the young men were unemployed and, therefore, by the young women's measure, considered trifling...

...Even so, by 1975 a pattern of conspicuous female leadership was consolidated...

...But this transfer of white male dominance to black males was decidedly temporary...

...This evidence is, of course, based on a modest sample, but it is, I believe, suggestive...

...Black women 522 • DISSENT traveled to white suburbs to work as domestic servants, thereby supplementing black family income...

...I° Gerald Grant, The World We Created At Hamilton High (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988) p. 43...

...Some observers have suggested that "scholars and policymakers alike have taken the manifestations of black women's oppression and twisted them into the argument that a powerful black matriarchy exists...

...In one Camden school—we'll call it East High— this pattern of male dominance held briefly after 1968 when the student body became predominantly black...

...12 In spite of the fact that many black males currently participate in the economic mainstream, they have clearly suffered a decline in their educational status...

...the old world had fallen apart...

...Nor is the black middle class unaffected by the gender shift, for declining black male college enrollments along with a disproportionate increase in black female college enrollment will move the gender shift "upwards...

...5 Jones, Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow, p. 326...

...Accordingly, it was not unusual to find slightly more females than males in the labor force...

...In some contexts, black males are perceived as having failed to function either as viable protectors or providers...

...As more and more black males participate in illicit drug activities, it has become clear that they exhibit little fear of the police or governmental authority at any level, let alone of dominant social norms, be they ethnic patterns among blacks or general American ones...

...As white students exited hastily from urban secondary schools, black females succeeded to high office...

...New forms of consciousness took hold among black high school students, leading to new social norms and changes in the schools' racial compositions...

...Not surprisingly, they are, increasingly, unable to function as good providers, and consequently, the black gender gap widens and is likely to widen further in the next decade...

...8 This same pattern obtained in Newark in the 1930s...

...12 Reynolds Farley and Walter R. Allen, The Color Line and the Quality of Life in America (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1987), p. 351...

...Reacting to the increase in New York City's female black prison population, one warden commented on the infrequent visits from black men: "You rarely see the boyfriends coming out there...

...Mama," he writes, "lays this burden on Sister from whom she expects (or indicates she expects) far more than she expects from Brother...

...The Haryard psychiatrist Alvin Poussaint recently remarked One problem . . is that many single black mothers are angry with black men, sometimes with justification...

...Between 1960 and 1966 black males in North High dominated the student council presidency, but between 1968 and 1973 only one black male was elected to this position...

...Again, though black males regained a couple of student council presidencies after 1973, the clear and unambiguous trend for the rest of the 1970s and beyond was toward black female leadership...

...New Jersey Past Scattered evidence with regard to several New Jersey cities suggests that black females have exercised increasingly important roles in the urban communities...

...Compared to males, black females move smoothly through the secondary and higher educational systems...

...New Jersey Present: Leadership Shifts Black gender roles have changed steadily since the late 1960s...

...Through the 1970s and 1980s black females went from a 17 percent graduation gap in 1969 to a 21 percent gap in 1973 to a 30 percent gap in 1980 to a 26 percent gap in 1985...

...Though many factors may explain this gender shift—such as the rise of feminism—there is little doubt that black females have begun to constitute the key leadership group...

...Over time, higher levels of educational attainment will alter the cultural context of black family life and influence the mother's FALL • 1989 . 521 socialization role within the family...

...He characterizes these lower-class social patterns as "a disease peculiar to the Black community called 'sorriness.' It is," Baldwin observes, "a disease that attacks Black males...

...Mostly, it was blue-collar and middle-class black males that headed major community and professional organizations...

...This class-skewed dispersion of blacks in big cities since the late 1960s underscores the relationship between urban political mobilization, riots, and the deterioration of class authority...

...This female assertiveness occurs in relation to, and against, a socialization crisis among a growing sector of lower-class black males...

...A similar pattern occurred in two high schools in East Orange—we'll call them North and South High...

...Black males again claimed the primary offices and held them through 1973...

...Thoughts on the Future Notwithstanding the fact that black females have long graduated in larger numbers than black males, the graduation rates of black males have declined in an accelerated fashion during the past two decades...

...2 Jacqueline Jones, Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow (New York: Vintage, 1986), p. 7. 3 James Baldwin, The Evidence of Things Not Seen (New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston, 1985), p. 19 4 See Elijah Anderson, "Sex Among Poor Black Teenagers: Game of Conquests and Dreams," The Philadelphia Inquirer (May 14, 1989...

...A male who could not bring money into a relationship was `trifflin,' lazy, and no good...

...One study observed, "There are quite a number of good women's clubs, but no men's clubs worth mentioning...

...In the middle 1960s the gender gap in favor of black females rose as high as 12 percent and then declined...

...With men, the women take care of them...

...Failing to penetrate even these "regimes," many young black males have in various ways become marginalized, unable or unwilling to enter legitimate job markets...

...Consequently, she remarks, "the institution of single parenthood carries with it the possibility of long-lasting estrangement between black women and men...

...This gender shift involves two dimensions: accelerated black female educational mobility and the marginalization of lower-class black males...

...7 Leon Dash, When Children Want Children (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1989) p. 263...

...Moreover, because of widespread black male participation in criminal activity, black males are increasingly perceived as less stable and less responsible than black females...

...Combine this with the absence of male providers in many lower-class and some working-class black households, and there follows a disturbing scenario for the future of black male children...

...Some Implications The black gender shift since the late 1960s has been pro-women without being politically feminist...

...It is apparent from this that the men in the Third Ward [Newark's Central Ward now] are not society minded in the sense that men of similar districts in other cities are...

...Their conversations symbolize the negative atmosphere in which many black boys are being raised...

...Among black students, however, females were already graduating at higher rates than black males during the early 1960s...

...One reason is that black feminism evolves less in highly visible ideological terms than in more subdued de facto ones, such as the growing rate of black female participation in the labor force and in the rates in which women hold high-school offices and graduate...

...Data from the 1930s and 1940s demonstrate that black girls often graduated from New Jersey high schools in larger proportions than black males...

...An important consequence was that, by the late 1930s, black women were generally more active in social organizations than men...

...Though the implications of these gender shifts are not yet well understood, this analysis implies that status, and perhaps power, in black urban society is steadily shifting toward females...

...FALL • 1989...

...On the other hand, according to Leon Dash, who has extensively observed the urban poor for the Washington Post, young black females frequently put "enormous pressure on young men . . . regardless of whether the young women were mothers, to be providers...

...In the predominantly black North High evidence of a gender shift appears in 1968, just one year after the 1967 riots in adjacent Newark...

...It's pitiful...

...Since the 1970s black males constitute a smaller percentage of the urban black populations with secondary and higher education...

...In due course, cultural changes in the family unit may effectively modify mother-son patterns of communication and social interaction, particularly the mothers' disposition overprotectively to "love their sons and raise their daughters...

...In 1960 East Orange's South High was 70 percent white...

...Several high schools in Camden and East Orange, New Jersey experienced in 1968 a series of racial upheavals...

...The importance of gender is heightened when we recognize that prior to 1968, when white students predominated, white females held virtually none of the major student council posts...

...This mother/son relationship may contribute to intense conflict between boyfriends/girlfriends...

...Except for the black male president of the senior class, by 1968 all of North High class presidencies were held by black females...

...It is transmitted by Mama, whose instinct is to protect the Black male from the devastation that threatens him from the moment he declares himself a man...

...In contrast, black males are more likely to enter unstable remedial "mobility regimes" specifically designed to enhance their educational, employment, and training skills...

...High schools appeared to be a milieu within which black female assertiveness evolved—something I view as an outgrowth of the loosening of social structures among urban blacks during the 1960s and 1970s...

...But the men don't take care of the women...

...As blacks became urbanized after the 1950s, their family structures began to evolve rapidly not only toward female-headed households but toward a general female assertiveness' that manifested itself in schools, in educational achievement, in job-market participation, and eventually in community structures...

...On the notion of "mobility regimes," see Marc Maurice et al., The Social Foundation of Industrial Power (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1986...

...For example, in Montclair in 1930, while 49 percent of black males over ten were in the labor force, some 51 percent of black females in the same age group were in the labor force...

...As I see it, female assertiveness now operates broadly within many weak black working- and lower-class families in the cities...

...While black 524 • DISSENT males participated in the riots, black females apparently responded to the riots in a special way...

...6 In all too many relationships the black male withdraws from commitments, providing little financial or emotional support...

...Differences in educational attainment across gender translate into access to different "mobility regimes...

...These roles were closely connected to the black females' relatively high levels of education...

...This overall prominence of black females in FALL • 1989 • 523 student offices also prevailed at East Orange's South High School...

...Teachers sometimes retreated in the face of racial violence and out of fear of black student militancy...

...In recent years, black feminism, freed from certain macho cultural constraints among blacks, is more visible in the evolving gender shift...

...7 Over the long run, these developments facilitate the marginalization of many lower-class black males within the American society as a whole and also within the black subculture...

...Inevitably, differences in higher educational levels translate into differing access to "mobility regimes...

...With higher literacy rates, black females are more likely to enter highskillbased, professions...

...5 Since many black children are today born out of wedlock, tensions over reliable child support are built into gender relations among many blacks...

...As Reynolds Farley and Walter Allen suggest with respect to ascendant black female earnings, under these conditions the financial incentives for black females to marry diminish rapidly...

...I See Lee Rainwater, Behind Ghetto Walls: Black Families in a Federal Slum (Chicago: Aldine, 1970) and Emmanuel Todd, The Causes of Progress: Culture, Authority, and Change (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987...

...A female assertiveness associated with a general gender shift had to await the upheaval in urban black communities that began in the 1960s...

...New York Times, April 19, 1989...

...Their literacy rates now exceed those of black males...

...The incidents involved fist fights between black and white students as well as challenges to the authority of teachers...

...io During the early 1960s the Camden and East Orange high schools were predominantly white...

...Given the lagging educational attainment of black males, the same processes that erode racial inequalities also erode gender inequalities in black communities...

...They abandon them...

...It became not only all-black but all-female...

...This is especially so in regard to the socialization of male children among lower-class and some working-class black families...

...2 But this is not how I view it...

...This decline is related to changes in the composition of black families and in the urban economy...

...but one of the results of this all too comprehensible dynamic is that Brother may never grow up—in which case the community has become an accomplice to the Republic...

...This density of black female educational attainment constitutes a strategic opening to a broad range of opportunities...

...9 Yet despite the increasing participation in the labor force of black women in cities like Newark and Montclair in the 1930s and 1940s, there was a ceiling on their capacity to translate this into female assertiveness...

...Apart from its protectiveness toward male children, Baldwin notes another dimension of "sorriness...

...White students held nearly all student government offices, with white males dominant...

...4 Commenting, for example, on the longterm effects of teenage pregnancy, Jacqueline Jones observes that "a young woman's satisfaction upon entering womanhood [having children] eventually gives way to feelings of bitterness toward the father who can afford so little reliable child support...

...Working mainly as domestic servants and laundry employees, black females also entered more stable occupations...

...A look at the composition of graduating classes also reveals a gender shift among black students in New Jersey...

...Previous Tendencies Drawing on Southern black folk culture, James Baldwin, in his last published work, alluded to black lower-class social patterns which, when set against the urban upheaval among the black poor from the 1960s onward, seem to encourage this gender shift...

...This urban upheaval also involved relationships within black society disrupting its authority structure...

...3 Perceptively, Baldwin concludes that the differences in the socialization of boys and girls eventually erode the father's commitment to family life...

...Urban unrest in the 1960s involved an assault not only on white racial-caste authority but also on normal civil authority...

...9 E. Johnson, Organizational Life in the Newark Third Ward—Ethnic Survey (New Jersey Archives, 1940...

...Rather, my views are shaped by the tough innovations and admirable resilience of black females despite systemic and subcultural oppression and despite the enormous upheaval in the black urban lower class from the 1960s onward...

...Graduation rates for white males and females during these years were approximately similar...

...In the face of a steadily evolving gender shift toward black females, black males are experiencing a major reversal in status...

...New Jersey's governor at the time referred to Newark as a "city in open rebellion...

...In such situations, as one recent study notes, "No one seemed to know what rules applied...

...Over this two-decade period black females constituted a high proportion of the top ten honors graduates...

...Many of the male black rioters were extremely hostile toward both middle-class blacks and middleclass whites, causing both groups to leave the inner city...

...And, although one post occasionally went to a black male during the 1980s, the decade has witnessed a steady consolidation of its gender shift...

...Though still exploratory and highly tentative, the analysis of black gender relations nevertheless may yield important policy implications as to how we organize surrogate family support systems or parenting clinics, and how we seek to motivate young black males in urban schools and other training programs...

...Black females were elected most frequently (68 percent) to high student government posts, while black males held only 24 percent of such posts...

...But this first sign of black female assertiveness at East High was initially fleeting, for within a year the traditional pattern of student leadership was reinstated...

...But in the long run, female assertiveness within the lower and working classes could serve to restore the ability of males to regain social strength...

...There is, it must be noted, an important ideological element behind the perception of this evolving gender shift...