Originally published in 1978, this book caused a storm of controversy as Micheke Wallace blasted the masculinist bias of the black politics that emerged from the sixties. She described how women remained marginalized by the patriarchal culture of Black Power and the ways in which a genuine female subjectivity was blocked by the traditional myths of black womanhood. In 1990 the author added a new introduction examining the debate the book had sparked between intellectuals and political leaders; an extensive bibliography of contemporary black feminist studies was also added. Black Macho raised issues and arguments that framed the terms of current feminist and black theory and continues to be relevant today.
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Courageous, outspoken, clear-eyed -- Publishers Weekly
Wonderful . . . the most original discussion I've read in years. -- Susan Brownmiller
Wonderful . . . the most original discussion I've read in years. -- Susan Brownmiller
About the Author
Michele Wallace has taught creative writing and Afro-American Literature at the universities of California, Oklahoma and Buffalo and is currently Professor of English and Women's Studies at the City College of New York. She has been a regular contributor to Zeta, the Village Voice and Art Forum.
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46 of 47 people found the following review helpful
I read this book when it was originaaly published in 1976. Although Michele Wallace was a relatively young black woman (still in her twenties as I remember)I was most impressed by the maturity of her insights regarding both black men and black women. Her intent seemed to be to point out areas that both genders needed to look at if the race as a whole was to make any progress.
In both sections of her book, Wallace focused our attention on "male privilege" and how it translated into black "macho-ness", with the resultant effect that black men are as guilty of taking for themselves unearned advantages over black women as white people are guilty of taking for themselves unearned advantages over black people. She pointed out that black women continued to nurture the race physically, emotionally, and spiritually, and that the convenience of the self-sacrificing "superwoman image" (which black women willingly accept) allowed the predominatly male leaders of the civil rights movement to discount the interests and issues of black women, much like white slaveholders did; the typical black superwoman served only as an ancillary utility for black men. Wallace revealed to the world that black women, more often than not, were still "sleeping with the enemy."
Wallace was virulently attacked by almost every black "leader" who could get herself (yes, even women) and himself heard. However, if you re-read the book today, you cannot deny the fact that she was prescient in her observations and conclusions. The problems which she identified then still exist today.
I would recommend this book as a basic text for every black women's college. It should be discussed whereever concerned black people convene.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
By Soulflower
This book is the most honest book I have ever read about the modern black woman's experience. My mother read it because it was given to her by a friend in her Master's program, some years ago
Then when I was a sophmore in college she gave it to me and I read it.
I would encourage women who have sons especially to read it, I have a daughter, a toddler, and she will read it too,probably in high school.
If we are to end the cycle of abuse and torment and empower black women in America we must start with all the issues she addresses.
Then when I was a sophmore in college she gave it to me and I read it.
I would encourage women who have sons especially to read it, I have a daughter, a toddler, and she will read it too,probably in high school.
If we are to end the cycle of abuse and torment and empower black women in America we must start with all the issues she addresses.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
For Wallace, the civil rights movement meant "A white woman in every bed and a black woman under every heel"
March 1, 2007
By MagicSinglez
This is an account of Michele Wallace's experiences with the civil rights movement and growing up in the late 60's. Judith Wilson, who reviewed this for Ebony Magazine, has since said, "it was a pioneer work. Angela Davis's book 'Women, Race and Class' wasn't published until 2 years later. Ntozake Shange's play 'For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide' had moved to Broadway but it's approach was poetic rather than analytical".
Wallace mentions of the ladies in her family, "It was understood, you were either going to be a bright success or a desperate failure, and it was your job to proclaim which you were going to be at as early an age as possible".
She recalls how she was taken out of private Catholic school when her mom found posters of Richard Nixon in the bedroom she shared with her sister, "can you believe it? we were that brainwashed". Things would be entirely different at the NY school where she transferred. . .
This book, about Black women being shortchanged, is probably most relevant for women who came of age during the period of time from the 1960s to the 1990s. It has some relevance today, though, as it probably would have before the 60s as well.
For the most part Wallace implies black women are oppressed and almost never tells us they are. On it's surface, this could possibly have the working title, "Why I became a feminist".
Black Macho is an odd read and yet a modernly familiar one. At times, one is struck with a feeling Wallace is trying to say something completely opposite from what is literally on the page. Is she a master propagandist or does she know her audience and want to keep them reading? She begins each chapter with a true-ism, for instance, this genuine one, "white men were always the ones making pronouncements about everything" and ends up at the end of the chapter quoting a figure proclaiming, "Kill Whitey". This is almost an expose' of the civil rights movement. Some of the irony may be intentional. The defining statement of the book is Wallace saying "the civil rights movement meant a white woman in every bed and a black woman under every heel".
Wallace also says that black men and women have a sometime dislike for each other, stemming in part from black men/white women relationships, and she asserts a lack of confidence he would, in her words, "come home".
Wallace was criticized some for Black Macho and one has to wonder: is this criticism (of a work claiming black women are treated unfairly) simply proof of her thesis? 20 years later she says, "in some ways I'm still being punished today". To be honest, 'Sexism', was a major issue in the public eye at the time, but I might argue, only for white women. It's been said that liberal Bill Clinton, being accused of sexism, did a lot to reduce some of the perception of it.
Wallace doesn't ignore the media in her book. She asks, was there a conscious effort to keep young minds focused on sports, guns and violence, and off business, education and the stock market?
She begins her treaties on 'Black Macho' (the 2nd half of the book) with, "imagine for a moment that there was a part of your body, an organ, that by the very nature of the society in which you lived, existed under immense pressure. Imagine that this organ, placed in a conspicuously vulnerable position on your body, was to expand, rise, and remain erect at will. Imagine that your status in society depended upon your ability to control this organ. Imagine that if you couldn't get the dam thing to work, the very importance of your existence would be in question".
This is a sensationalist, titillating book filled with the 'F' word, 'Redneck', the 'N' word, and lots of people saying kill the bigots. I imagine Wallace secretly enjoyed writing this even as she's mentioned she secretly enjoyed listening to Norman Mailers rants about the women's movement (Wallace was a journalist for the Village Voice a paper Mailer founded). I don't think she enjoyed writing this as much as I enjoyed reading.
Wallace was presenting unique ideas. She may have felt pressure to go along with the ideas people did believe in at the time (or perhaps felt a desire to be understood), and I think what might be going on with this work is that it is an example of the 'Wilson Rule' (If you have one politically Incorrect idea {here the idea being that black women are the ones being taken advantage of}, you have to smother it in 6 politically correct statements). Countless books have been written in this manner (tho only a minority of those at the library), each examining one un-PC idea the author believes in, and, so the author can sound reasonable, accepting every other popular convention of the day. The problem is. . . at the end of the day, best case scenario, a young reader's learned 6 lies and 1 thing that's true?
Wallace chronicles the fact that after rioting or violence took place, a pro-revolution march or activist conference would take place in the community nearby. I didn't notice this (what for Wallace is obviously connected) on first reading (the idea that an event or campaign blitz to convince everyone the world cares about you, agrees with you, and is on your side - a snow job - even an affirmative action plan, can quell your violence). Why not even say it's the other guy who is ignorant and violent? I remember a character in a movie once saying, "You can't fool us by agreeing with us". There is the question of whether the initial act of violence was staged or not, and how soon will it be they'll want us to believe, the resultant 'sympathy' is actually the Cause! Creating our beliefs being the never ending job that it is. There's something going on here tho other than just 'black vs white in the South'. There's a global, colonial, corporate exploitation going on. People in China somewhere who have never been within 500 miles of a white person their entire lives understand this idea of white-guilt (I might add, even as they drive to their lighted conferences on democracy). Perhaps it is even a subconscious, gleeful-guilt (where whites fear no punishment). This is something Wallace at the very least hints at. Black women may have been victims but they internalized a completely different idea, at least vis-a-vis black men. Might the assignment of blame and applause, guilt and innocence, change?
Wallace was in one of my college textbooks, quoted for her reaction to gangster rap. For her, the solution for women everywhere will be found, when, "...women rap back". Not long after I noticed Queen Latifah with a big video out. Eminem followed.
To be fair and give my own view I could be called a 'conservative' but I think what really needs to happen is for whites, and men, and white men in particular, to begin speaking up and out for themselves. I'm not sure that's hypocracy. It will only be when white men are denied 'affirmative action', too, that the whole hate the West monopoly will seriously face challenge. I really don't see affirmative action (discrimination against white men) continuing for another 40 years making up for the fact most black children grow up poor. Obviously anything is possible.
I'm closer to being a conservative I suppose... I'm somewhat of an 'anti-feminist'. Perhaps I'm just a chauvinist (I've certanly been called a lot worse!). I'm not wedded to any particular ideology tho - I find them all interesting. Guess I'm a sympathizer - as well as a chauvinist.
Michele Wallace is paid to be a feminist. After Black Macho, Wallace would edit a work titled, "All the women are white; all the blacks are men, but some of us are brave". She teaches a number of college courses and also a seminar in film studies at CUNY, 'Performance and Race in Cinema 1890-1930's' where she says, "Despite the many objectionable features, this is a body of work which is collectively unforgettable and irreplaceable".
I would trade all these films for 'Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman'. I couldn't help but like the voice of woman who wrote this book. I was in awe of Wallace. No. I was in love with the woman who wrote these words.
Wallace mentions of the ladies in her family, "It was understood, you were either going to be a bright success or a desperate failure, and it was your job to proclaim which you were going to be at as early an age as possible".
She recalls how she was taken out of private Catholic school when her mom found posters of Richard Nixon in the bedroom she shared with her sister, "can you believe it? we were that brainwashed". Things would be entirely different at the NY school where she transferred. . .
This book, about Black women being shortchanged, is probably most relevant for women who came of age during the period of time from the 1960s to the 1990s. It has some relevance today, though, as it probably would have before the 60s as well.
For the most part Wallace implies black women are oppressed and almost never tells us they are. On it's surface, this could possibly have the working title, "Why I became a feminist".
Black Macho is an odd read and yet a modernly familiar one. At times, one is struck with a feeling Wallace is trying to say something completely opposite from what is literally on the page. Is she a master propagandist or does she know her audience and want to keep them reading? She begins each chapter with a true-ism, for instance, this genuine one, "white men were always the ones making pronouncements about everything" and ends up at the end of the chapter quoting a figure proclaiming, "Kill Whitey". This is almost an expose' of the civil rights movement. Some of the irony may be intentional. The defining statement of the book is Wallace saying "the civil rights movement meant a white woman in every bed and a black woman under every heel".
Wallace also says that black men and women have a sometime dislike for each other, stemming in part from black men/white women relationships, and she asserts a lack of confidence he would, in her words, "come home".
Wallace was criticized some for Black Macho and one has to wonder: is this criticism (of a work claiming black women are treated unfairly) simply proof of her thesis? 20 years later she says, "in some ways I'm still being punished today". To be honest, 'Sexism', was a major issue in the public eye at the time, but I might argue, only for white women. It's been said that liberal Bill Clinton, being accused of sexism, did a lot to reduce some of the perception of it.
Wallace doesn't ignore the media in her book. She asks, was there a conscious effort to keep young minds focused on sports, guns and violence, and off business, education and the stock market?
She begins her treaties on 'Black Macho' (the 2nd half of the book) with, "imagine for a moment that there was a part of your body, an organ, that by the very nature of the society in which you lived, existed under immense pressure. Imagine that this organ, placed in a conspicuously vulnerable position on your body, was to expand, rise, and remain erect at will. Imagine that your status in society depended upon your ability to control this organ. Imagine that if you couldn't get the dam thing to work, the very importance of your existence would be in question".
This is a sensationalist, titillating book filled with the 'F' word, 'Redneck', the 'N' word, and lots of people saying kill the bigots. I imagine Wallace secretly enjoyed writing this even as she's mentioned she secretly enjoyed listening to Norman Mailers rants about the women's movement (Wallace was a journalist for the Village Voice a paper Mailer founded). I don't think she enjoyed writing this as much as I enjoyed reading.
Wallace was presenting unique ideas. She may have felt pressure to go along with the ideas people did believe in at the time (or perhaps felt a desire to be understood), and I think what might be going on with this work is that it is an example of the 'Wilson Rule' (If you have one politically Incorrect idea {here the idea being that black women are the ones being taken advantage of}, you have to smother it in 6 politically correct statements). Countless books have been written in this manner (tho only a minority of those at the library), each examining one un-PC idea the author believes in, and, so the author can sound reasonable, accepting every other popular convention of the day. The problem is. . . at the end of the day, best case scenario, a young reader's learned 6 lies and 1 thing that's true?
Wallace chronicles the fact that after rioting or violence took place, a pro-revolution march or activist conference would take place in the community nearby. I didn't notice this (what for Wallace is obviously connected) on first reading (the idea that an event or campaign blitz to convince everyone the world cares about you, agrees with you, and is on your side - a snow job - even an affirmative action plan, can quell your violence). Why not even say it's the other guy who is ignorant and violent? I remember a character in a movie once saying, "You can't fool us by agreeing with us". There is the question of whether the initial act of violence was staged or not, and how soon will it be they'll want us to believe, the resultant 'sympathy' is actually the Cause! Creating our beliefs being the never ending job that it is. There's something going on here tho other than just 'black vs white in the South'. There's a global, colonial, corporate exploitation going on. People in China somewhere who have never been within 500 miles of a white person their entire lives understand this idea of white-guilt (I might add, even as they drive to their lighted conferences on democracy). Perhaps it is even a subconscious, gleeful-guilt (where whites fear no punishment). This is something Wallace at the very least hints at. Black women may have been victims but they internalized a completely different idea, at least vis-a-vis black men. Might the assignment of blame and applause, guilt and innocence, change?
Wallace was in one of my college textbooks, quoted for her reaction to gangster rap. For her, the solution for women everywhere will be found, when, "...women rap back". Not long after I noticed Queen Latifah with a big video out. Eminem followed.
To be fair and give my own view I could be called a 'conservative' but I think what really needs to happen is for whites, and men, and white men in particular, to begin speaking up and out for themselves. I'm not sure that's hypocracy. It will only be when white men are denied 'affirmative action', too, that the whole hate the West monopoly will seriously face challenge. I really don't see affirmative action (discrimination against white men) continuing for another 40 years making up for the fact most black children grow up poor. Obviously anything is possible.
I'm closer to being a conservative I suppose... I'm somewhat of an 'anti-feminist'. Perhaps I'm just a chauvinist (I've certanly been called a lot worse!). I'm not wedded to any particular ideology tho - I find them all interesting. Guess I'm a sympathizer - as well as a chauvinist.
Michele Wallace is paid to be a feminist. After Black Macho, Wallace would edit a work titled, "All the women are white; all the blacks are men, but some of us are brave". She teaches a number of college courses and also a seminar in film studies at CUNY, 'Performance and Race in Cinema 1890-1930's' where she says, "Despite the many objectionable features, this is a body of work which is collectively unforgettable and irreplaceable".
I would trade all these films for 'Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman'. I couldn't help but like the voice of woman who wrote this book. I was in awe of Wallace. No. I was in love with the woman who wrote these words.
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