Armor Summary

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"Select Female Black Literary Characters: How Black Supermoms Armor Themselves to Overcome Obstacles"
Oppression of women is a common theme worldwide. Malala Yousatzai from Pakistan was shot for exercising her fundamental rights to learn. The foundation of the United States disenfranchised women from the right to vote. An overview of the amendments of the Constitution of the United States indicates that women were the last to receive the right to vote in the United States. Moreover, African American women were excluded from the nineteenth amendment. While white women were oppressed, black women were doing duties and stopping suffrage. Even now, women are more apt to having lower paying jobs than men; they often earn 79 cents to every …show more content…

In the article titled, “Armoring: Learning to Withstand Racial Oppression,” Ella L. J. Bell and Stella M. Nkomo define the term armor as “a form of socialization whereby a girl child acquires the cultural attitudes, preferences and socially legitimate behaviors for two cultural contexts” (Bell and Nkomo 286). The two cultural contexts that Bell and Nkomo are referencing are the “Black and White cultural contexts. . .. divided by barriers encrusted with racism, sexism, and classism [that] African American women must be taught how to survive” (Bell and Nkomo 285). This article provides the psychological concept of armor, which can be paired with African American literary theory, and both can be blended to analyze the primary sources. By armor, Bell and Nkomo mean that no matter the background one comes from to be a supermom or guardian, one should have the proper armor to be ready in the real world to face any obstacle. In other literary examples, we can see what happens to certain female characters who have faced racism, sexism and classism. In the novel and film Beloved, the leading female characters are forced to armor themselves against sexism, racism, and classism. In the film, viewers witness the harsh reality black females face. Due to the sexism that Sethe deals with as a black woman and the sexual abuse that both Sethe and Beloved suffer at the hands of the husband and stepfather; these women must create an armor to cope and survive with the challenges that threaten

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