Jezebel

One of the most prominent stereotypes of African American women in our society today is the Jezebel stereotype.  Media and film has portrayed black women in this light, making them seem as objects for men.  The characteristics that accompany Jezebel are seductive, sexy, alluring, tempting, and I’m sure you can imagine a few other words.  She has a sexual appetite that justifies sexual relationships. This stereotype was first created during slavery.  It was common for female slaves to experience sexual molestation and rape during this time, and the men needed validation for their acts.  They began to label the women as promiscuous; therefore, rationalizing that the women were not victims of rape because they desired the sex and deserved it.

Today Jezebel has completely transformed with our society.  Jezebels can be seen shaking their bodies in music videos, draped all over men and money.  However, it does not stop there.  Not only are they degraded into sexy objects for the music video and the entire world to see, but the lyrics of many rappers’ songs describe scenes of promiscuous women and the sexual things the rappers would like to do with them.  One of the biggest examples of the Jezebel in the music industry is in the music video “Tip Drill” by Nelly (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05ZQ0tof2fk).  The video is extremely provocative, but it makes you see how black women are portrayed sometimes.

Jezebels exist in the music industry, but instead of being belittled into objects by some rapper, the female icons themselves push this stereotype even further.  For example, Nicki Minaj, a famous female rapper, does not help to crush the Jezebel stereotype.  She represents the stereotype by dancing around in skimpy clothing and rapping about vulgar things.  In some of her songs, she raps about herself being sexually dominated by males. Of course, African American women are free to express themselves.  However, Nicki Minaj is causing a disgrace for black women when she represents the Jezebel stereotype.  Does she have a responsibility to her fellow women to crush the stereotype?  Or is she free to do as she pleases because it is her life?

Jezebels are also portrayed in film, as well.  Jezebels can play minor roles in film, but sometimes they are the main actress.  When the main actress of a movie represents a negative stigma, it is hard for the audience to see that actress as more than just that stereotype.  An example of an amazing actress falling to the feet of the Jezebel stereotype is Halle Berry in Monster Ball.  She won an Oscar for her performance and was the first African American actress to win one.  Her role was more than just a promiscuous black woman, but one of the scenes is a sex scene with a white male.  There is a lot of emphasis on sexual activity and not much dialogue. The clip from the movie (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3zcF3YvK-o#t=138) exemplifies the Jezebel stereotype.  Of course, her whole role was not being a Jezebel, but there are times where she represents the seductive female.  Halle Berry has done amazing things as an actress and a woman, but at one point she did feed the stigma.

The portrayal of Jezebel in media is propelling the stereotype into affecting African Women and how they are perceived.  It is beginning to influence how we view rape survivors. In a date rape scenario, college students were less likely to define the situation as rape if the victim was a black female (Foley, Evanic, Karnik, King, and Parks, 1995).  The myths have affected how we view rape victims as a whole, but especially African American women.  Black women that are victims of rape not only receive victim blame because of the Jezebel stigma African American are associated with, but they also experience a lower self-esteem as a result (Nevill, Heppner, Oh, Spanierman, & Clark, 2004).  It is unjust to blame any woman, but especially an African American woman based on false a stereotype.

How can African American women combat with this awful stereotype?  It is hard to break something that is so prevalent in our culture.  How can this stereotype be put to death?  As I mentioned in my previous post, the crooked room encloses African American women into falling into these erroneous stereotypes.  The girls in the music videos, celebrities, and African American actresses in film have contorted themselves to fit the crooked room.  The stereotype is unflattering, unfair, and needs to be destroyed.

 

Links:

http://www.drcarolynwest.com/media/sites/162/files/article_mammy-jezebel-sapphire-homegirls.pdf

http://storify.com/Hali/the-stereotypical-roles-of-black-women-in-hollywoo

  1. The Audacity of White Privilege (Goddamn) | Lapiz La Zuly - pingback on December 14, 2015 at 6:58 pm
  2. Wow – this was so powerfully written! I love how you stayed true to your opinion on the damages the Jezebel stereotype has caused and how it is objectifying this group of women. I also found it great how you saw Halle Berry’s role in Monster Ball showing shades of this stereotype, even if it was an Oscar-winning role. I think bringing critical analysis, even to things praised by society, can only help to destroy the stigmas. I might be totally off-track right now and it is just as much a fault that men allow it to occur, but I think certain perspectives of feminism might be continuing to perpetuate the Jezebel stereotype.

    For example, Beyoncé explicitly talks about oral sex in her song “Blow”, but somehow this is empowering? I guess it’s because it’s her choice to present herself in this light, but the way she describes herself fits under the existing stereotype of having a sexual appetite. It begs the question of whether women will ever be able to talk about their sexuality without falling prey into being treated like objects. I have no answer for solving this.

    Great job on this — the questions and answers you provided made me really critically think about this issue. Hopefully, through enough education of this problem, the stereotype itself will die.

  3. I definitely agree with you on how this stereotype is exemplified again and again by the media and even some celebrities. I feel like all of this feeds negativity to the rest of the community’s view on African women.

    Based on history, white females acted as jezebels at times too. So why is the stereotype most commonly used to represent black women only? I feel like to understand this more, we need to better understand the differences in black and white culture.

    In African American culture, it is more accepted to see african women as jezebels, where as white society, as a whole, does not view white women in that way, and the latter use profane and degrading language much less than the black population does.

    I think the fact that rap music was sky rocketed by predominantly black artists first broke the social norm of using profane language in music lyrics. Like seriously, “hoes, I’ve got hoes in different area codes.” What kind of lyrics are that? But with today’s society, most people laugh and enjoy music like that by artists like Ludacris that promote the stereotype.

    Even though it may be funny and popular to objectify women in rap songs to show how much power, money, and cars they have, we need to see the seriousness of their musics’ impact on society, and recognize that it really isn’t a laughing matter.

  4. Again I found your blog very insightful. I did not realize the names for the different labels that African American women can have. I thing it is very wrong that they even get labeled like this. You dont see women of other races being put into groups. I also agree with what you said about how it changes the view on some rapes. Everyone has heard the words that the victim was “asking for it” because of what she was wearing or how she was dancing at a party. It’s so wrong that people assume that they want to be raped because of something like that and the fact that it’s becoming a stonger argument because of how women dress in videos is a shame.

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