Ragne's Abyss

A very known phenomenon that I am familiar with is the masculinization of black women. Heavily, they are seen as more aggressive and less feminine, especially when compared to other races of women. I’ve seen this topic discussed numerous times, mainly through short articles or video essays—but there’s a specific trait when it comes to femininity in black women that I haven’t seen mentioned yet. Whenever I search up “girly black girls” on pinterest, I’m met with a slew of pink and highly feminine black women. All of these black women have silk presses or weaves. Their hair is always straight. I have yet to see a black woman that is categorized as “feminine” with an afro or “kinky” hair. Where are the tight curls and the frizzy texture that comes with being a black woman? This has made me realize that amongst the black community, unconsciously, we glamorize and feed into the white idolization of America. We are on a protest to showcase that Black women are feminine but through this protest we are dressing ourselves like the white woman. We have no features but the ones that we cannot change to showcase what it is to be a feminine Black woman. The protest isn’t “black women can be feminine like white women”, it is “Black women are feminine”. One thing that I find to be wrong about a lot of pro-black political campaigns is that we are always putting white people on this imaginary pedestal. We, as a community, are always trying to be just as good as something else. The approach is correct but the mindset is not. Black people, especially women, aren’t just as good as what society wants us to be—we are great, period. We shouldn’t be competing and yet we are stuck in this frame of mind; through politics, through day-to-day. I want to see Black women own categories without dressing like anything other than black.

This was just a thought I had while scrolling through Pinterest. I felt eager to write about it and share it on the blog. Thank you for reading.