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recently had an e-mail conversation with an old friend who la mented in passing that she and a pal feel they’ve been suffering from “ successful black woman syndrome” in their intimate lives with men. That observation, along with a dose of Terry McMillan and my own recent explorations o f gender in the history o f black political thought, set me thinking about just what that syndrome is.Sexism doesn’t stop at the boundaries o f the Bantustan. And one o f its more dubious black and proud forms is the “ nationalism,” fed by the Moynihan report, that defines black liberation as enabling men to control “ their” women. Although much of the chatter these days about the black war between the sexes is banal psychodrama, there is a clear problem with men’s expectations, and that’s key to making sense o f the real issue. Most men in this society have the same difficulty simply seeing women as human beings like them selves that whites have vis-a-vis the rest o f us, and that’s true across the color line. Women are either reified parts, or expressions o f male power or status, or both. Either way women are property, and this relationship has been enforced historically through economic in equality. So financially independent women are desirable insofar as they’re low maintenance, but threatening because they’re, well, in dependent. T h e financial impact o f racism further narrows the pool of black men who wouldn’t be intimidated by female economic in dependence. And middle-class people, black as well as white, seem especially susceptible to a formalistic, home and hearth ideology that brisdes at the fact that people, especially women, actually have things to do that they take seriously and like doing and therefore are committed to before all else, in an existentially self-defining way. Bottom line: It’s tough out there for many women who yearn for intimate connection with men, and it’s especially tough for black women. That’s hardly news; this point is broadcast loudly from the Afrocentric self-help section o f every bookstore that has one.
This also helps to explain that antelope-at-the-watering-hole feeling “ statistically appropriate” black men sometimes com plain about to black women; they feel impersonally targeted.
Understandably, they are. I mean, who wants to be lonely? What’s interesting, though, is the extent to which the women who seek these men seem not to connect with them as particular human beings— which, from a male perspective, makes it all seem bizarre because it’s often so clear that if any of the women bothered to take a closer look at these statistically appropriate specimens, she might find that she had no interest whatsoever. In those circumstances one wonders exactly what, if anything living at all, women see when they look.
Despite the Wayans family/Ztef Comedy Jam misogyny, how ever, middle-class black women in particular aren’t necessarily looking for someone to supply financial security, do home repair, or “ be my baby daddy.” So why the objectifying fixation? T he answer lies in the interplay o f culture and political economy and one o f its main artifacts, the mystified idea of “ family.” “ Family” is at bottom an ideological construct; it sanctifies one particular form of house hold organization, treating it as a universal ideal— even to the extent o f projecting it onto other species in nature shows and the idiocy of sociobiology. And the form is patriarchal, the nuclear body with a male head.
W hy political economy? Because the realities of gendered eco nomic discrimination mean that most women live “ a man away from poverty.” Therefore, economic dependence is built into the texture o f “ family” life at its foundation, and the ideal that the male “ head” of household is the one who bears its financial responsibility only deepens female economic dependence. If the bastard leaves you for his fitness instructor, who hopes that she’s young enough to be the last model traded for, you probably don’t even have a pension or decent social security benefits to fall back on because you’ve been in and out o f the labor force, following him around, doing the un paid labor o f raising the kids and maintaining the household to sustain his comfort and reputation as a solid citizen and person o f substance.
W hy culture? Because in this environment, women face a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t situation. If you try to live without a man, unless you’re part o f a statistically small minority fortunate enough to be financially independent, you wind up either
Ha v e We Ex h a l e d Ye t? — 27
impoverished or facing a constant grind to avoid impoverishment. If you marry your way into contingent economic security, the con tingency is just as important as the security, because your depen dence is your ticket. T h is becomes clearer with time, as you experience erosion o f the two main features on which your spousal position rests when men have the resources to choose and women are objectified— youthful attractiveness and novelty. T hus the specter of the suburban matron who starts freaking out with the first wrinkles and goes on to support the growth o f a vast cosmetic industry— from skin care fads to personal trainers to the physical mutilation of plastic surgery— in a desperate battle to, as Cher so aptly sings, hold back time.
What this means, among other things, is that for women from one end of the economic food chain to the other there’s a hard ma terial foundation for the idea that having a man is a necessary ele ment o f self-esteem and self-worth. It is not coincidental that the ranks of the poor and the nearly poor are crowded with households headed by single women. And having kids is not insurance against ejection from even the upper middle class; it seems that the more money men earn, the less likely they are to pay child support— another problem with the “ irresponsible black male” stereotype of underclass theory. And even if you do get him to pay, there’s always the danger that he’ll resort to the O. J. option, which is much less rare than we might think— after all, it’s only another logical out growth o f the wife-and-kids-as-property principle that undergrinds the idea of family.
So it’s not surprising that even within the autonomous discourse of women themselves, a man of one’s own remains an important marker o f personal completeness even in the absence of pressing financial need. This is not simply a matter of benighted romanticism or, as the current cliche has it, “ low self-esteem” ; for sound material reasons, women recognize one another partly by that standard. T he human desire for companionship and intimacy inevitably gets en meshed in this dynamic. Thus the socially driven compulsion to “ have a man” becomes the general expression of a yearning that requires a much more specific response, the desire for intimate con nection with someone. This very real status anxiety is especially
acute for black women, inflaming the debate over intermarriage, as some take the “ loss” o f black men to nonblack women in the ab stract as an act o f profound personal betrayal. This is an interesting reversal o f the property claim, in effect defining generic black men as the exclusive property o f generic black women. In theory, at least, there’s a delicious irony about this, as there is with the antelope-at- the-watering-hole sensation; both turn male objectification on its head. But in practice the irony has no savor because men still hold the trumps. And their patter shows it: “Yeah, man, I don’t under stand why women just always want to have ‘relationships.’ I say, ‘Look, baby, you’re getting something out o f this, I’m getting some thing out o f this, so why push it, blah, blah, blah.’ ” T he SO S Band made a living out of putting women’s pursuits o f intimacy with in transigent, one-up men to a good beat and haunting melody.
In this context it’s exceedingly difficult for men and women to form personal attachments that are not tainted by the lash of the market. Engels was right: healthy and honest attachments are scarcely possible under patriarchal capitalism. T he fact is that we have no idea about what a family form worth valuing would be for our society and can’t until we overcome gender inequality. T o that extent, whatever works for individuals freely choosing is what’s right.