patricia collins black feminist thought summary

First, the assumed split between the 'public' sphere of paid employment and the 'private' sphere of unpaid family responsibilities has never worked for U.S. Two elements of the traditional family ideal are especially problematic for African-American women. In general, everything the imagined traditional family ideal is thought to be, African-American families are not. It is organized not around a biological core, but a state-sanctioned, heterosexual marriage that confers legitimacy not only on the family structure itself but on children born in this family. Defined as a natural or biological arrangement based on heterosexual attraction, instead this monolithic family type is actually supported by government policy. assuming a relatively fixed sexual division of labor, wherein women's roles are defined as primarily in the home with men's in the public world of work, the traditional family ideal also assumes the separation of work and family.

Idealizing the traditional family as a private haven from a public world, family is seen as being held together through primary emotional bonds of love and caring. Such families should have a specific authority structure, namely, a father-head earning an adequate family wage, a stay-at-home wife and mother, and children.

Formed through a combination of marital and blood ties, 'normal' families should consist of heterosexual, racially homogeneous couples who produce their own biological children. “Situated in the center of family values debates is an imagined traditional family ideal.

Patricia collins black feminist thought summary