Themes In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens

 Womanism, Black Feminism and Feminism

                     The term 'Womanism' was first used by Alice Walker in her work In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose in 1983. Womanism and Feminism are not the same. The first is a movment of black American women who considered Feminism as a middle-class white women's movement that didn't take up the issues of the women of color. Alice Walker explains a womanist as:

v  A woman who loves and respects other women as well as society at large.

v  Considers women's sensitive, emotional make up as special fetures of women.

v  she attempts to strenghten the society and is committed to survival and wholeness of entire people, male and female.

v  A" Traditionally universalist… Loves music. Loves dance. Loves the moon. Loves the Spirit. Loves love and food and roundness. Loves struggle. Loves the Folk. Loves herself. Regardless.”                          

                          Womanism can be contrasted to feminism as the first celebrated womanhood, her role in society and supports the survival of all. It caters to the emotional, sensitive life of women and recognized the collective life of human society. It fought against racism, sexism and economic exploitation. Feminism, on the other hand, was a movement of middle class woman in 19th century which stood for the civil rights of women. The right to vote was one of the key concern of first generation feminism and it fought against sexism of male dominate society. Radical Feminists considered family, marriage etc...as economic institutions which intimidated women and supported homosexuality. Womanism suggests an alternative movement in which women confront gender, social oppression without leaving her inane womanist features.

           Black Feminism is a derivative of Feminism which worked for black women's social, political and educational rights in the US. It deals with women related issues of American women of color but lacks global perspective. It carries some of concerns of womanism such as recognition of African roots, method of defining black women's standpoint etc...

           Womanist concerns can be traced in the works of Tony Morrison, Bessy Head, Alice Walker and Ama Atha Aithu.  Ain't I a Woman? by Bell Hooks presents some of the key ideas of womanism.

Womanism and Alienation

Alice Walker in her essay “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens” puts forward her thoughts on womanism. It is a social theory deeply rooted in the racial and gender oppression of black women. There are varying interpretations on what the term womanist means and efforts to provide a concise and all-encompassing definition have only been marginally successful. The ambiguity within the theory allows for its continuous expansion of its basic tenets. At its core, womanism is a social change perspective based upon the everyday problems and experiences of black women and other women of minority demographics, but more broadly seeks methods to eradicate inequalities not just for black women, but for all people. The self-authored spirit of activism, spirituality, and the women's relationship with herself, other women, and her surroundings comprise an essential part of the ideology. The term womanism was first coined by author Alice Walker in her 1979 short story, "Coming Apart".

In this essay, Walker elaborates on how black women felt over the subjugation of their authority and existence. They feel a certain sense of alienation from other social classes of society and they are seen differently and treated with inferiority. They are not provided with equal opportunities, and there is a clear distinction of what they are not. It is this alienation that makes the black women feel like a fallow expanse of land, devoid of rational or spiritual thought. The author describes how they have been abused physically, mentally and spiritually, to such an extent that their existence itself seems hollow and alien.

Plea of this Spirit: Women as a Sex Object

What I am has always been different from what you saw me as…and what I want is different from what you think I need…my spirit has been torn again and again by you and your friends, you’ve made me question my existence over time but there shall come a time when you’ll be forced to see me the way I’ve always wanted you to and at that time you will not be able to ignore it... That time it will be your heart that will tear on hearing the pain I have held in my breast over these years. And your plea will be unheard...

Women have always questioned their existence and pleaded for an angel saving their spirit from the eyes of the evil in this patriarchal society. Yet these pleas of theirs have always been turned down. For years they have been seen as a “sex object” and nothing else. Their talents were hidden from the world by not giving them a channel to use their energy for creating something beautiful. They were burdened with responsibilities of children, households and their husbands. Their lives were made to revolve around them and only them. Alice walker’s In search of our mother’s garden” showcases how black women in this world have been seen as a sex object.  In this essay, Walker begins with a quote by Jean Toomer, which shows how black men perceive a black women. They are always seen as a mere sex object. Alice walker’s stories have always thrown light on the problem black women had to go through. In the essay, Walker says that the society considered black women as a mule. This made them emotionless and hopeless. Readers can see this in Walker’s novel The Color Purple where she showcases incidents when Celie (the main character) is treated like a cattle and sexually abused by her step- father. Walker’s writing have made the world realized their mistake and has helped people to make a change.

The idea of the perception of women has always been a part of the writer and her work has made it hard for people to ignore the reality. The plea of those women is heard, now that she writes to express the pain that her sisters went through..

Subjectivity of Beauty

The theme I have chosen to work with, in relation with the essay “In Search of our Mothers’ Gardens” is the “subjectivity of beauty”.

Now this is quite a vast idea which works much beyond just this chapter. The subjectivity of beauty is an idea that has gained popularity since the mid-20th century especially with the rise of Black rights and equality.

“Black is Beautiful” was a slogan that became very popular at that point of time. The whites had a very firm idea of beauty and anything that was not “like” them was considered ugly, The Blacks, the Coloured people, everyone.

This set idea has been around for a very long time and will always remain. People will always consider some things beautiful and others ugly. Something that everyone needs to accept is the fact that beauty is subjective. Something which might be extremely ugly might be beautiful for me. Or vice versa. Beauty does lie in the eyes of the beholder.

This is why the whole concept of “Black is “beautiful” became a huge success. Just because some white people consider them ugly, it doesn’t make them ugly. People like Jean Toomer actually had the guts to come out and say that Black can be beautiful. Moreover beauty is more than just the physical appearance. What makes someone beautiful is what they are and not what they look like.

This is what the chapter deals with Inner beauty, spirituality, creativity and how inner beauty and creativity come out in the smallest of things someone does.

Racial Discrimination

What does it mean to be shunned and oppressed two times over – for being a black woman in a world that treats women like lesser beings and the dark-skinned as though they aren’t human? ‘In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens’ by Alice Walker explores the extent to which this discrimination went and shows how black women were stifled, forced to restrain and subdue their creative genius.

Women in general had to fight for their rights to break away from the confines of domestic life and what was expected of them, such as being an obedient wife, mother and dedicated housekeeper who only indulged in acceptable feminine activities like cooking, sewing and looking after the family. Black women, on the other hand, lived despondent lives affected by generations of thraldom, forced to believe they are truly inferior.

Walker draws this parallel by comparing the problems white women writers face according to Virginia Woolf’s ‘A Room of One’s Own’ with those that the black women undergo. While Woolf states that a woman needs a room of her own and money to support herself in order to write fiction, Walker points out that Phillis Wheatley, a slave in the 1700s who wrote poetry, didn’t even own herself. She shows how this long drawn-out discrimination morphed the truth for the blacks who grew up believing in their inferiority and that they were rescued from the savagery of Africa by the whites, like Phillis Wheatley who envisioned her mistress as a Goddess. Such ‘contrary instincts’ that went against their nature would deals blows to their health and sanity.

 

She also mentions that for most of the years that black people resided in America, it was a criminal offence for a black person to read or write. Therefore, any female black genius would be forced to internalize and subdue her creativity that madly urged to surge. And this wretched life devoid of passion and the flame of creativity and genius that refused to go out would eventually leave behind a burned soul that’s numb on the outside. And after ages of living like a puppet, some become empty shells staring vacantly, some forget what it means to be alive and some find a way – a secret outlet to channel their abilities the only way they can, through the only means open to them – be it knitting or gardening…

Insecurity

Alice Walker talks about insecurity among black women as one of the themes in her essay “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens”. Walker is an American author and activist, brought up in an environment that heavily discriminated against the blacks, which is why most of her essays talk about her experiences of growing up as a black child in a white-dominated society.

It is basic human psychology that the lack of acceptance in society harbours a feeling of insecurity in the person. It is the same with the black immigrants in America since their arrival on the New Found Land in the early sixteenth- seventeenth century. They were brought in as slaves with no identity of their own and forced to work for the whites. Black women are called “the mule of the world” because they have been handed the burdens that everyone else refused to carry.

The author resonates the feeling of insecurity felt by black women due to their unjust treatment in society. She talks about the labels that is stamped upon them like “matriarchs, superwomen, mean and evil bitches, castraters and sapphire’s mama. Their character has been distorted and labelled them as infidels and just a mere object of physical satisfaction. The essay echoes with the insecurities that black women felt about their identities and it is portrayed through the songs of Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, Roberta Flack and others. It manifests in the creation of their art, an innate struggle to establish who they are and be able to stand up to what is wrongly projected about them.

Racial and Spiritual Identity

We, human beings, are a vast abyss of untold, unexplored perspectives. Every day, we discover a bit of ourselves and surprise ourselves in innumerable ways. Sometimes, we don’t realize our potential or worth but subconsciously direct that flow of energy into doing other things that manifest the presence of something that we believe is absent in us.

Alice Walker deals with a similar issue in her essay “In Search of My Mother’s Garden”, where she describes the richness and depth of spirituality and creativity of Black women and how it was suppressed by the whites. The question of one’s identity is explored as well. Black women were discriminated against and a stereotype was built surrounding their identity. Society manipulated and made them believe what they wanted them to believe, that Black women were incapable of Creation of history and art, that they were merely objects of procreation.

Their racial as well as spiritual identity is shown to be at stake. They are made to believe that they are a race inferior to their white counterpart by the accident of birth. Society creates unnecessary constructs around what is good or bad, right or wrong and it is on the basis of this that one’s racial identity is questioned. As their creative expression was stifled by such stereotypes, black women found another way to voice their spirituality and leave a mark of their identity: through the mediums her position in society allowed her to use. The handmade quilts, the well nurtured gardens that thousands of anonymous black women tended to is the legacy that is left behind of their existence. They were capable of lot more, of being able to produce great literature and art but circumstances did not allow so.

It is in these gardens of untold, unexplored perspectives that Alice Walker is trying to look for the racial and spiritual identities of the women long dead and gone.