*    Old quizzes were returned, no new quiz today.

*    Hazel Carby “It Just Be’s Dat Way Sometimes”
    *    Why is it hard to write women’s history?
        *    Winners (men) write history
    *    Carby goes beyond literature to find women’s history, looks at black female blues singers
    *    Can discover the challenges of urban migration for African Americans
        *    “male migration”
        *    Women tied to the home and children, men leave for Northern, urban cities
        *    Themes of abandonment and broken homes
        *    Women who leave are in danger
            *    Black women face different sexual stereotypes
            *    Black women portrayed as exotic and erotic
    *    Black intellectuals from the North write about Southern black women, continue the stereotypes
        *    Southern women struggle to disprove these stereotypes
            *    Shut down their sexuality, repress desire, become passive
            *    “racialized gender”
             *    All women are marked by race or class

*    Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith
    *    Claimed new definition of sexuality
    *    Not passive, not evil
    *    Both had lesbian relationships, blurred boundaries of heterosexuality

*    Bessie Smith:
    *    Died after losing her arm in a car accident, severe bleeding and shock
    *    Rumor about being denied care in a ‘white’ hospital
        *    may not be true
    *    Buried in an unmarked grave
        *    Grave found and marked decades later by Janis Joplin
    *    Fearless woman
        *    Told the KKK to leave her alone at a gathering, they did!

*    Joke email about the Blues
    *    jokes about topics of blues, who can sing them and where they can be sung
    *    themes of loss, but having power despite the loss
    *    not about being on top (driving nice cars), about oppression
    *    adults sing the blues, not teens
    *    white, middle-class people can’t sing the blues
    *    form: repeat first line, rhyme next line
    *    through the joke we can see the stereotypes and realities of the blues

*    Played Bessie Smith songs in class:
    *    “Backwater Blues”
        *    about a flood
    *    “Mama’s Got the Blues”
        *    claiming her own sexuality
        *    “gonna get me a black man”
        *    listed all of the places she had a man
     *    “Any Woman’s Blues”
        *    asks for things, then responds “if you don’t I know who will”
     *    “Mistreatin Daddy”
        *    sexual innuendo
     *    "Empty Bed Blues”
     *    “Empty Bed Blues 2”
     *    “Me and My Gin”
     *    “You Got to Give Me Some”
        *    expressing desire

*    Billie Holiday:
    *    sings ‘updated’ blues
        *    similar forms in some songs
        *    repeated first line
        *    similar chords
        *    themes of being stronger than anything, having power in the face of problems
        *    “been down so long that down don’t worry me”
    *    “Billie’s Blues”
        *    form of song changes (not as much repetition), but ‘bluesy’ content is still there
    *    “Solitude”
        *    classic song
        *    not blues
    *    “God Bless The Child”
    *    “Gloomy Sunday’
       *    blues theme, sound

*    For Tuesday:
    *    "The Yellow Wallpaper”
        *    became powerful during second-wave feminism in the 1970’s
        *    critique of women’s lives
     *    Charlotte Perkins Gilman
        *    female economist, rare occupation for a woman even now
        *    read biography, why she wrote it, and the actual story
    *    Guest Speaker: Deborah Anderson
        *    Female economist
        *    Job talk:  Speaking Monday at noon about high school girls that played sports
 

*    In class we discussed the difficulties encountered when studying womens' history.
    *    History and written records are dominated by white middle-class men.

*    Carby goes to literature and the move to urbanization in her studies.
    *    We discussed the differences in womens' experiences in moving and mens'.
    *    Women were tied to the home, so they couldn't always go, this created family problems
    *    Their travelling experiences were different - more dangerous for women travelling alone
        *    The elite separated themselves

*    The black slave woman was portrayed as being erotic and exotic
       *    Attempt to deny that Carby "shuts down sex"
       *    We discussed "racialized gender" - women were marked by other things, they had to struggle not to be limited

*    We then listened to Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday and discussed Ma Rainey.  Their music reflected the views of women of their time and especially their
        outlook on relationships and sexuality.