After the Civil War, African American women had thought they were going to live a life of freedom with the same benefits as their white counterparts. However, the newly freed African American women in the south had didn’t have too much money, barely had education and racism impacted every one of their lives. The change from being slaves to being free was a difficult and worrisome thing for most black women who lived through the enslavement knowing ‘that what they got wasn’t what they wanted; it wasn’t freedom, really.’African American women had left the plantations behind, many entered domestic service. Cooking was one of the primary jobs African American had performed, from generations of feeding families and, in the process, shaping southern food and culture. The author states that, during the times of discrimination, long workdays, and low wages, African American cooks worked to proclaim measures of control over their lives. As employment opportunities had begun to expand in the twentieth century, most African American women chose to leave cooking for jobs that paid more and were less oppressive such as manufacturing, clerical, or professional positions.
Through the letters, autobiographies, and oral history, Rebecca Sharpless wanted to show the African American women’s voices from slavery to the open economy, examining their lives at work and at home. Sharpless looks beyond stereotypes to introduce the real women who left their own houses and families each morning to cook in other women’s kitchens. Historically, men were more educated than women. But within the African American community that was the opposite. African American women have higher high-school and college graduation rates than African American men. The education level in Sharpless’ book had showed that black women weren’t educated. They had spoke like they were uneducated. “Hidden Figures” is the story about three African American women mathematicians. Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, and Dorothy Vaughan were the women behind the calculations for NASA and other historic space missions, including John Glenn’s orbit of the Earth. “She trained the girls in her Girl Scout troop to believe that they could be anything, and she went to lengths to prevent negative stereotypes of their race from shaping their internal views of themselves and other Negroes.
It was difficult enough to rise above the silent reminders of Colored signs on the bathroom doors and cafeteria tables. But to be confronted with the prejudice so blatantly, there in that temple to intellectual excellence and rational thought, by something so mundane, so ridiculous, so universal as having to go to the bathroom…In the moment when the white women laughed at her, Mary had been demoted from professional mathematician to a second-class human being, reminded that she was a black girl whose piss wasn’t good enough for the white pot”(pg.108.Shetterly). Mary Jackson had showed the young girls at the Girl Scouts that they be/do anything and shouldn’t believe the negative stereotypes about themselves and other African Americans. She had told them that but yet she was being treated less than her white counterparts. During the 1960s, a time when racial segregation was the law of the land, and gender discrimination was still normal. In Virginia, where the story takes place, local Jim Crow laws enforced segregation and discrimination against African-Americans, who were legally obligated to use separate facilities.
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Though NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia did hire women and African-Americans, offices, restrooms and other areas were kept segregated.African American women did work in hostile environments. Though the conditions of domestic work were better than being farmers, African American domestics subject of being harassed by a white male. Unwanted sexual advances, racist employers, and low wages all made working in white people’s homes very difficult. According to Sharpless, black women “were considered fair game by white men” making sexual assault the most frightening hardships they had to face (138). The sexual exploitation of black women by white men was unfortunately common during this period, and this was true irrespective of the economic relationship involved; in other words, black women were sexually exploited by rich whites, middle class whites, and poor whites. Sexual relations between blacks and whites — whether consensual or rapes — were taboo; yet they occurred often. All black women and girls, regardless of their physical appearances, were vulnerable to being sexually assaulted by white men. It crazy to think that white men did not find black women sexually desirable.
While African American women were vulnerable to unwanted contact with white male employers, Sharpless talks about the relationships between African American women and their white male employers. Arguing that relationships “became even more tangled when old expectations clashed with current realities,” the author pays attentions to the gendered space of the home and the impact of Jim Crow segregation have had in white homes (129). In the reading, white women had used a variety of methods to belittle the black women employees and create hierarchy in their homes including calling the women by their first names and forcing them to wear uniforms. African American employees had resisted this treatment by quitting. The author states, “white housewives paid the lowest wages,” they didn’t have a fixed rate and didn’t think they should pay the cooks anything but they would give them leftover food as payment (72).
The stereotype of black women as being the “mammy” or a jolly cook. In “Cooking In Other Women’s Kitchens” black women were stereotyped to know how to cook since but some never had experience and somehow they were still hired. On page 181 of Sharpless’ book there is a photo of the historic “Mammy”. From slavery through the Jim Crow era, the mammy image had served as a political, social, and economic interests of mainstream white America. During slavery, the mammy had been proof for blacks — in this case, black women — were contented, even happy, as slaves. Her big grin, hearty laugher, and loyal servitude were offered as evidence of black women had liked being servants to white Americans.In “Hidden Figures” the stereotypes of black women were broken. The story of these women showed people that there is more to African American women than just being a servant. Black women are usually seen as a jezebel, mammy, sapphire(angry) , and matriarch. But not in “Hidden Figures” they were seen as educated and well sophisticated. They had worked for everything that they got.
Even though they had struggled that didn’t stop them from accomplishing great life changing goals. Prior to the movie, a lot people including myself were unaware of the contributions of that black women had given to the space race and NASA’s earlier projects. They were never talked about in history books when it came to the accomplishments of NASA. I found it easy to think they didn’t have a part in history due to it being whitewashed and also the lack of African American women in STEM fields. There are not many Black female engineers and mathematicians. “Hidden Figures” had revealed to us just because we don’t hear about them doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Those women had served as computers before technology had even caught up. They had figured out problems that the white males with years of experience couldn’t even figure out. In addition to being unheard, the women from “Hidden Figures” didn’t receive the pay that they should have. The women were expected to work for less than their male counterpart.
The author had stated that, “A ‘girl’ could be paid significantly less than a man for doing the same job,” which means exactly how it sounds. Their male counterparts would be paid for more even though they did the same job and also the same educational level. Then on top of that they had to prove their white counterparts that they were assets to NASA because most of their jobs were only temporary.The love and sacrifices that the women from both books were showed as well. “Dorothy loved allowing her children to take unguarded steps into the world; having access to a broader base of experiences was one of the most compelling reasons for turning their world on its head with the move to Hampton Roads. Even with a salary of $2,000 a year—the average monthly wage for black women in the 1940s was just $96—providing for the needs of six children meant that outings like the ones at Log Cabin Beach did not come often or easily.
With the shadow of the Depression always at the back of her mind, Dorothy Vaughan sewed clothes for herself and her children, clipped coupons, and wore shoes until her feet started to push through the worn soles. If she could give more to her children by sacrificing her own comforts, she did it. Many was the evening when she came home from work to make dinner, and after putting the meal on the table, walked out the door and took a walk around the block until the children were done eating. Only then would she serve herself from the leftovers. She didn’t want to face the temptation of eating even one morsel herself that could nourish their growing bodies” (pg.79, Shetterly). Dorothy had sacrificed for her children and she would do anything for them to excel. The cooks would live with several adult family members to generate their earnings together. They struggled to care for their children, whom they rarely saw and often left with family members. Though this tremendous hardship, it also created the strong family bonds and extensive kin networks in black communities. As Sharpless notes, “Family was the only thing that stood between a cook and the poorhouse” (128, Sharpless). It showed that family was important to black women even though they barely saw their own families.
