At just twenty-six, after working at Newsweek and teaching writing, Michele Wallace thrust herself into the literary and feminist spotlight with her first book, Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman.
In Black Macho, Ms. Wallace analyzes, from a feminist perspective, the sexual dynamic of the transition from civil rights to black liberation. There is a profound distrust, even hatred, between black men and black women. It has been nursed along
not only by racism on the part of whites but also by an almost deliberate ignorance on the part of blacks about the sexual politics of their experience in this country.
Wallace suggests that in the seventies the black man was feeling put off and put upon by the black womanÆs successes and began to believe in the myth of the black superwoman. He started to view her backbone, strength, responsibility to the family, success at finding and keeping work and generally getting ahead as her battling him ôfor his male prerogative as head of the household. And that she was as much to blame for the assault on black
manhood as the white man.
Black Macho is bolstered by passages from the work of James Baldwin, Sojourner Truth, Norman Mailer, Daniel Moynihan,
Eldridge Cleaver, Donald Bogle, Richard Wright, Susan Brown Miller, Tom Wolfe, and LeRoi Jones, as well as from historical documents on slavery. The book is so exhaustively researched and engaging that even if you donÆt fully agree with WallaceÆs argument, you will appreciate the passion with which she delivers it.
A landmark black feminist text ... Deserves rereading.”
—Ms.
“One of the first books truly critiquing the systems in place, ways of thinking and being that feed the myth of black women as the ultimate heroine.”
—The Root
“A light to Black Feminism, Women and Gender Studies, African American and Diaspora Studies, Film Studies, popular culture, the art world, and beyond.”
—Feminist Wire
“Serious, well-written, effective in its demystification, valuable as a model of hardheaded but caring analysis, principled in its criticism ... Wallace’s fearless presentation of her analysis quite takes the breath away.”
—Toni Cade Bambara, Washington Post
“Courageous, outspoken, clear-eyed.”
—Publishers Weekly