PHYLLIS: Now don’t go around spreading myths of sexual inferiority based on gender or race (laughter).
WILMA: Yeah, but white men didn’t do anything for me either. The men all made me feel that it was my fault, that I was guilty, like I had to pretend. Are they [black men] any different with white women? Are white men?
LAVERNE: I went to bed with him when I was fifteen. The only thing he wanted to do was screw. He would never talk to me. He went out with other girls but told me not to worry, that he was going to marry me. I felt that the other women were whores and promiscuous. Sometimes I’d even pick one out for him—someone stupid and superficial. It took me about two years to really enjoy the sex with him.
CAROLINE: I was twenty-five when I had intercourse with a man for the first time. He was black, married, and five years older than me. It was very cold but I was very grateful that finally someone took me to bed. I blamed myself for not having orgasms. In my mind, it was going to be an affair but in my emotions I guess the first affair women think, no matter what, it’s just not going to be like that at all.
RITA: I guess I had a very strict upbringing. I really thought if I’m not a virgin at my wedding that the church lights would go out. I was taught that it’s all right for men not to be virgins and even to have girl friends after marriage, as long as he takes care of you and the children. I have to tell my husband everywhere I go before I go. Once I went to a dance with my girl friend but I was scared. He said he would kill me but he didn’t. I never went out like that again—no courage, I guess.
These women, far from occupying a specially reserved place of reverence in the African- or Hispanic- male (or female) community, described being the taken-for-granted “natural” prey of black or Hispanic men. A study by Menachim Amir documented that in seventy-seven percent of the sample cases studies, in Philadelphia, both the rape victim and offender were black. In eighteen percent of the cases, both were white. Of course, black offenders are always more pursued than white offenders. We just do not know how many white men rape black or white women.14 These women were in no way exempted from white male “preying.” However, depending on their level of black or feminist consciousness, white male socio-sexual advances sometimes angered or frightened them less because of its socially more “acceptable” and (potentially) economically more rewarding nature—a sore but sexist point with many black men. As men, they would like to “own” women as white men can—or as certain African men can. We cannot overlook how brutally and literally most white men buy black (and white) women. Black and poor men in America are reduced to stealing and/or despising what wealthier men can buy. Rape will always exist in patriarchal-class society. Many of my interviewees were told to marry “up” (or “white”) only to live in fear that they would be abandoned for a white woman. Many of the women described hostile relations with their mothers based on skin-color (they weren’t “white” enough), and on issues of marriage, social status, and sexual behavior.
EVELYN: I’m curious to know from white women whether they get this same kind of attitude from black men. Like I’m their property automatically. It’s like we’re altogether surrounded by this enemy so therefore whoever of my people comes into this thing, we’re together and we’re buddies and you’re mine. When I first started on this job [as a secretary], it was like absolute indignation that I wouldn’t respond to their [black male] advances. I would walk along corridors and I would get these little sounds, you know, or I would get a comment and I wouldn’t respond. Absolute indignation! It was like they weren’t going to accept this. I had to confront them again and again, to tell them that I in no way wanted any kind of intercourse with them, socially or otherwise. That I was going to call the shots about who I was going to socialize with whether they liked it or not. It took three months for me finally to make them understand that I have a right to not want to be bothered. They would call out to me, “If I was a white man you wouldn’t do that.” It was fantastic. This happened to me about a half dozen times—“You’d talk to me if I was a white man.” They didn’t know me at all, but this was like their paranoia. I found about three different things. The white men, they would make advances, but when I would rebuff them, that would be the end of it. And I think what they probably felt was, well, she digs her own black men. Like they could only see me, I’m sure, in relation to my being an appendage to some other man. It’s got to be some other man.
PHYLLIS: Did white men make as many advances?
EVELYN: No, although I find on the whole, taking the whole span of things, like from the beginning of the day to the end of the day, there’s far more white men who make advances to me in the street: there are more white men in the population.
PHYLLIS: Did white men on the job make the same kinds of advances?
EVELYN: No. Not the same kinds. What they do is run a path back and forth in front of my door. They will only make a verbal thing if they think they can get away with it, and not be seen. I remember once, one white guy was going into a doorway, so he just called something because he was disappearing, right. But with white men too, the indignation is there. You can’t set up the rules as to whom you socialize with. “If we extend ourselves to you and show you that we want to be friendly, O piece of black ass, you therefore should be ungrateful for this?”
CAROLINE: I’m twenty-seven years old now and my grandmother and her sisters, they look at me kind of queer. Like, what’s the matter with her? Because my cousins are all married and have children. Growing up, I did have a lot of contempt for black men. You are always steered toward the one that’s going to achieve a certain social position, that’s going to raise your social status. I couldn’t think of a common, everyday nine-to-five man that didn’t have a career. He had to be a college graduate with a certain sort of social position. This is the kind of thing that my family is geared to. My mother married in that way but in order [for such a black man] to continue [his] upward climb he would get a white woman. Several of my mother’s stepbrothers have married white women. There is always the feeling that if you get a black man on the rise that he might ditch you for a white woman if he gets a little bit higher. I think that part of the terrible isolation [that led to a suicide attempt] was that I didn’t relate to men. I couldn’t or wouldn’t bring home to my family the socially acceptable ones and this led partly to the isolation. Also, the fact that I’m growing older and haven’t gotten married and still hadn’t embarked on a career and was stagnant and hadn’t really done much of anything [led to the suicide attempt]. I feel I have to stand behind the black men because they’ve suffered.
PHYLLIS: Haven’t black women suffered too?
CAROLINE: Well, yes, but the way out of that suffering is to help our men win the revolution. I’ve sometimes wondered, though, how could I help fight if I’m busy taking care of babies?
Two of the Third World women who were psychiatrically hospitalized had genuine “madness” or “schizophrenic” experiences. Like many white women in Western culture, they relived (the meaning of) the crucifixion and/or the Immaculate Conception. During these experiences they were very ambivalent about or hostile to “woman’s work,” such as domestic servitude or sexual passivity. I don’t know whether their “psychiatric careers” are very different from those of white women. I leave that for you to decide.
I spent my internship as a psychologist in a New York City hospital that “serviced” Spanish Harlem. It was there that I first saw but didn’t meet Carmen. She was a dark-haired, heavyset woman in her mid-forties and was causing a “commotion” on the psychiatric ward. She had thrown a banana peel on the floor and, despite threats and pleas, refused to pick it up. “This is the crazy ward, isn’t it?” she demanded in excellent English. “I can do what I like here—or I shouldn’t be here.” I laughed—one of the few laughs I had on that particular police job, and walked on. Now, three years later, I was sitting in Carmen’s living room, a neatly kept project apartment, filled with plastic crucifixes, plastic flowers, plastic co
uch covers, plastic doilies, and real police sirens. Judith, a friend of mine, who had been one of the therapists on the psychiatric ward, had befriended Carmen and been befriended by her. They had kept in touch.
Because Judith asked, Carmen agreed to speak with me. Several times that afternoon, when Carmen cried, Judith held her, squeezed her hand and mine, and made cups of coffee for us all.
PHYLLIS: Why did you go to a mental asylum?
CARMEN: Well, the first time was after my daughter was born. I was thirty years old and had a very bad delivery with her. I never had no trouble before—I was seventeen when I had my first son. This time I was very nervous coming home. I came home and I started to get sick.
PHYLLIS: Sick in what way?
CARMEN: Well, I stopped eating, first of all. Stopped sleeping. I just didn’t eat and sleep. My friends came to see me and I wouldn’t talk to them. I just looked up at the ceiling. I lay down and looked at the ceiling and then I stopped eating. For two weeks I was like that, and everybody was coming here trying to find out what was wrong with me. My baby needed food and I just lay in bed and smoked. I just didn’t feel like doing it. I couldn’t make the corner straight on the bed sheet.
PHYLLIS: Was anyone helping you take care of the baby?
CARMEN: No. They just didn’t know what was wrong. Finally, someone called a doctor and he said, “She’s having a terrible nervous breakdown!” So they took me to Bellevue—it got so bad that I didn’t recognize anybody—and I got very religious. I blessed everybody.
PHYLLIS: What happened at Bellevue?
CARMEN: It was terrible. They used to tie you up all the time—put you in seclusion. Once I wanted to take a shower. I didn’t want to get into a tub because they line you up, naked in front of everybody, you strip down, get in line, and you get into a tub. There were only two tubs and I didn’t want to get in because I was recently operated, you know, I had the Caesarian and I didn’t want any dirt to get on me so I had a big argument with one of the attendants. Also I got scared of the shock treatments. It’s a very scary feeling, especially when you feel like the metal things of the electricity goes through you—it’s like a hammer hitting your head. I was afraid of the third one.
PHYLLIS: Did you say you didn’t want it?
CARMEN: Oh, I fought against it. But they gave it to me by force.
PHYLLIS: Who signed for it?
CARMEN: My husband did. He said the doctor said, “She’s not doing any good so let’s try shock treatments.”
PHYLLIS: How often did the doctor talk to you before deciding you weren’t doing any good?
CARMEN: Well, I don’t remember talking to a doctor. After three weeks I was doing wonderful. I was back to normal. I brought up my daughter and everything. I didn’t expect I would ever get sick again. Then I started to get tumors and I was hemorrhaging, so I told the doctor, “I don’t want no more children, so I’d like a hysterectomy before it turns into anything else.” In the hospital I began to get religious again, after the hysterectomy. One of the doctors, he was a psychiatrist, he came to me. I remember him coming to my bed and he gave me an injection and then he asked me what was wrong with me. The only thing I answered was that I don’t want to go to Bellevue, that’s all. And then they said to my husband, “If you can get her home you can keep her home if you want to!” So my husband brought me my clothes and he brought me a black dress. I put it on but the next minute I took it off and said, “Nobody is dead in the family, I don’t have to wear black.” So I stripped.
JUDITH: Maybe you felt bad about the hysterectomy.
CARMEN: No. I had nine abortions. Them I was guilty about. An abortion is a direct sin against God. But an abortion is better than a hungry child, isn’t it?
PHYLLIS: What happened after you kept refusing to put on the black dress?
CARMEN: I went to Bellevue. And Bellevue sent me to Rockland State. When I found out I was in a mental hospital you don’t know how I cried. I got gray overnight. When I got there I saw the gate and said, “Gee, this sort of looks like a prison.” I said to this other patient, “What kind of a hospital is this?” And she said, “Don’t you know you’re in a mental hospital, honey?” “No,” I said, “this is a nut house?” “Yeah,” she said, “that’s where you are.” So they all started to laugh because I didn’t know. Oh, I felt terrible after that. I don’t know how I managed not to get sick again there.
You stay there till you get well. Most women when they’re sick don’t take care of themselves. I comb my hair right away. That shows you’re advancing. That you’re not so sick.
PHYLLIS: What happened at Rockland State?
CARMEN: Happened? What could happen? They keep you locked up all day. I used to go out to work just to get out.
PHYLLIS: What kind of work?
CARMEN: Oh, you mop floors, you make beds, you wash windows, you wash floors.
PHYLLIS: Did they ever pay you for that?
CARMEN: No, the only place they pay you is the commissary. Ten dollars a month for food. I worked there also. I was a private maid to one of the psychiatrists, a woman doctor. She knew that I spoke English and Spanish. She said, “I’d like you to work for me because my son wants to learn Spanish. In school he is learning Spanish and with you around you’ll talk to him in Spanish and he’ll pick up more.”
PHYLLIS: Did she pay for that?
CARMEN: They’re supposed to pay you three dollars a week but being my husband used to leave me five dollars a week she never paid me. I had to dust, pass the vacuum, had to change the sheets, pick up her clothes after her. I used to wash her panties. Now how low can you get, her panties I had to wash!
PHYLLIS: Why didn’t you tell her?
CARMEN: I should have, but it was such a pleasure being out of the ward. Also, other places were worse. They had a laundry there and, let me tell you, you work hard there.
PHYLLIS: Who worked in the laundry?
CARMEN: A lot of girls. You see them marching like prisoners in the morning.
PHYLLIS: Did they get paid?
CARMEN: No, the only place that pays you is the commissary. I went back to Rockland a lot of times. I got religious a lot. I could bless people and make them well.
PHYLLIS: Maybe you could.
CARMEN: So now, my husband wouldn’t wait long. If I didn’t sleep one night he would find me in the kitchen sitting by the window. Then he’d take me right away. He wouldn’t wait to see how bad off I was. He’d take me right away.
PHYLLIS: When you were sitting by the window, were you thinking?
CARMEN: Yes, thinking. Important things. I never stayed longer at Rockland than two or three months. Until my husband got a mistress. He was always a good husband. He’d bring home all his salary, and even with being with that mistress he had, he never let me be without anything. My rent was paid. I had money for my food and he even used to give me gifts, just as if there was nothing going on between him and another woman. But that last time I was there [at Rockland] it seemed like the two of them were trying to get rid of me. He left me in there ten months, close to a year. That mistress hurt me quite a lot, especially when I first knew about it. I thought my world would come to an end because I love my husband very much—he was a very good man.
PHYLLIS: How did you find out?
CARMEN: I started to get anonymous calls—letters—from her. She’s crazy. He claimed that she was jealous and all that—it was true. That didn’t make me sick, it was the funniest thing. I can’t understand why I get sick because, like I say, my husband was very good to me, very good—all the time I got sick except for the last ten months. No, he didn’t come to see me at all—I got mad at him. The only way I could get even with him was to make him believe that I had a man that wants to marry me—and that’s when he jumped.
PHYLLIS: When you found out about your husband having a mistress did you get very upset in the hospital? Did somebody take notice of that fact?
CARMEN: No. It hurt me, though, because my daughter knew about it
and she never told me.
PHYLLIS: She probably didn’t want to upset you.
CARMEN: Probably. She was too young. Well, I resigned myself to the fact that she’s the mistress, staying in the house—let her clean and cook, while I rest, in the hospital. Every time I’d come home for a week all I would do would be clean and cook and clean and wash and clean so I went back to the hospital. True you don’t like to be locked up but I consoled myself, oh, somebody else is cleaning the house, doing the cooking.
PHYLLIS: Kind of like a maid.
CARMEN: Yeah, she’s sorta Negro anyway—what I couldn’t understand was the fact that she would actually fix food for my husband to take to see me so I don’t know what kind of combination they had between the both of them or the convenience or the plans they had.
JUDITH: The convenience for your husband was great.
CARMEN: Oh, yeah, that’s why he enjoyed it—that didn’t make me sick but it got me mad because he was going to leave me there [in Rockland].
You see, the legal procedure is the husband signs you in. I tell you it’s true because my father tried to get me out, my two sons tried to take me out, and the doctor would not let me go home. My father said, “I’d even take her with me to my house,” and the doctor wouldn’t agree to it either. I don’t know what he wanted—so finally the only way I could get out was that my father and mother was supposed to live here with me.
PHYLLIS: How did you finally get out?
CARMEN: Like I told you, my two sons came to me. I said, “You gotta do something to get me out of here. He don’t want to sign me out.” And my two sons, one sat on each side of me and said, “This is enough, my mother has been here ten months—she is well—you’re not going to keep her here any longer—so you’re gonna sign her out whether you like it or not.” My other son is a big bruiser so he said, “You don’t want to get a little beat up, do you?” So finally my sons made him do it.
PHYLLIS: What happened then?
CARMEN: He [my husband] brought me home—we lived there like two companions, no sex, no talking of any kind. When he came from work I’d leave the food on the stove and I’d take my plate and go look at the television. There was no conversation between us or anything. The only one who got annoyed was his mistress. You know, he never loved her completely. In fact, I used to warn her. I told her, “Look, I throw him out every day and he don’t want to leave—it’s not my fault.” She got red as a sheet. I said, “I don’t want him,” and I never gave the understanding that I was hurt what they were doing to me—because I told her, “I have a man of thirty-eight years who is willing to marry me so if you can take my husband off my hands I’d really appreciate it.” Oh, I was ripping but I didn’t let her know it. She said, “He’s taking advantage of me.” I said, “That’s your problem, not mine.” So she said to me, “Well, I can’t blame you because we did it to you first.” I said, “You don’t bother me at all. I’m even tired of my husband for years already. In fact, I’ve been going out with this man for three years and he don’t know about it.”
Women and Madness Page 31