On Our Own Terms: Race, Class, and Gender in the Lives of African-American Women

This volume utilizes the cross-cultural, historical and ethnographic perspective of anthropology to illuminate the intrinsic connections of race, class and gender. The author begins by discussing the manner in which her experience as a participant observer led her to research and write about various aspects of African-American women's experiences. She goes on to provide a critical analysis of the new scholarship on African-American women, and explores issues of race, class and gender in the arenas of work, kinship and resistance. The first section explores the fundamental issue of how work outside the home conditions the experience of gender, while essays in the second section challenge traditional definitions of the family and explore the role of culture, history and society in conditioning household structure and function. The essays in the final section explore transformative strategies in politics and in the academy.On Our Own Termsconcludes by examining the implicationsof issues raised in the volume for the feminist agenda and for our understanding of social processes.