Maddie Bender

McDole

WMST 100-002

3 May 2019

Women of Color and Society’s View

For years, women of color have had numerous assumptions and judgements made about

them. Because of their race, society determines how someone should be treated and the potential

they have as a person. Gender goes along these lines as well when someone is a woman. For a

woman of color, she is not seen for herself or for the things she can do. She is seen for her skin

and she is treated differently because of that. Society does not care about women unless they are

white.

An example of this is in an episode of the television show Orange is the New Black, a

show revolving around the experience of a white woman named Piper who goes to prison. In one

episode, a man who works at the prison says he will bring back something called the WAC Pack,

WAC standing for Women’s Advisory Council. Piper is called upon by the man who announces

the council’s return, saying Piper should run as representative for the white women as he

believes she could improve life at the prison for the other women. She declines and doesn’t run,

but later ends up actually winning one of the positions. If Piper were, for example, a black

woman, then she would have never even been approached to run for the WAC Pack, let alone to

represent black women. None of the workers would have seen potential in her that she could

make the conditions and life at the prison better if she were a black woman. No one would even

want to give her the chance or take her seriously based on the group of women she’d be
representing with her race. In general, her life in prison would be so much harder in all aspects if

she were black.

This would happen because black women, and all women of color, aren’t treated the

same as white women. This seems to be especially amplified in prisons as well with imprisoned

women of color being put into toxic power dynamics everyday between themselves and the staff,

with the women as the ones with less power. Women of color specifically have even less power

in this dynamic than white women. Imprisoned women are already seen as beings who are less

than in comparison to the rest of those in society. When she’s imprisoned and already has the

negative connotation that comes with being incarcerated, she is seen as even less of a human

with potential, skills, and talents of her with own. She is treated as such in prisons through these

power dynamics that are predominately Man to Woman as prison jobs are held primarily by men.

Many of these men feel superior to these incarcerated women of color and it makes their lives

that much harder.

Another example of how society doesn’t care about women of color is apparent with

female infanticide in China. Female infanticide is act of purposely killing a female newborn baby

for being female. In China, female infanticide is and has been an issue in China for a long time.

Female infanticide is an issue as well in other countries and raises a lot of concern in India too,

but China has been the worst offender. There are many reasons why this happens with some of

the cultural norms in China, one of which being that daughters in China who get married join the

family of the husband and take all of their emotional and economic support with them. This ends

up leaving the daughter’s family pretty much completely on their own without her. That reason

along with the patrilineal society that China is leaves mothers with a fear and resentment towards

having a daughter. The most common way for female infanticide to be committed would be
“cleaning the baby,” which is drowning the infant in a dish of water shortly after birth. The other

more indirect way would be neglecting and letting the infant become malnourished to the point

of death. There even was a rule put into place that said if an infant was killed within three days

of its birth, then it wasn’t considered murder. This allowed many mothers to get away with

killing their female infant. In countries with a large amount of privileged white people, like

America, people know about this as an issue going on in the world, but not enough are actually

talking about it or trying to help really bring attention to the issue. It’s something that people in

society may hear about, but keep on with their day. If these female infants being killed were

white though, then the reactions from people who could help would definitely be different than

how they are now.

This lack of concern or effort on raising awareness happens because the female newborn

children being murdered aren’t white. If female infanticide was and is occurring amongst white

female infants at the rate it was and is occurring in China, or even in India and the several other

countries it is occurring in, then it would be so much more of a larger issue in today’s society.

But because our society determines a woman’s worth from her skin color first and foremost, then

it doesn’t make these millions of deaths seem like that huge of an issue. Before these female

infants even know if they are a woman, society chooses not to care as much about their deaths

since they aren’t white and equate their sex and gender. People see a woman of color, take note

of her race, and then make a judgement and an assumption about her solely based off of the color

of her skin. They base the worth of her life off of her skin. Even if people were to start to bring

more attention to the issue of female infanticide, it wouldn’t stick long and wouldn’t make as

much of an impact as if that newborn were white.

 Women of color are seen for their race, not themselves. If a woman is white, then she has

the most value and capability in society’s eyes. It’s as if she can do no wrong, besides being a

woman of course. If a woman is of another race, then she is ostracized and all of her potential as

a woman and as a human is determined by her skin. There is no question of her putting the color

of her skin aside to determine her worth. Women of races other than white are viewed much

differently by society and in a way, it’s almost as if they aren’t viewed at all.