This has been true throughout African-American history. Even among the Africans who were, slaves there were different ideas of the role of the woman and what kind of job she had. These roles were shown through the positions of the female that was held in the community, and how their own people, and white people treated them. Black women worked in the fields if they were asked, they cared for the children of the family, and they cared for the field slaves and their families. Slavery made slave women the strong point of the family, they where still responsible for their children with the absence of a father figure. .
In the mid-1970's the image of "black matriarchy" was beginning to disappear. People where beginning to realize it was a myth. In an article called, Disfigured Images, by Patricia Morton, she discuses the withering away of this mammy image. She says that, "The new emphasis on diversity and distinctiveness of Afro-American Families reflected the rejection of old panacea of racial assimilation." She goes on to suggest that the civil rights era allowed for proud identification, and the consciousness of racial difference. Revisioning came about by humanizing racial diversity.
Within the family, the female took care of the day-to-day house keeping, and her role was to be a housewife. Women participated in task normally seen as men's work when needed, but there's little evidence that men performed women's work of nursing and caring for children. Collins says the problem with the super-strong image is that black males glorify their mothers, but are less supportive to the parents of their own children. Black men cannot get over the image of the matriarch, and keep producing babies with black women who have very little economic and social support. Therefore allowing the children to group up in a world of poverty. Throughout history black women have been the backbone of survival for most African-Americans, doing whatever they can to help their children survive through a fatherless environment.
