Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman

by Michele Wallace, Jamilah Lemieux (Foreword)

Originally published in 1978, Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman caused a storm of controversy. Michele Wallace blasted the masculine biases of the black politics that emerged from the sixties. She described how women remained marginalized by the patriarchal culture of Black Power, demonstrating the ways in which a genuine female subjectivity was blocked by the traditional myths of black womanhood. With a foreword that examines the debate the book has sparked between intellectuals and political leaders, as well as what has—and, crucially, has not—changed over the last four decades, Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman continues to be deeply relevant to current feminist debates and black theory today.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Genres: Feminism, Nonfiction, Race, History, Politics, African American, Sociology

288 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Michele Faith Wallace (born January 4, 1952) is a black feminist author, cultural critic, and daughter of artist Faith Ringgold. She is best known for her 1979 book Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman. Wallace's writings on literature, art, film, and popular culture have been widely published and have made her a leader of African-American intellectuals. She is a Professor of English at the City College of New York and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY).

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Milla · Rating 1 out of 5]

I OFFICIALLY GIVE UP! What the flying fuck did I just read?!?! How in the world is this a landmark of black feminist text???? I could actually write a dissertation on how fucked up this book is, but I don't even want to put enough effort into writing a proper review on how much I hated this!

DNF @ 75% when Wallace essentially says: yes black people were stolen and forced into deplorable slavery but white people were also sold as slaves so like.......

We're lucky I wasn't near a fireplace or something because when I read that line I actually chucked the book so far from me I looked like a cartoon character. Bullshit.
(I will say though there was some nice critical lines that I enjoyed.. but honestly I don't even know how to consume them. Are they satirical? Are they genuine? Is she saying these things only to use as a contrast to the insane claims she wants to make later?? I really couldn't figure out what the fuck the author was doing with this book. The funny thing is, I read it with the 2 updated forwards!!! And it was still trash!!!)

[Zanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I understand that this is one of the earlier books to cover its ground. Wallace is writing about the Civil Rights and Black Power struggles as someone who actually grew up during this period and experienced the zeitgeist. Looking back on it in her own introduction, she says she had an impulse to destroy the book, to stop anyone reading it ever again, a familiar impulse on reading your own earlier bold assertions and analyses which now seem so embarrassingly flawed and limited.

I wanted to destroy the book because my desire for something more from life than my marginal status as a black woman writer could ever offer was so palpable in its pages. In obsessively repeating the stereotypes of black women and black men, I wanted to burst free of them forever. However, this has only been slightly more possible for me than it was for Harriet Wilson, Harriet Jacobs and Charlotte Forten. But perhaps if we can begin to claim our own words and our own feelings within the public sphere, we will seize the means of re-producing our own history, and freedom will become a possibility in a sense that it never has been before.

Accordingly, though I was moved by many of her insights and the autobiographical details she shares, I often felt that Wallace's criticism of black people and of the Black Power movement was sharp, harsh, rough around the edges. More compassionate analyses can be found in the work of black feminist writing by, for example, bell hooks (especially We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity) and Patricia Hill Collins. Yet Wallace's work shouldn't be overlooked. Her perspective as a witness as well as analyst and intellectual, as deeply involved in her material, is irreplaceable, and later writers stand on her shoulders.

[Audrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve been going round my circles in my head trying to work out how to review Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman, Michelle Wallace’s 1978 tract on Black Power, masculinity, and the sexism internalised by the African-American community. How does a white girl born 6 years after this book was published critique such a deeply personal, passionately written and important book? Perhaps the safest route to take is to say that she doesn’t really. She reads. She admires. She learns. There are flaws in the reasoning in this book, and issues left un-examined, but Williams was younger when she wrote it than I am now, and she has come over the years to openly acknowledge the gaps in the book. None of that takes away from how important a text it remains.

oThe central thesis of the book – or the one that I came away with firmly lodged into my brain – is that African American culture has accepted external white definitions of masculinity, family, femininity and gender relations to the detriment of their own culture and their own struggle for equality. When the black man is struggling to be perceived as a man on white terms, he is neglecting the needs of his own people and fighting a false battle. When black culture in American accept uncritically the portrayal of the black slave woman as a collaborator who had a privileged status in the slave-owners home, they do untold damage to the unity of their fight.

What really struck me here are the parallels with the argument Christine Delphy makes in another upcoming release from Verso Books, Separate and Dominate, which I reviewed here just last week. In her book she speaks powerfully of the way in which the dominant class sets the paradigm and the rules which the oppressed need to conform with in order to be fully accepted and equal; standards which they can never meet because of their otherness, but which they are then blamed for failing to meet. And their failure to meet these false standards justifies their continued exclusion. The complexities of the hierarchies of oppression, whether race or gender or class or any other based, are fascinating in their similarities.

The arguments in Black Macho are not intended to feel fully formulated and academic. They are based on personal experience, on popular culture and on mainstream media. For the interested reader this makes them all the more readable, as we jump from an autobiographical note to a lengthy discussion of Norman Mailer’s ‘The White Negro’ to LeRoi Jones, Angela Davis, Nikki Giovanni. This book left me with lists of names to look up; black authors and poets and figures in the Black Power movement. It made me realise how ignorant I am of black history in the States. And ultimately, whether every claim the book made will stand water or not is not the point. It hooked me early; it was compulsively readable; it made me think and it opened my eyes. What more can I ask for?

Read more of my reviews at www.goodbyetoallthis.com

[Pat Cromwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't have this version, I have a paperback that is nearly 30 years old! I read it back in the late 70's or early 80's but I remember it well. The book was considered a controversial examination of the UNEVEN relationship between Black Women and Black Men. I purchased the book after reading an article in the black male oriented magazine Ebony (no that is not a typo). The article was critical of the author and her convictions. As a matter of fact, check out Ebony of the 70’s and 80’s and you’ll be shocked by their blatant favoritism and lack of support for the black female. For years I considered the book second only to the bible. It was a very powerful and motivating piece of prose and an interesting examination of where we (BW and BM) went wrong after so many years of undeniable bonding.

[Morgan]

Zero stars. I can't take this book seriously! She makes unsupported claims. She quotes Stanley Elkins, D. P. Moynihan, and Norman Mailer but not Black liberation advocates. And Michelle Wallace is the daughter of famed, talented illustrator Faith Ringgold and an English professor. I would expect someone with her education to able to think more critically and to be able to back up her claims. Apparently, Ringgold herself (among Angela Davis and others) criticized the book, and it was viewed as polemical when published. It hasn't aged well, especially with the really insightful and contextualized reexaminations of the Black Power Movement (or "Black Movement," as Wallace calls it) that have been done in the last 10ish years.

Sample claims:
-"The black woman is simply along for the ride" (85). (What ride, you ask? Well, me too.) But this statement flies in the face of Ruby Bridges, Alice Walker, Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, Angela Davis, and so many others who were actively resisting racism through their deeds, literature, and activism.
-"She [Ruby Doris Smith Robinson] is said to have written a paper on the position of black women in SNCC" (7). Robinson apparently died in 1968, and Wallace tells us that "the paper was lost and no one is quite certain of its content" (7). So why bring it up? It doesn't support her argument and I think weakens it, since it's all conjecture.
-"During the summer of 1964 hundreds of middle-class white women went South to work with the [Civil Rights] Movement and, in a fair number of cases, to have affairs with black men. Some of the women were pressured into having these affairs (anything to avoid the label of being racist), others freely chose to do so. The black men, by all accounts, were not unwilling and often eager. Occasionally the relationships were lasting or at least loving. Often they were abusive" (6). What does that prove? That white women had good and bad relationships with Black men. Okay...and where's the proof? There are no footnotes, no notes, no works cited or quotes to support any of this. I'm sure relationships happened, but how does this attempt to "prove" anything about her so-called "Black macho" thesis?

Much of what she is upset about is the sexism that pervaded these movements, but that sexism was also pervasive in U.S. society generally. She attempts to blame, maybe (?) Black men for this, but white men weren't behaving any better when it came to gender equality, so I'm not totally sure that her unsubstantiated claims are valid. Furthermore, she also omits any discussion of Joann Robinson (organizer of the Montgomery bus boycott, woman who brought MLK to Montgomery and gave him a platform to lead), Amelia Boynton Robinson, Pauli Murray, Diane Nash, Kathleen Cleaver, Ella Baker, Septima Clark, Angelou, Elaine Brown, and many other women who were more than secretaries for SNCC--women who marched, were attacked, were imprisoned, and more--likely because they don't fit her narrative.

There are better books out there about Black feminism and the Black Power Movement. Skip this and read those instead.

[Leigh Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are a number of editions of this seminal book floating around out there; this one includes an introduction from Wallace, written from the benefit of hindsight. She talks about what she would have done differently, how her feelings have changed on certain topics, and - sadly - how she minimized the abuse patterns in her family at the request of her publisher. This created a good framework for a critical second reading of this book, which I actually read for a class a long time ago.

Wallace's book examines the harmful stereotypes that have kept black men and women at each other's throats instead of aligned together to fight racism. She candidly discusses both the truths and the falsehoods in each stereotype, and gives the Black Power movement holy hell for its blatant sexism and preference for white women over African American ones. She also explains why that's a thing in the first place, and boy does she ever rip into the Moynihan report, from which a lot of the current stereotypes about black women -- especially black single mothers-- originate.

Damn good stuff. Seriously, an eye-opener. The bibliography alone is worth its weight in gold - so many new texts to explore!!! I started jotting them down, and then realized I was just going to have to photocopy the pages because ALL THE BOOKS. A key text to peruse if you're sincerely interested in Black feminism / womanism (Wallace does not use either term, but it's the one that seems to fit this review best - worth noting is Wallace's critique of white feminism, and black women's responses to the feminist movement).

[Darryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

this short review is long overdue as i am mostly skipping reviews this year, but i feel compelled to leave a quick note for posterity’s sake. especially as this is such an important work.

Michele Wallace was very brave. a Black Feminist, before it was cool or mainstream, in Black Macho, Michele Wallace puts forth a bold analysis of the myriad of ways Black women have been mythicized, to their collective detriment, and pushes back (hard) to humanize and even provide rationale for these unfortunate myths. her scathing analysis of the Civil Rights Movement’s marginalization of Black Women hit hard. it was emotional and fascinating to read and contemplate her thoughts, which made connections from before the first Black person was snatched from Africa and well into the the 1970’s and the Black Power Movement. i will cherish this book as being at the vanguard.

reading this, you’ll undeniably be curious enough to learn of the fierce backlash it received upon publication. in the version i have, Wallace grapples with these criticisms, even deeming some valid. still, i can’t help but to feel enraged at the sexism Wallace faced after publication. Jamilah Lemieux provides an excellent foreword which helps us grasp the high significance of Black Macho, then and now.

5 stars.

[Lee Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an intersting read, as the version I had included a new forward by the author, who was able to revist some of her ideas. At the time of its original publication, Wallace received a lot of flack for her theories/views, and she admits in the forward that as time as passes (older, perhaps wiser), her views have changed, but not so radically that she no longer believes in the core of this work.

I think this book begins to scratch at larger conversations about relationships and community. Too often, the language around oppression in communities of color pits male against female, as if there is a contest about how gets screwed over the most. In some ways, this starts to look at the effects of oppressions on the whole--how racism is tied to gender bias, how gender bias feeds into racism, etc.

[Markus · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was among the first to do something difficult and turn against those possibly considered supporters of the same idea of black liberation, asking for reasons why black women where left behind by Civil Rights and Black Power movements. It's not fully developed, I'll admit, but it's am effort to instill action and discussion.

[Sydney · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is possibly the nonfiction book I've most appreciated/enjoyed reading for school. I'm writing an essay critiquing 'traditional' (ie, Christian) marriage from feminist and economic perspectives. I didn't see how the book applied to this subject at first, but the second half of the book ('The Myth of the Superwoman') focuses on the family. I realized I was coming at my subject from a very white-feminist place, and that is not at all a good thing...

Wallace balances the personal and political by analyzing personal narratives and more 'intellectual' pieces of race theory that reveal personal prejudice. She focuses on one author at a time, quoting lengthy passages and discussing them in turn. I suppose this requires some patience, but it familiarizes the reader with the author Wallace is critiquing or examining.

Wallace's insights are incredible - subtle but powerful, well-thought out, and well-explained. Her consistently astute explanations, ideas, and analyses kept me glued to this book. I recommend it to anyone interested in either feminism or the Black Power movement.

[zoë · Rating 3 out of 5]

Never realizing how imaginary my "strength" really was, I swore never to use it.

wry, direct, refined, and contradictory. the areas in which wallace spoke on her life were the most engrossing and revealing. i just really enjoyed her command of language & the obvious skill she displayed. would love to read her autobiography.

on the black macho, well. i felt wallace was way milder—the perceived maliciousness is just that—on BM than critics would have you believe. if anything, i had expected her to make those same (or more) allowances for black women—while there is obvious care for black women in her dissection, sympathies or understandings are almost always followed up with a cool brush off or distanced scolding—but alas.

her understanding of women’s lib/lesbian feminism at the time of writing were muddled and lacking and felt hastily tacked on rather than purposefully curated like the majority of the book.

still, a useful read.

3.5

[Fatou · Rating 5 out of 5]

Michele Wallace tactfully approaches the “Black Macho” and the Black “Superwoman” with accurate, historical details to back each point. This book is even more prevalent, especially as we approach an election with one of the running VP candidates being a Black woman. If you read this book, make note of a specific comment that Redd Foxx made about Shirley Chisholm when she was running for President. I highly recommend this book to Black millennials who are sifting through this uncertain world and tend to latch on to ideals that have been set in stone by our society. We have a lot of unlearning to do but “Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman” is a starting point to help break those unrealistic values.

[Amber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Michele Wallace presents an interesting interpretation of black men, black women, and black male/female relationships. I learned a lot from this book that I didn't know.I'd highly suggest this book to all interested in black power rhetoric, the black male position as oppressed and oppressor, an in-depth understanding of the "Strong black woman" stereotype and a different take on black male/female relationships. Definitely worth the read.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the course of an essay I'm writing I refer to the Myth of the Black Superwoman. I've been aware of the term for a while, but I didn't know it's author or origins, so I thought I'd better go to the source.

Wallace is a good writer and her history of life under slavery is informative and persuasive. The subject of black male-female relations in the 1960s is beyond my expertise, but Wallace tends to make sweeping generalizations that invite some skepticism.

Just how prevalent were black male-white female relationships? According to Wallace, very. But she offers no numbers. Okay, but how many should there be? If there were "too many" what is the "right number"? Was it a "Black Power" fad that faded away? Is it fair to criticize black men as group for the romantic choice of an unknown minority?

She makes an interesting argument that black men absorbed white standards of masculinity, which includes desire for white women. Black men, therefore, were not following their own desires but acting according to someone else's script.

But it is difficult to prove motivation, especially in the realm of desire. It's also tricky to tell someone, "You're not doing this for the reasons you think you are, but because you've been brainwashed." How many black men dated white women for "good reasons" (desire, affection, attraction) and how many for "bad reasons" (white socialization)? To black women who feel unfairly ignored by black men (the position Wallace occupies and speaks for) such a distinction is perhaps meaningless. But I hope Wallace acknowledges this distinction at some point.

[Nakia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even though this book is centered more on my mother’s generation, it was extremely helpful in understanding why Black feminism (or womanism) is needed... (full review at http://zoratonimaya.tumblr.com/post/1...)

[Camille · Rating 3 out of 5]

had to expect some off-color opinions...a broader, more interesting assessment would ask at what point do we acknowledge/respect difference?

if you weren't wrong and aren't wrong, you will be. everybody gets their turn on the chopping block
-
2025 re-read: meandering.

[Sokari Ekine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too long ago to remember!

[Em · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just read The Myth of the Superwoman.

[Leigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating as a historical document. Read the intro both before and after...

[Rafael Pajaro - Rafa · Rating 3 out of 5]

took my a while to get through this because much it's subject and themes were exhausting so i kept putting it down. a little dated but a lot of it is still relevant

[Shaakira · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this book for a black women's studies class in college. I learned a lot in regards to the dynamic and culture of black women and identity politics. Will definitely read again.

[Kinjo Kiema · Rating 5 out of 5]

interesting book and helpful for understanding where the ideas and history surrounding the strong Black woman trope come from. had some very spicy takes

[Kirby Obsidian · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book provided a great lesson in the need to look below the surface, and the danger of falling into unquestioning allegiance with any movement without testing the integrity and depth of its philosophical foundations.

I read this many years ago, so the details escape me. But it challenged my reverence for the Black liberation movements of the 60's and 70's, by revealing that the liberation they espoused was not extended internally to men and women in equal measure. Wallace does not invalidate all of the core ideas behind these movements, but in pressing for ideological maturity, she challenges their practitioners to be consistent, self-questioning and perhaps more holistic in how their values are lived and expressed.

[Estefanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un libro base que desarrolla la complejidad de la opresión de las mujeres negras de manera brillante y con muchísimo trabajo de investigación detrás (no es un librito fácil de leer). Todo desde el contexto de EEUU.

Al mismo tiempo que señala (en el año en que Wallace escribe el libro me atrevería a decir que una de las primeras veces) al hombre negro como papel opresivo ademas de la blanquitud.

Me gusta que profundice en el motivo de que el hombre negro, desde su papel de víctima en un sistema racista y colonial, haya terminado cayendo en él dejando a la mujer negra de lado.

Muchas heridas por sanar aun, es un libro que todo el mundo debería leer si ya tiene un mínimo de conciencia en lo que al Feminismo Negro se refiere.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A rousingly polemical intervention that’s so forceful and articulate in its writing that it sweeps you along even as it generalizes so broadly and reads both culture and history so selectively that it obviously pushes way too far in a single direction. In a more recently written introduction, Wallace reflects thoughtfully on the book’s controversial reception history and her own stubborn insistence on making this one point at the expense of many others at the time of writing. But even though it loses some of its breathless momentum in the latter sections, it’s a riveting and always provocative read and an absolute classic of black feminism.

[Gray Gordon · Rating 3 out of 5]

What’s great about reading even remotely controversial texts are the active ways we as readers have to juggle our own subjectivities along with the author’s. The fiery Goodreads reviews seem to expect the book to flawlessly fulfill its place among the intersectional feminist canon and disqualify it of any merciful critical examination—though I agree, it’s aged a bit. On the other hand, there’s plenty of “I’m white, so I’m here to learn” in fear of saying anything bigoted. It’s a flawed text! And it’s important that even if it is flawed, we read it, analyze its flaws, and in turn, understand our own politics in a meaningful way.

[Michele · Rating 3 out of 5]

All the reviews of this book apply - this is a classic, and I'll likely be looking to acquire the revised edition for my bookshelf. I particularly appreciated the history Wallace provides - all these names that were floating around during the 60s and 70s now have a context in my mind, and I'm looking forward to educate myself further on what was really going on.
Thank you, Michele Wallace, for giving me a fuller foundation to begin to learn more about the revolutionary currents that were so active back in those decades.

[Sydnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of it was dated but she literally says that introduction so it was expected but it was really good! Easy read detailing the dismissal and invisibility of Black women’s contributions to civil rights movements, and the expectation of a ‘superwoman’ who is really just a woman trying to survive. Will need to read again soon to soak it all in.

[Michele Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book

It isn’t just because I wrote but because I was 26 when I wrote and as I reread it, I continue to learn.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5