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A Representation of Gender Equity in Barrack Obama’s Life Narratives
A THESIS
Presented as a Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Magister Humaniora (M. Hum) Degree in English Language Studies
by
TRI SUGIARTO Student Number: 106332018
GRADUATE PROGRAM OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE STUDIES SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA 2013
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A THESIS
A REPRESENTATION OF GENDER EQUITY IN BARRACK OBAMA’S LIFE NARRATIVES
by
TRI SUGIARTO Student Number: 106332018
Approved by
Dr. FX Siswadi, M.A. supervisor Yogyakarta, 4 June 2013
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A THESIS
A REPRESENTATION OF GENDER EQUITY IN BARRACK OBAMA’S LIFE NARRATIVES
by
TRI SUGIARTO Student Number: 106332018
Defended before the Thesis Committee and Declared Acceptable
THESIS COMMITTEE
Chairperson :Dr. F.X. Siswadi, M.A. ______
Secretary : Dr. Novita Devi, M.S., M.A. (Hons) ______
Members : 1. Dra. Sri Mulyani, M.A., Ph.D ______
2. Dr. Patrisius Mutiara Andalas, S.J ______
Yogyakarta, 25 April 2013 The Graduate Program Director Sanata Dharma University
Prof. Dr. Agustinus Supratiknya
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STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY
This is to certify that all ideas, phrases, sentences, unless otherwise stated, are the ideas, phrases, and sentences of the thesis writer. The writer understands the full consequences including degree cancellation if he took somebody else’s ideas, phrases, or sentences without proper references.
Yogyakarta, 4 April 2013
Tri Sugiarto
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Lembar Pernyataan Persetujuan Publikasi Karya Ilmiah untuk Kepentingan Akademis
Yang bertanda tangan dibawah ini, saya mahasiswa Universitas Sanata Dharma:
Nama : Tri Sugiarto
Nomor Mahasiswa : 106332018
Demi pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan saya memberikan kepada perpustakaan
Universitas Sanata Dharma karya ilmiah saya yang berjudul:
A Representation of Gender Equity in Barrack Obama’s Life Narratives beserta perangkat yang diperlukan (bila ada).
Dengan demikian saya memberikan kepada perpustakaan Universitas Sanata
Dharma hak untuk menyimpan, mengalihkan dalam bentuk media lain, mengelolanya dalam bentuk pangkalan data, mendistribusikan secara terbatas, dan mempublikasikannya di internet atau media lain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa perlu meminta ijin dari saya maupun memberikan royalti kepada saya selama tetap mencantumkan nama saya sebagai penulis.
Demikian pernyataan ini yang saya buat dengan sebenarnya.
Dibuat di Yogyakarta Pada tanggal 4 April 2013 Yang menyatakan
(Tri Sugiarto)
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Alhamdulillahi rabbil alamin; all praises is to Allah Azza Wajalla, The Almighty, The Most Beneficent, and The Most Merciful. Without His blessings, love, and guidance I would never finish writing this thesis. I would like to dedicate my heartfelt gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. FX Siswadi, M.A., for his patience, guidance, and supervision during the process of finishing this thesis. I owed him for the valuable time and energy that he spent in advising. My sincerest gratitude is also presented to Dr. Novita Dewi M.S. M.A. (Hons) who also patiently assisted me in the process of exploring the idea for my thesis since semester three. She also became one of my thesis examiners and gave many insightful thoughts. I thank Dra. Sri Mulyani, M.A., Ph.D and Dr. Patrisius Mutiara Andalas, S.J for spending time reading and giving constructive criticisms during the review and defense session of my thesis. They have broadened and sharpened my views on literary analysis and studies on gender and life narrative. I am also indebted to Prof Dr. Bakdi Soemanto, Dr. B.B. Dwijatmoko, M.A. and all lecturers in English Language Studies Sanata Dharma University who have widened my understanding on English literacy and literature. My innumerable thanks are to my dearest friends in class B 2010; Mbak Erni, Mbak Arien, Mbak Anjar (thank you for being very great sisters in KBI), Dame, Devi, Bu Erna, Mbak Orpha, Mbak Umi, Lelly, Rusdi, Fitri. I thank them for their incredible friendship. I thank to Mbak Anna and Mbak Ruth for being the proofreader for this thesis. Their input and suggestion help me to improve. I also thank Mbak Lely and Pak Mul for their help in the administrations and stuffs. They help me to manage my study in Sanata Dharma University well. I am lovingly and humbly dedicated my gratitude to my Mamak and Bapak, my elder sisters, my younger brother, and my brother in-law for their support and encouragement. To Kakak Majes and Adik Keke, this is the ticket for you to fly to Oom’s house! Finally, I would thank my girlfriend Anies who always accompanies me with smiles. Her patience and support has ‘flooded’ me happiness. She inspires me to reach higher, dig deeper, dream bigger and pursue my passion in order to live a life that matters. May His blessings shower upon us and we can build a family together in this life and the afterlife (amen...).
Yogyakarta, 25 April 2013 Tri Sugiarto
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“Verily, Allah SWT will never change the conditions of people as long as they do not change it themselves” (Ar Ra’d:11)
“What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.” -Henry David Thoreau
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ABSTRACT
Tri Sugiarto. 2013. A Representation of Gender Equity in Barrack Obama’s Life Narratives. Yogyakarta: English Language Study, Graduate Program, Sanata Dharma University
There are many researches on gender issue focusing on women and their efforts to work against patriarchal domineering system. Very few concentrate on men and show the example of their positive attitudes that are appropriate for the spirit of feminism. This research sees the need and presents the investigation on such topic. This research investigates Barrack Obama’s life narratives namely Dreams from My Father: The Story of Race and Inheritance and Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream. It highlights the representation of the “I” into the spirit of gender equity and also the factors that influence the narrator to represent the “I” into the paradigm. This is a qualitative research using library research technique in collecting the data and descriptive analytical manner to present the result of the analysis. The data analysis is conducted using bell hooks’ visionary feminism and theory of life narrative. Answering the first research question, it is found that “I” is projected to embody the spirit of gender equity in his practices. He does not stick to the domineering tradition of patriarchal masculinity that has been performed by the black men in American society. Instead, involvement in domestic chores, participation in nurturing, provision of a space for women to speak, and consideration for women in the decision making process, are the attitudes that he has performed. Indeed, he is found to be ambivalent some times. Yet, he can always repress and discontinue his desire to suit the hegemonic norm. He has shown that he has escaped from the deterministic images of black men and also has showed the transformation that a black man can do to build a better gender relation in the society. Furthermore, for the second research question, it is revealed that the practices the narrator performs are triggered by the struggles and sufferings of women encircle his life. He believes that women have very big role for the family and the society and they are not deserved to be ill-treated. Seeing that his mother, maternal grandmother, paternal half-sister, and his female colleagues become the victim of man and his patriarchal tradition, the narrator believes that he will not practice nor continue the credo in his own life. Besides, the guilt and shame after witnessing the fraud made by his father and his male caretakers have also become the reason why the narrator projects the “I” into the spirit of gender equity. Because of their loyalty to the rules of patriarchal masculinity, the men have ‘suffered’ and lived unhappily. They always try to chase the images set by the patriarchal dominant system without ever predicting the damage that this tradition may generate for himself, his spouse, and his entire family.
Keywords: gender equity, life narratives, visionary feminism
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ABSTRAK
Tri Sugiarto. 2013. A Representation of Gender Equity in Barrack Obama’s Life Narratives. Yogyakarta: Kajian Bahasa Inggris, Program Pasca Sarjana, Universitas Sanata Dharma
Ada banyak sekali penelitian pada isu gender yang berfokus pada perempuan dan usahanya dalam melepaskan diri dari penjara patriarki yang melemahkan. Sangat sedikit bisa ditemui bahwa laki-laki dan contoh perilakukanya yang mengandung semangat kesetaraan gender menjadi objek kajian. Penelitian ini mencoba menawarkan alternatif fokus penelitian pada isu yang sangat jarang dikaji tersebut. Objek kajian pada penelitian ini adalah narasi kehidupan dari Barrack Obama yang berjudul Dreams from My Father: The Story of Race and Inheritance dan Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream. Dari dua narasi tersebut, penelitian ini mencoba melihat bagaimana Barrack Obama (narator) menggambarkan tindakan "saya" yang mengandung semangat kesetaraan gender, dan menjelaskan apa saja faktor yang memengaruhinya untuk mewujudkan tindakan yang mengandung semangat ideologi tersebut. Penelitian ini merupakan penelitian kualitatif menggunakan teknik pengkajian pustaka untuk mengumpulkan data, dan metode deskripsi analitis dalam menyajikan hasil penelitian. Dalam menganalisa data, teori visionary feminism dari bell hooks dan teori narasi kehidupan akan digunakan. Dari menjawab pertanyaan pertama, ditemukan bahwa tindakan “saya” sesuai dengan semangat kesetaraan gender. Dia tidak melakukan tradisi patriarki seperti yang telah dan biasanya dilakukan oleh laki-laki hitam si dalam masyarakat Amerika. Berbeda dengan mereka, didalam narasi kehidupannya narator menunjukkan bahwa “saya” berpartisipasi aktif membantu aktivitas rumah tangga, menjaga dan mengasuh anak, memberi kesempatan perempuan untuk “berbicara”, dan mempertimbangkan suara mereka dalam mengambil keputusan. Tidak dapat diabaikan bahwa kadangkala terdapat sebuah ambivalensi dalam tindakan yang “saya” lakukan. Akan tetapi, “saya” selalu mampu menahan keinginannya untuk berperilaku sesuai dengan norma yang diharapkan dalam masyarakat patriarki. “Saya” menunjukkan bahwa dia telah terlepas dari jaring imaji yang disandarkan sebagai karakter laki-laki hitam. Dia menggambarkan sebuah perubahan yang bisa dilakukan oleh seorang laki-laki hitam untuk mewujudkan masyarakat dengan hubungan gender yang lebih baik. Selanjutnya, dari pertanyaan kedua ditemukan bahwa faktor yang membuat “saya” memegang teguh perilaku kesetaraan gender adalah perjuangan dan pederitaan yang dialami perempuan yang dekat dalam kehidupannya. “Saya” percaya bahwa perempuan mempunyai peran yang sangat penting untuk keluarga dan masyarakat dan dia tidak boleh mendapatkan perilaku yang tidak baik. Akibat dari tradisi patriarki, Ibu, nenek, saudara perempuan dan rekan kerjanya mengalami kesedihan dan penderitaan. Selain itu, dari masa lalunya, “saya” belajar bahwa tradisi maskulinitas berdampak buruk bagi laki-laki dan
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perempuan. “Saya” merasakan bahwa kebiasaan memegang teguh tradisi patriarki yang dilakukan oleh kakeknya, ayah kandung dan ayah tirinya, membuat mereka menjadi laki-laki yang gagal, baik secara profesi ataupun sebagai kepala rumah tangga. Olehkarena itu, “saya” tidak ingin melakukan kegagalan yang sama. Dia membangun kebiasan yang baik baginya dan orang-orang yang ada disekitanya, yaitu dengan bertindak sesuai dengan semangat kesetaraan gender.
Kata kunci:kesetaraan gender, narasi kehidupan, feminism visionary
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page Title i Approval ii
Ratification iii
Statement of originality iv
Lembar pernyataan publikasi v
Acknowledgment vi
Motto vii
Abstract viii
Abstrak ix
Table of content xi
List of figures xiv
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION
A. The Background 1 B. The Statements of problems 7 C. The Scope 8 D. The Significance 9 E. The Method 10 F. The Definition of some related terms 12
CHAPTER II. LITERATURE REVIEW
A. Review of related studies 14
B. Review of related theories 18
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1. Visionary feminism 18
2. General overview of life narrative 20
a. Black man’s life narrative 25
b. Autobiography and memoir 26
C. Overview of Research Object 29
1. Obama’s Life Narratives summary 29
2. The Obama’s Extended Family 33
D. Theoretical Framework 36
CHAPTER III. THE “I” FOR GENDER EQUITY
A. Involvement in the domestic responsibility 38
B. Participation in nurturing . 49
C. Provision of a space for women to speak 56
D. Consideration for women in the decision making process 64
E. Concluding remark 68
CHAPTER IV. THE GENESIS OF “I”’S RECONCILIATION
A. The struggle and suffering of women 71
B. The profound disappointment to the male caretakers 77
C. Concluding remark 89
CHAPTER V. CONCLUSION 91
BIBLIOGRAPHY 100
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Name of figure Page
1. The chart of Obama’s extended family 36
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CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
A. The Background
The late twentieth century saw the emergence of many protest movements in America. One of them was the Feminist Movement. They fought against gender discrimination and the subordination of women in the existing patriarchal society.
They thrust themselves into a whirlwind of chauvinistic hostility, a storm fraught with danger and antagonism, and boldly declared their opposition to the tradition.
They took to the streets and expressed their demand for equal rights1. They insisted that gender discrimination against women in politics, employment, and other important sectors is in contradiction with basic human rights and that this injustice must stop.
Through these intense efforts, changes were successfully made. Women gained better social positions in many different parts of the public sphere. They achieved the right to vote, to access higher education, to work in any profession, to join the military, and to control their own bodies. This movement was one of the great success stories of the twentieth century.
Nevertheless, this successful movement only transforms the lives of half of the female population in America. The other half continues to experience discrimination. They still face domestic violence, ‘harassment’ in public or the work place and other forms of victimization. For example, it is reported that the wage and care-giving gap between men and women still exists. Women earn
1 Cynthia Harrison. “From the Home to the House: The changing Role of Women in American Society”. U.S. Society and Values Electronic Journal of the U.S. Information Agency. Vol. 2 (1997), Marcy Bounds Littlefield, “ Black Women, Mothering, and Protest in 19th Century American Society”, The Journal of Pan African Studies, Vol. 2 (2007) PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
about 75 percent of what their male counterparts do, and more are likely than men to support and raise children at home2.
One of the reasons for this partial victory has something to do with the refusal of female feminist activists to ‘cooperate’ with men. They refuse to involve in their activities men because men are the central source of gender inequity in the society. They believe that the movement for gender equity is solely their responsibility. However, hooks asserts that this perspective is incorrect and the women must transform it. In order to change the current condition of gender inequity, women need to welcome the idea of working with men3. They must be able to regard them as their partners in order to achieve and maintain their goals.
hooks explains that men’s attitude is indeed the cause of this inequality.
Men always believe in their superior position to women. As suggested by Pease, they adhere to the stereotypes of traditional masculinity which is the need to seek material success, to build physical and psychological strength, show leadership and invulnerability, to oppress fear, to control emotion, to become tough and independent, and that these are contingent on the oppression of women4.
Therefore, the change among men is fundamental to women achieving complete liberation and a gender equal position5. Feminist women need to involve men and educate them to understand that feminist values can also empower them. Men well versed in the spirit of feminist thought can cooperate with women to promote the
2 Ann Friedman, “Will Obama Fight to Close the Gender Gap? “The Atlantic on the Web 1 March 2011, 28 March 2013, http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/03/will-obama- fight-to-close-the-gender-gap/71907/ retrieved on 8 October 2011. 3 bell hooks, Feminism for Everybody: Passionate Politics (Canada: South End Press, 2000) 67 4 Bob Pease, Men + Gender Relation (Victoria: Tertiary Press, 2002) 22 5 As it is mentioned in The Platform for Action adopted at the Fourth World Congress on Women, in Beijing in 1995 said: “The advancement of women and the achievement of equality between women and men are a matter of human rights and a condition for social justice and should not be seen in isolation as a women’s issue”
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equity and aware that their participation will not only liberate women, but also give them the freedom to lead happy, satisfied and complete lives6.
hooks believes that one of the media that changes, educates and invites men to work together for gender equity is literature7. She explains that it is a tool that can describe the nature of feminism and provide clear directions to everyone about the subject. It can motivate the men to work for any gender related problem in the community. Warton in Wellek and Warren also states that literature can be a useful media, a source book for understanding and preserving the most picturesque and expressive representation of manners in a society8. It can present positive instructions helping the men to reconsider their behaviors in the dominant patriarchal society effectively.
Nevertheless, there are limited feminist literatures and researches that address or inform boys and men about the ways in which they may build a non- sexist male identity9. Literary works written by many authors mostly deal with the depiction of women’s struggle to change their subordinate and powerless position.
They highlight men’s sexism as the reason for their oppression. For example, some well-known works from female writers like Morison’s Beloved, Woolf’s
The Awakening, or male writers such as Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, Bernard Shaw’s
Arms and the Men, only describe the efforts of women to struggle against the domineering patriarchal society. They do not provide a vision of exactly what men should do in their culturally-given position of power, what attitudes and behaviors are acceptable to the spirit of gender equity.
6Pease, 83-93 7hooks,22 8Rene Wellek and Austin Warren, Theory of Literature (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World Inc. 1956)103 9 hooks, 70
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Furthermore, many studies on gender issues also do not underline exactly what action can be taken to avoid the oppression of women. Many researchers focus on women’s empowerment. They do not explore the importance of changing men’s behavior or to explain how men can contribute to improve gender equity in their research. Research in the department of English Language Studies
Sanata Dharma University such as Sri Darta’s “A Portrait of a Mother as an Agent of Change in Some Selected Fiction” and Susanna Maria’s “The Swaying of
Oppression and Liberation through Srintil’s Selendang in Tohari’s Trilogy
Ronggeng Dukuh Paruk and The Dancer”, and some others, stress on the women’s contribution and struggle to escape from men’s domineering practices.
Research that focuses on men’s efforts to prevent the spread of patriarchal domination in the community is scarcely found10. Consequently, the concrete examples available to men to enable their involvement in achieving gender equity remain absent.
Therefore, the purpose of this research is to answer the scarcity of research focusing on men and their participation in the action of representing the spirit of gender equity. This research supposes to inspire men with new attitudes and to show how men can come to adopt a pro-feminist position.
In this research, life narrative is the chosen genre to be investigated. It is a form of writing that describes real characters, situations, and references to real
10 Dr. WeningUdasmoro, M.Hum., DEA mentioned that one of the problem on gender issue like masculinity still limited to be pursued in research by Indonesian scholars. (Wening Udasmoro, “Indonesia and the New Challenges: Multiculturalism, Identity, and Self-Narration” The 2nd International Graduate Student Conference, Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta, 3 November 2011.
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places and people11. It provides evidences for the analysis of historical movements, events, and persons. It can bring us back to the reality of human situations, problems, feelings and relationships. Life narrative gives its readers a portrait of the narrator’s life experience and worldview. This can reveal a deeper psychological truth than in poetry, prose or drama, even when the narrator is not aware of his or her work’s psychological implications. Therefore, it serves as the best medium to analyze various aspects of human life such as a man’s activism to gender equity.
Among the existing life narratives, Barrack Obama’s Dreams from My
Father: The Story of Race and Inheritance and The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream are chosen as the object of the research. They are one of the most important and outstanding America’s life narratives. These describe the dynamic transformation of Obama from sexist into pro-feminist activist. These are interesting works because they are written by a man coming from a race that has always been problematic in any discussion related to gender issue. The negative stereotypes about the nature of black masculinity always continue to over-determine black man’s’ identity and his representation in literary works. This is visible in most existing literature and research on race and gender.
At the time of the rise of The Black Power Movement and the Women’s
Movement in the late 1960’s, into the 1970’s, and up until today, many people, especially women, have been questioning the idea of black masculinity and its
11Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson, Reading Autobiography: A Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives (London: University of Minnesota Press, 2001) 14
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effect on black male-female relationship12. Writers like Alice Walker, Michele
Wallace, Toni Morrison, etc. explore the suffering imposed on black women by a destructive model of black masculinity. They narrate the disastrous consequences for the partners of black men in their stories or articles. Moreover, Coleman,
Galego, Hunter and Davis also claim that black men are undeniably the forerunners of sexism in the community13. Besides, there are not many people investigated the issue of gender in this narratives. The available articles and researches mainly center around racial and genealogical issues rather than gender14.
Furthermore, Obama’s narratives have had a positive public reception. Joe
Klein, in Time, explains that Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and
Inheritance “may be the best written memoir ever produced by an American politician”. Meanwhile, Michiko Kakutani, the New York Time critic, describes
Dreams from My father as “the most evocative, lyrical, and candid autobiography
(ever) written by a future president”15. In 2006, the book formatted into audio book version and won the Grammy Award for best spoken world album. It was
12 Gary L Lemons, “Towards the End of ‘Black Macho’ in the United States: Preface to a (Pro)womanist Vision of Black Manhood”, Global Masculinities: A Man’s World Edited by Bob Pease and Keith Pringle, (London, Zed Books Ltd), p.150 13Kendric Coleman, Power, Money, and Sex(uality): The Black Masculine Paradigm, unpublished dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College. 2005
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also on the best-seller list for 104 weeks in July 2008 and in the summer 2009. It has sold millions of copies and has been translated into eight different languages.
Likewise, his second book The Audacity of Hope; Thoughts of Reclaiming the
American Dream, the complementary and ‘sequel’ of the first book, became the
#1 best seller in both the New York Times and Amazon.com when it was published in 2006.
These life narratives present important records of Obama’s history from his early childhood. In the narratives, he also frames himself under the spirit of gender equity. He tells about his upbringing, both his interaction with a patriarchal male caretakers and his life with ‘powerful’ and independent women who inspire him and make him alert to the importance of men’s involvement in promoting gender equity. As his narratives unfold, Obama reveals his efforts to be a good man for his family and community.
B. The Statements of Problems
Considering the background of the study, the research on the narratives is carried out to answer the following questions;
1. How does Barrack Obama try to project the “I” into the spirit of gender
equity in his Dream from My Father: a Story of Inheritance and the Audacity
of Hope; Thoughts of Reclaiming the American Dream?
2. What are the factors that powerfully influence Barrack Obama to project the
“I” into the spirit of gender equity in his Dream from My Father: a Story of
Inheritance and The Audacity of Hope; Thoughts of Reclaiming the American
Dream?
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C. The Scope
Theoretically, researchers who are interested in using life narrative as their research object should direct their interest to either the axis of the ‘referentiality’ or ‘subjectivity’16 of the narrative. “Referentiality” refers to the correspondence of the narrative with the reality outside the text. The scholar should find whether the narrative represents or misrepresents the real world. Meanwhile, “subjectivity” refers to the discussion of the speaking subject “I” who narrates the narrative. In this part, scholars explore the narrator’s point of view, social positioning and construction, and its relationship to other subjects’ position.
This research has a particular scope in order to set a specific and organized field of investigation. This mainly focuses on the issue of “subjectivity’ of the life narratives. It emphasizes the investigation of the position of the narrator and the specific story he seeks to tell. It centers upon discussing the representation of the narrating “I” into the spirit of gender equity and also the background underlying his conduct. This research employs bell hook’s theory of visionary feminism. This theory emphasizes that men have the potential to change. hooks asserts that men can escape from the myth of traditional masculinity. They can work together with women for gender equity and form a healthy family and community. For the analysis of the research, only the prominent characters’ statements and sentences are taken into consideration to complete the objective of the research.
16 Kenneth Mostern, Autobiography and Black Identity Politics: Racialization in Twentieth-Century America (UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004) 28
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D. The Significance
1. Academically
a) This study is expected to introduce life narrative as an alternative genre
to be investigated in literary studies amongst students studying English
literature. Life narrative used to be considered as having less literary
value compared to prose, drama or poetry. Many students studying
English literature are not interested in doing a research based on life
narrative. Nevertheless, there are important aspects to the life narrative
that may be read and academically examined. For example, its authorship
and historical moment, the autobiographical “I”, identity, narrative
plotting and modes, and many others.
b) This study is expected to introduce an alternative focus to the study of
gender issues. Most of the existing studies on gender in graduate
programs of English Language Studies at Sanata Dharma University
concentrate on the suffering and struggle of the women in the patriarchal
society. As this research centralizes on a man’s condition and his struggle
for the pro-feminism, it plays as a new example of research focus under
the topic of gender issue.
c) This study is also supposed to widen the understanding about how black
writers, through their life narratives, view and describe the social
problems closely related to race and gender.
2. Practically
a) This study is intended to deepen an understanding about life through life
narratives.
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b) This study is aimed at improving knowledge about the problem of
masculinity in a patriarchal society.
c) This study is expected to inspire male readers to perform better attitudes
in their family or future community.
E. The Method
There are many reading strategies Smith and Watson proposed on studying life narrative. They are authorship and the historical moment, the history of reading publics, the autobiographical “I”, identity, narrative plotting an modes, temporality, audience and addressee, coherence and closeness, memory, trauma and scriptotherapy, evidence, authority and authenticity, voice, experience, body and embodiment, agency, rationality, knowledge and self-knowledge, collaborative autobiography, and ethics17. They explain that the variety appears because the composition of life narrative is indeed very complex.
Among the proposed reading strategies, this study focuses on the
“autobiographical I”. It emphasizes the position of the narrator and the specific story he seeks to tell about. It tries to find the representation of gender equity and the factor that influence the account in Obama’s life narratives; Dream from my
Father: a Story of Inheritance and The Audacity of Hope; Thoughts of Reclaiming the American Dream from 2004 publication by Crown Publisher, New York and
The Audacity of Hope; Thoughts of Reclaiming the American Dream of the 2006 publication by Tree Rivers Press.
In order to answer the questions of the research systematically, this employs library research in collecting the data and descriptive analytical method
17 Smith and Watson, 165-178
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to analyze it. In library research, the research starts from collecting, selecting and analyzing the data. The primary data and secondary data of the research are firstly collected from various sources such as books, articles, reviews, journals from university’s book shelve as well as the electronic sources, internet.
Next, from the data collection, the appropriate data to answer the research objective is selected and classified. Then, the classified data is analyzed analytically and presented in a descriptive manner.
In this case the analysis of the data for the first research question is presented into four sections; one, involvement in domestic responsibility; two, participation in nurturing; three, provision of a space for women to speak; and four, consideration for women in the decision making process. The terms are taken from the digest of theoretical ground on the performance of men’s positive respond to feminism proposed by Pease and Genzo in Nelson’s mentioning that pro-feminist man tend to develop less oppressive sexuality, become more nurturing in their relationship, abandon violence, take responsibility for childcare and housework, and confront power and control issues in their interpersonal relationship1819. Meanwhile, the answer for the second research question is subdivided into the struggle and suffering of women and the profound disappointment on male caretaker because the narrator indeed buries unfulfilled dream and want to his male-caretakers during his life development and witness the independence of women to fight against their ‘unfortunate’ condition resulted from the patriarchal system.
18 Bob Pease, Recreating men; Postmodern Masculinity Politics (London: Sage Publication, 2002) 38 19James B. Nelson, The Intimate Connection; Male Sexuality, Masculine Spirituality. (US The Westminster Press, 1988) 85-86
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In the analysis and some explanations about the life narratives in this research, the “I” is used as the representation of the narrator (Obama) himself.
Thus, the “I” will not be treated as a “pronoun I” under the grammatical rule of
English. It is treated as the entity of the speaking subject (Obama).
F. The Definition of Some Related Terms
1. Representation
This word refers to the idea when a signifying practices mirrors in the
“real” world situation. In the cultural studies, this term does not only represent the symbolism of certain independent ‘object’, but it also reflects the meaning and effect correspondence to it20.
2. Gender equity
Gender is understood as cultural assumption and practice that has disempowered women’s position in the society. Given the fact that women are usually victimized, the term is usually brought by feminist who works to dismantle the patriarchal tradition21. Shortly, the phrase “gender equity” means the values of fairness and equality between men and women.
3. Life narrative
Life narrative is a term to describe a form of writing produced in the West that centers its story on writer’s refraction of self-reference with “speculation about history, politics, religion, science, and culture”22. This term distinguishes the inscription of “one’s own life from that of another”. This comprises many subgenres. Among others are autobiography and memoir.
20Chris Barker, The Sage Dictionary of Cultural Studies(London, Sage Publication, 2004) 177 21 Barker, p. 73 22 Smith and Watson, p. 2
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Autobiography is an abroad and popular genre in the literary world.
"Autobiography", etymologically is a compound of the Greek autos (self), bios
(life), and graphe (writing).23. It denotes as “self-life writing”. To create a clear distinction between “autobiography”, and “memoir”, we may straightforwardly refer autobiography as a confession of thoughts and experiences of the narrator. It persistently records and examines the narrator’s own life openly to gain mental freedom via truthfulness they expressed in the book. One example of autobiography is Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick
Douglass.
On the contrary, memoir is not a confession of oneself, but a narration that is written when the narrator engages as the “eyewitness” to history. Memoir implies an act of describing life-experiences during a particular era of history. The emphasis is on the history or the time, and on whether the memoirist did or did not influence or enter his personal life-stories in the time sequence they narrate24.
One example of memoir is Xenophon’s Anabasis.
23Smith and Watson, 1. 24 Hamilton, 269-293
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CHAPTER II
LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter is divided into four sections, namely, review of related studies, review of related theories, overview of the research object, and theoretical framework of the research. The section on review of related theories is further subdivided into two; theory of visionary feminism and theory of life narratives.
Likewise, the overview of the research object is also shared into two sections. The first is the summary of the research object and the second is the Obama’s story.
A. Review of Related Studies
Some scholars read Barack Obama and his narratives from many different standpoints. Janin, for example, reads him and his narrative from the perspective of his presidential victory and his African heritage. In his essay, he writes that
Obama’s victory is an important sign of social progress in the modern U.S.25.
Obama’s ability to break out of the racial history, myth, and stereotype of the black man has many positive effects. It invites more people to learn and appreciate African-American history. Janin also explains that Obama communicates “post-modern consciousness”, the consciousness to present the history of other countries internationally.
Ignacio Lopez-Calvo from University of California also writes about
Obama26. He focuses particularly on racial issues. In his article, he explains that
Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope present many important issues
25Michael Janin, “Obama, Africa, and the Post-Racial”.CCLWEb: Comparatove Literature and Culture 11.2 (2009), June 200911.2 (2009) 17 May 2011
such as race, political identity, political awareness and political action. Lopez believes that the books are composed in such topics because Obama is aware of the importance of race and race relations in the past, the present, and the future of his country.
Furthermore, this is apparent in Deborah F. Atwater’s article, Senator
Barack Obama; The Rhetoric of Hope and The American Dream27. In her article, she explores the creation of Obama’s rhetoric of hope by examining his 2004 keynote Democratic National Convention Speech and his book The Audacity of
Hope. In the article, she defines the rhetoric of hope as the use of symbols to induce the people of America care for their country and to believe in the spirit of the American Dream. Then, from the speech “Out of Many, One” in 2004 and
The Audacity of Hope, Atwater finds that Obama invites the people of his country to share the same vision and the same hopes in order to create a better nation. He convinces people that Americans are always ready to involve in the world and be a positive influence on the global community.
Next, Daniel Stein from George-August-Universitas Gottingen makes a close reading on Obama’s Dreams from My Father28. His focus is on the problem of racial identity in the narratives. His article Barack Obama’s Dreams from My
Father and African American Literature explains that Obama uses the autobiography to demonstrate his central concepts of African-American selfhood and black male identity, invisibility, and nationalism. Stein shows that Obama’s life narrative shares the troublesome nature of identity that is frequently found in
27 Deborah F. Atwater, “Senator Barack Obama: The Rhetoric of Hope and the American Dream”, Journal of Black Studies by Sage Publication Vol. 38(2007):121-129 28 Daniel Stein, “Barack Obama’s Dreams from My Father and African American Literature”, European Journal of American Studies (online)September 2011,3 September 2012http://ejas.revues.org/9232 16
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other black autobiographies, such as Wright’s Black Boy and Malcolm X’s The
Autobiography of Malcolm X. Despite the fact that his paternal ancestor has nothing to do with the history of enslavement in America, his narrative contains the spirit commonly found in the narratives written by the generation attached to slavery.
One scholar investigates Obama’s autobiography from a gendered and post-modern point of view. Senaha Eijun from Hokkaido University writes an analysis of the autobiography under the title, “Barrack Obama and His-Story:
Paradox of Hybridity and Masculinity in His Autobiography”29. In his analysis
Eijun focuses on two problems; “Postmodern Hybridity” and “Anti-postmodern masculinity”. He represents Dreams from My Father as an auto-andrography and explains it as the story of a man, about himself, by himself, which corresponds to postmodern male anxiety. Using the features of life narrative proposed by Smith and Watson, Eijun elaborates that Obama’s autobiography belongs to the modes of genealogy, narrative of ethnic identity and community, memoir, trauma narrative, and bildungsroman with postmodern characteristics.
Furthermore, Eijun suggests that despite the radical changes that have occurred in postmodern gender politics, which gained momentum in the 1960s and 1970s, Obama retains his beliefs about traditional masculinity. Situated as an
Afro-American man and a member of a racial minority and gender majority, the formation of the identity and manhood of Obama is centralized in paternity. Eijun discovers that he is a typically anti-postmodern masculine man and the patriarchal beliefs.
29SenahaEijun. “Barrack Obama and His-Story: Paradox of Hybridity and Masculinity in His Autobiography”. Nanzan Review of American Studies, 30. (2008) 211-221
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Cooper writes Our First President: Black Masculinity and Obama’s
Feminine Side. He concentrates on the gender identity of Obama. He exposes his scrutiny by applying identity performance theory, critical race theory, and masculinity studies to his daily performance such as the clothing, gesture, and speech production of the person30. Using these theories to examine him closely,
Cooper finds that Obama avoids himself to be seen as an “angry black man”. He refuses the representation because it makes him equally stereotyped as domineering, oppressive, aggressive, and ignorant black man. To be free from this intricacy, Obama adopts a “unisex” identity. He sometimes chooses to be
“feminine” in order to be racially acceptable, and sometimes becomes
“masculine” in order to project his abilities as the commander of the country.
In addition, a scholar from the University of Agder, Anne Chapman, carries out a comparative study of the autobiographies of Obama and Malcolm X.
She concentrates on the racial identity and anger of Obama and Malcolm X. She employs critical race theory in her research31. From her thorough investigation, she finds that the autobiographies are the artifact representing the life-story and experiences of each writer. Considering differences and similarities between
Malcolm X and Obama, she arrives at the conclusion that Obama and Malcolm X experience the same turmoil of identity in their life. Despite the fact that the two are equally associated with the term “Angry Black Man”, she uncovers that their anger is directed at different and specific areas. While Malcolm is angry with the
30 Frank Rudy Cooper. “Our First President: “Black Masculinity and Obama’s Feminine Side”. Denver University Law Review, 86. (2009) 633-661 31Anette Chapman. Angry Black Males and The Tales They Tell: African-American Autobiographies represented by Malcolm X’s The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Barrack Obama’s Dreams form My Father, unpublished Master Thesis at Faculty of Humanities and Education, Department of Foreign Languages and Translation University of Adger, 2010.21 July 2012http://brage.bibsys.no/hia/bitstream/URN:NBNibsys_brage_13593/1/Anette%20Chapman.pdf
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racism in American’s society, that has treated black people unequally, silencing and devaluing them, Obama is angry at his own quest for identity and belonging.
In this case, the research tries to project a different standpoint from the aforementioned researches. While some researches stress on the racial identity, history, and ‘dream’ of Obama, this research focuses on the representation of gender equity in the works. It completes Cooper’s research and also challenges
Eijun’s second conclusion claiming that Obama adopts “anti-postmodernism masculinity” principles. Unlike the researches on Obama’s life narratives that have ignored the theory of life narrative in their analysis, this research applies the theory of autobiographical “I”, together with hooks’ visionary feminism to achieve its objective.
B. Review of Related Theories
1. Visionary Feminism
The fact that men have an important role in perpetuating sexism has become the concern of many feminist activists. It triggered their movement in the
1960s. They regretted that many men who were radical thinkers and participated in the movements for social and racial justice, speaking out for workers and the poor people, did nothing when it came to the issue of gender. They became sexist and reluctant to ‘speak’ about the problem.
According to bell hooks, this situation is destined to happen again if women, particularly feminist activist women, refuse to focus on educating men and simply concentrate on speaking against discrimination, however loudly. She asserts that this has happened because firstly, feminist activists were reluctant to
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involve men in achieving their social rights32. The soul of the movement that demands gender equity and respects gender differences is regarded as their own responsibility. This encourages the media to always portray it as a “male-hating” movement which is hostile to men. Secondly, the emerging feminist literature is full of overly scientific terminology which is difficult to understand. Thirdly, there is no attempt to involve in school curriculums that do not provide students with lessons about gender equity. Fourthly, feminists do not provide a counterproposal for men, an alternative to the rules of masculinity that has been previously set by society. They disliked the practices of patriarchal masculinity, but they gave men no alternate solution on how to behave that was in accordance with the spirit of the movement. Therefore, she believes that to end sexism, feminist activists need to use another populist way.
hooks believes that women should cooperate with men because they have fundamental role in exposing, confronting, opposing and transforming the sexism of their male peers33. She is emphatic that men and women must work in a feminist alliance against sexism in order to show gender solidarity, commitment and liberation for everybody. Men who actively work against sexism should be given a place in the movement and regarded as comrades by female feminist activists. This will challenge the assumption that males are not accepted by the feminist movement, and people will see the splendor of equity between men and women.
32 bell hooks, 112-13 33 bell hooks, Feminist Theory; From Margin To Center (Boston: South End Press, 1984) 81
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As one of the major proponents of male participation in the feminist movement, hooks insists that men are not the enemies of women34. Because men have committed sexist acts, she believes that ending the practice is properly targeted at the root of the problem and that responsibility is shared by both females and males. Men must be involved in the movement and be the major actors in the process of eliminating sexism. Cockburn in Pease supports hooks in arguing that female feminists should create an alliance with supportive men to work for the agenda of promoting ‘equity task’ consistently35. They need to unite to decrease the spread of patriarchal ideology by helping other unsupportive men to realize that their supremacy should be properly managed.
2. General Overview of Life Narrative
Life narrative means the practice of self-referential writing36. It refers to the act of writing about one’s own history, self-interest and self-social achievements. Politics, history, religion, science, and culture are all aspects which color self-representation in the narrative. They will be there because usually the narrator provides his worldview about them in an indirect manner.
Prior to literacy, the practice of the self-referential narrative had been widespread and began before the sixth century37. It occurred in oral form in many indigenous cultures such as in the “naming songs” of Native Americans, oral narratives among Africans, and the song lines of indigenous Australians. This practice also began in inscriptions in China around two thousand years ago, Japan
34 hooks, 77 35Pease, 45 36Sidonie and Watson, 1 37Sidonie and Watson, 83-85
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a thousand years ago, Islamic Arabic literature in the early twelfth century, the
Indian mediaeval period and in North Africa in the fourteenth century.
In the West, the practice of self-referential writing started before the
Enlightenment38. It was produced under the labels of “memoir”, or “the life”, or
“the book of my life”, or “confession”, or “essays of myself”, or “testimonio”39, or “autoethnography”40, or “psychobiography”. Among the terms associated with life narratives, autobiography is the terminology usually used interchangeably with the term. The one generally acknowledged as the “first” form of life narrative in the western hemisphere is the Confessions by St. Augustine.
Life narrative is indisputably a unique and complex body of writing. The complexity can be observed from the constituents forming the genre. It constitutes memory, experience, identity, embodiment, and agency41. They are interrelated and become the most important ingredients in the construction of a life narrative.
Memory as the source of the making of meaning occupies a crucial position in the writing. To write their story, the narrators need to recall their memories. They must remember the past and situate it in the context of their writing in the present time, or make the present appropriate to the individual and communal history from the past that they plan to narrate. To produce meaningful self-representation the narrators both actively remember and consciously forget
38 It is the period in the 18th century in Europe when science and reason began to steal the attention of the society rather than religion and tradition (Encarta encyclopedia dictionary) 39 The term literarily means “testimony”. It is the narrative narrated in the first person by narrator. It communicates significant life experience such as group’s oppression, struggle, or imprisonment. Readers of the narrative are expected to actively critically respond the crisis. (Smith and Watson,206) 40 It is the narrative where the oppressed subjects narrate themselves using their own terms or idioms and their colonizer’s, thus producing hybrid forms of life narrative. It emphasizes on the relational and power relation between the dominant and the subordinated agency. (Smith and Watson,185-186) 41 Smith and Watson, 15-48
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their memories. Usually in the active remembering, or the making of meaning in the past or the present, the narrator incorporates multiple medias such as family albums, photos, family stories, documents, historical events, and collective rituals.
This is done to provide “an authentic narrative”.
Furthermore, closely related to memory, experience is also very significant in the process of composing a life narrative. Experience is the evidence of the story and shows the identity of its narrator. It informs the background and validates the image and authority of the narrator over the narrative. Experience becomes the source that verifies the authenticity of the narrative expected by its readers.
Identity in the life narrative is crucial because it closely relates to the
“position” of its narrator. Narrators should determine their identity and mark themselves among the categories of gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, class, political ideology, and religion. Stuart Hall in Smith and Watson argues that identity is always a process in production, never complete, and always an act of representing oneself42. Nevertheless, the narrators have to clearly state their most obvious and desirable position when they work with life narrative.
Body is also the primary component that may not be isolated in the discourse of life narrative. It is very important because body is the starting place where memory is taken. Body is the source of knowledge and where knowledge is produced. It is the epicenter of the experience. It is the site to feel and internalize image and sensation from the external world. With the external sensation that the body can perceive, knowledge and experience are gained and become the subject
42 Smith and Watson, 33
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in the narrative. Because embodiment is also a subject situated culturally, in the interplay between gender, ethnicity, class, and other nexus, life narrators should determine and locate the narrative of their body meaningfully. They need to engage in the acceptable cultural norms of the body in the narrative.
Traditionally life narrative is considered as the narrative of agency. It implies that the life-narrators are the free agents who have freedom to choose, to interpret, and to manage their life independently. Nevertheless, there are cultural series that hinder the narrators’ free expression in the narrative, some sets that make them incapable of telling the truth about themselves. There are rules and structures that must be played considerably by the narrators. Therefore, unconsciously, they are mystified and simply produce “false consciousness” about themselves. The narrators promote and understand themselves unnaturally. Their self-representation is structured ambivalently.
In addition, in acquiring the process of autobiographical subjectivity, another complexity of the narrative may be tracked from its practical embodiments, autobiographical acts. These explain the aspects found in the process of producing the narrative. They are theorized to be the intersection between text and its context of production. The important components of the acts include coaxer, sites, the “I”, relational and the other “I”’s, addresses, pattern of emplotment, media, and consumer or audience.43
In life narrative, coaxers and site are closely related. While coaxer means a person or institution provoking people to tell their stories, site indicates the place or the setting that advises someone to wisely select the content of their self-
43 Smith and Watson, 50-81
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representation. For example in a political campaign, as politicians tell their stories to impress and create intimacy with their audience and supporters, the kinds of stories narrated must be carefully selected in order to match the event and the expectation of the people coming to the venue.
The narrators of life narrative are given a freedom to use the “I”, the third person, or the second person “you” as their narrative speaker. Between the two, the “I” is always chosen because it represents more powerful authority or position of the narrators over their own representation than the use of “you”. There are three classifications of the “I” in life narrative; the narrating “I”, the narrated “I”, and the ideological “I”. The narrating ‘I” is the agent who narrates the narrated “I” whose position as the object of the story or version of the self the narrating “I” chooses to build. Meanwhile, the ideological “I” is the cultural and ideological concept of personhood reflected when the narrators narrate their story.
In life narratives, the narrators’ or the “I”’s story binds to others’. The narrators’ story may bind together with the story of an individual or any group in society. For example, Obama’s self-representation in Dreams from my father has a connection with the story of his father and mother. This interconnectedness enriches the narrative and is beneficial to the narrators’ self-representation.
Another autobiographical act explains that a life narrative must address a person or certain group of people effectively. Therefore, before narrators compose their story, they must decide who their target readers are. When they do so, their story can achieve a greater level of closeness and trust from its reader.
Furthermore, the narrators can present their history in two ways. The first is time-based organization and the second is based on spatial or “geographic”
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location44. In the first way, the narrators walk back to the past and organize their story chronologically, or they construct it achronologically using multidimensional ways, including a fragmented plot comprising multiple flashbacks and flash-forwards. Meanwhile, in the spatially-based pattern, the organization is done by narrating the “I”’s moving-in or moving-out of their position from many different sites. In practice, both time-based and geographic plot organizations are often mixed in life narrative. The organization of the story depends on the narrator’s interests or goals a. Black Man’s Life Narratives
The foundation of the African American literary tradition is the slave narrative. It is a work written by former slave abolitionists during the time of slavery. It is a body of writing that gives readers an insight into the life of slaves in plantations through their testimonies. Writing about their experience, the former slave abolitionists want to prove that they also are equal to whites in terms of human intelligence and capacity45. Therefore, there is no reason to keep black men in a marginal position or under the institution of slavery.
At the beginning of the narrative’s emergence, the experiences share in the book are carefully selected and painstakingly expressed so as to avoid any unwanted response from pro-slavery quarters. Freed slave abolitionist writers are still afraid to explicitly criticize the dominant system openly. It is after the rise of the Harlem Renaissance46 movement that artists begin to redefine the narrative’s
44 Smith and Watson, 72 45 David W. Blight, “The Slave Narratives: A Genre and a Source”. 6 March 2013
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spirit. From this era, free-slave abolitionists bravely express their experiences living under the slavery in detail, criticize their former masters boldly, and insist that they deserve to get complete liberation from the slavery system.
Furthermore, life narrative becomes the media which does not simply tell the story of the self or the collective history of black community under slavery. It has been widely used for other purposes such as for political rhetoric of Afro-
American politicians. They use it to gain support in political contests. It is used, for example, by Barack Obama in the 2008 U.S. presidential race. He starts his political maneuvers by introducing his life narratives in order to acquaint his audience with him, his genealogy, his identity, and his position in response to
America’s problems. He properly positions the “I” in different speaking voices to narrate his history and stress his standpoint. He alternates the emplotment in his narrative between time sequence and the geographical location of his history.
With his brilliance, his story cleverly matches the reader’s expectation as a black man’s life narratives. b. Autobiography and Memoir
Autobiography and memoir are two examples of sub-genres in life narrative composed with careful consideration of the autobiographical subjects and acts. Conventionally, they are different because autobiography focuses particularly on the “confession” of the narrators about their life, while memoir underscores the life of others or events where the narrator becomes the observer or participant (the eye witness). Nevertheless, the practice of the writing in the post- modern time has shown that memoir also contains the confessions of the
(“Harlem Renaissance” Microsoft Encarta 2009)
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narrator’s lives and experiences47. It does not primarily focus on the illustration of events where the narrators do not involve in it. It includes the narrators’ life story too.
Autobiography was regarded as an exclusive body of writing. The categorization was strongly influenced by the set of gender, class and race. The one worthy enough to write it were prominent white men. Poor white men and women, black women and men were restricted to share or write their life story.
Women were ignored both as writers and as characters in writing because patriarchal ideology regarded them less important than men. This applied even more so to black men and women as due to their race. They occupied a subordinate position in all aspect of lives. Thus, they are rejected to have the privilege.
Since 1940s, autobiography has been widely criticized. People have wondered about how it is different from fiction and how the truthfulness of the stories shall be measured. They suspected that some of the stories were only the imagination of the narrator, as in fiction. Candice Lang in Anderson mentions that
‘autobiography is indeed everywhere one cares to find it’48. She explains that any piece of writing is an autobiography because they are mostly written as a reflection of the experiences of the author. Likewise, de Man in Anderson explains that the distinction between fiction and autobiography is ‘undecidable’49.
From his perspective, all texts are autobiographical. Therefore, there is no such thing that can be specially termed as an autobiography.
47 Nigel Hamilton, How To Do Biography: A Primer (United States of America: Harvard University Press, 2008) 269-293 48 Linda Anderson, Autobiography: New Critical Idiom (New York: Routledge, 2001) 1 49 Anderson 13
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Furthermore, Derrida (1980)50 elucidates that the story presented in autobiography mixes fact and fiction. The social and cultural histories narrated in the narrative are subjective. When the narrators write the events they try to justify their own perceptions, uphold their reputation and dispute the accounts of others.
Thus, the trustworthiness of autobiography needs to be measured based on historical document and testimony.
Unlike the intricacies of the debate regarding autobiography, memoir was not questioned or subject to criticism. From the past until today, this genre never attracted controversy in the way autobiography did. This is because memoir stands not as a complete self-narrating or representation but a narrative that directs the “I”’s attention more to the lives and actions of others than to the memoirist.
This is a form of writing based on the ‘personal witness’ that requires no footnotes or source because the facts are known and public51. The memoir does not only point out the factual stories that the public want or are allowed to hear, but also narrates the “true” and “secret” stories about one’s life or events.
Memoir has been published in many contexts and its primary use is to record one’s life. There are two distinct forms of memoir in its kind. They are domestic and secular memoirs52. Domestic memoir focuses on the account of family life, while the secular, usually written by public figures, stresses recording a chronicle of their historical career and important historical activities or events.
Obama’s Audacity of Hope is written under the combination of the two types of memoirs. It narrates the important events and historical activities in the
American’s society and his own family life.
50 Anderson, 9-12 51Hamilton, 302 52 Smith and Watson, 198
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C. Overview of Research Object
1. Obama’s Life Narratives Summary
In the first narrative, Dreams from my Father: The Story of Race and
Inheritance, the quest for identity and disappointment in a father’s absence are its major tone. These become the soul or the center of the self-representation in the narrative53. Obama’s “I”, as an adult black man ‘voice’, expresses that he does not get sufficient love and care from his biological father, who left him when he was two. When his mother marries Lolo, a man from Jakarta, he recovers from the lack. The “I” projects that Lolo loves and cares for him like his own boy. He provides him with the ‘training’ and guidance he missed from his father.
Nevertheless, this blissful situation shortly ends because his mother sends him back to live with his maternal grandmother in Hawaii to get better education.
The “I” narrates that his mother has the most important influence on his being and achievements. She manages everything for his bright and successful future. She is most concerned with his education. During his childhood, “I” perceives everything through his mother. She filters or censors every book, piece of knowledge, moral standard, or story about his father for him. As a result, “I”, during his childhood, is a very obedient boy. He is never angry and never argues with his mother or maternal grandmother. He always respects and helps them to do any domestic responsibilities.
Nevertheless, the adolescent “I” develops differently. In adolescence, racial awareness dawns on him. He realizes that he is racially different from his
53This is strongly represented in the title of the narrative. To my understanding, the tittle represents that this mainly about the chase and the efforts of realizing the dreams taken from his father. “I”’s future objective is strongly motivated by the success and failure of his father. He aims at continuing the successful part and fixing his misdeeds.
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caretakers, mother and his maternal grandparents. Although they convince him that race is not an issue for them and that they will always love and care for him, the “I” has discovered that society has different rules over black man. They consider a black man as a problem or a threat. Thus, he suffers confusion over his role and identity. He insists that there is nothing at ‘home’ that will help in his quest to resolve these issues. At this stage, he becomes rather difficult to advise and prefers to mingle with his black friends rather than to stay at home. Though he remains considerate towards his mother and helps her shopping groceries and caring for his sister, he starts to argue with her and criticize her excessive concern over his future and education.
The “I” young adult continues pursuing his identity after enrolling at
Occidental College in Los Angeles. He has the opportunity to mix with a variety of black people there. Yet, this only deepens his confusion about his position as a black man with a racially mixed family background. His participation in a college’s play depicting black history does not satisfy him or provide any answers in his pursuit for racial identity. He does not want to consider himself entirely black. This would be going too far and would hurt his mother and grandparents, but he also realizes that he is not a white man as proven by his body.
It is after joining the transfer program to Columbia College at Columbia
University, in Manhattan, New York City and graduating from its political science program that the “I” starts to get the answers and directions he seeks for. He becomes convinced that he is a black man who bears a responsibility to help others, men, young black men and women to improve their situation. He moves to Chicago, after a year working in the business field, and starts working in the
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non-profit sector for communities. He works cooperatively with female colleagues in various operations such as the Altgeld Gardens housing project. He does not mind listening to their stories and helping them with problems related to their sons. He does not refuse the demand of the women, who are mostly single mothers, to befriend their sons, talk to them, and to help them with insights that may help to secure their future as black men in conditions of social instability and prejudice.
After three years working in these community projects, “I” continues his education in Harvard University. Yet, before starting the school, he visits Kenya to acquire more information about his origins and verify the stories that Auma has told him about his father. Auma, his half-sister, once visited him in the United
States and brought the story that their father is an amalgam of a successful yet irresponsible black man.
Meeting the rest of his paternal family in Kenya, the “I” narrates that he finally understands his paternal history completely. He finds the truth that his father lacks of fulfilling his role as a good father and husband. He makes his half- sister, half-brothers, aunts, grandmothers and other people in his paternal family unhappy. After this visit, the “I” realizes what burdens his father has made his half-sister endure. She is the breadwinner of the family. She has to provide shelter, and constantly provide their well-being.
In some ways, the narrating “I” tries to justify his father’s misdeeds. He explains that his father lacks of information about the harm that polygamy and the absence of fathering may produce to family. These practices have long been the custom in black community. Therefore his father may think that there is no need
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to change these attitudes. Nevertheless, “I” confesses that he learns from this and makes a promise that he will do better than his father.
The marriage between Obama and Michele ends the story in the first narrative. Obama tells about his happiness in having a beautiful, brilliant, and talented woman like Michele to be his wife. Their marriage procession is attended by every member of his maternal and paternal family.
The second narrative, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the
American Dream, presents the narrator’s criticism of specific issues in America’s government and society. Through his senator “I” speaking voice, the “I” projects his concerns over the ongoing policy and tradition stipulated by the government.
The “I” provides his analysis that it is not the exclusive domain of Democrat or
Republican to emphasize their differences and oppositions publicly in order to gain mass support. The parties must remain consistent with each of the party’s ideals and avoid dispute.
Furthermore, the “I’ regrets that politics has ruined the morality of some politicians in U.S. Many policies and the bills produced are based on the party’s and donor’s interest. They are no longer set based on the humanistic principles and values of the country. Another constructive analysis that the “I” narrates is how the country should provide opportunity for everyone to develop their potential, get a proper education, and access the facilities they need regardless of gender, class, and race. “I” expects that more investment must be made in the youth education and energy independence. In this way, the country will be stable and competitive in the global economy.
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More than a half of the story in the second book concentrates on his evaluation over the domestic and international problem. The only chapter focuses on women and gender problem is on the chapter of family issue in America. The narrator recites that the American family today should be relevant to the changing needs of the global world. At this time, it is very important that both husband and wife work together in the community to fulfill the needs of the family.
Nevertheless, it is also essential that they cooperate to complete their domestic responsibilities. The narrator explains that men must help their wives within the home and family. He gives some examples of his personal participation in the home. He mentions that he never forgets to have dinner with his family when he is not out of town. He also helps his wife wash the dishes and spends his weekends playing with his daughters. He admits that this is a tough job. Yet, in order to create better self-esteem and a bright future for his daughters, it is a worthwhile job to do.
2. The Obamas Extended Family
Indeed, Obama is a product of an interracial marriage between Ann and
Barrack Sr., an American woman and a Kenyan man. He is raised in a complete nuclear family for two years. His father leaves him for Harvard when he is two, and returns only once after this. Most of the information Obama learns about his father are from stories told by his mother or maternal grandparents.
Obama’s paternal family lives in Kenya. Onyango, his paternal grandfather, is a Muslim and comes from a working class family who finally climbs the ladder of success and gains respect after so much toil. He becomes a rich and influential man in his village after his successful employment with the
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British colonial authorities. He is then able to build a big and luxurious house from the money he has gained.
In Obama’s paternal family, patriarchal tradition is strongly maintained.
Men commonly have more than one wife For example, besides marrying Akumu,
Oyanggo also has two other wives unlisted in figures 1; Sara and Helima. Besides, the men are also free from any responsibilities in the domestic chores. They do not wash dishes, clothes, or take care of children. These are given to the hand of women.
Due to polygamy tradition, Obama has many half-brothers and sisters in
Kenya. They vary from working to middle class. Some are well-educated, but many have not completed school. Among his paternal relatives, Auma is his closest half-sister. She is hardworking and the intellectual of the family.
Obama moves to Indonesia when his mother marries Lolo, a middle class man from Jakarta, who is a mixture of post-modern and traditional Javanese man.
From Lolo, Obama learns many things and has some new adventures and experiences. Lolo teaches him boxing so that he may protect himself and everyone he cares about. He also lectures him some masculine principles54. Yet, Obama must leave Lolo because Ann decides that he should leave Indonesia. She believes that Indonesia cannot supply him with sufficient education for his future
From an ordinary black man who grows up in a middle class white caretaker family, Obama becomes a high ranking and influential U.S politician.
His professional career starts from a position as a writer in an International
54 Lolo speaks to Obama that it is always important to be strong ourselves. When we cannot be strong, it is crucial for us to be clever and to be the friend of someone who is strong. Barrack Obama, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. (New York; Crown Publisher, 1995) 48; All subsequent reference to this work (abbreviated DFMF) will be used in this thesis with pagination only.
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consulting firm in New York. In his search for identity and a more purposeful direction in life, he leaves this job and heads to Chicago where he becomes a community organizer. After three years in the organization, he continues his studies at Harvard law School and graduates with magna cum laude55. After graduation, he practices law at Sidley & Austin law firm, and continues working as a lecturer of Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago’s Law School.
Afterwards, with unstoppable spirit, hard work and perseverance, he becomes an
Illinois state senator. From the state of Illinois he then rises to become a U.S. senator and finally gains victory in the U.S. presidential race in 2008.
Obama marries Michelle, a black woman who also graduates from
Harvard law School in 1992. Michelle grows in a black working-class family in
Chicago. Her father works at the city water department and her mother is a housewife. Michelle’s mother also works as a bank secretary when she and her brothers have grown up. Michelle is a hard worker and highly educated woman.
She has held several important positions in Chicago’s government and is the founding executive director of Public Allies, an organization that encourage young people to take public service jobs. She has served as vice president of community and external affairs at the University of Chicago Medical Centre.
Obama and Michelle have two beautiful daughters, Sasha and Malia. Today the
Obamas may be considered as representing a high class black family in America.
The Obamas are the first Afro-American family to move into the White House.
55 This is the second highest level of academic honors gained when someone graduate from university (Encarta dictionary online)
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Married 1992-
Michele Robinson 1964- Malia Ann Natasha 1999- 2001-
Figure 1. Obama’s family tree56
D. Theoretical Framework
This research employs bell hooks’ visionary feminism to describe the spirit of gender equity reflected in the “I”’s attitude and to explain the factors that have influenced the construction of this persona. It also engages other secondary data that discusses life narratives.
In this research, the first question is answered by employing the visionary feminist theory of bell hooks. hooks explains that men must also become feminists in order to help them to grow and to create not only a harmonious relationship with their spouse, but also a successful and healthy family. He must also respect and avoid discriminating women in his everyday life. This maneuver,
56 Carol Hart, Insight Text Guide: Dreams from my Father Barrack Obama (Australia: Insight Publication,2010) iv
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from an attitude of superiority and dominance over women to the promotion of gender equity is also supported by Bob Pease. He asserts that men have to be pro- feminist actors. Using hooks’ premise, which is supported by Pease, the way in which Obama tries to promote gender equity shall be discovered.
In order to answer the second research question regarding factors that affect the construction of Obama’s masculinity, this study again makes use of bell hooks’ feminist views. hooks states that women should include men in their struggle for equity. She insists that men are well situated to create changes and this role and potential must not be neglected. Thus, women must provide a space for men and making them realize their task patiently. The idea of collaborative activities between men and women is also supported by Bob Pease who asserts that men could hardly change when women do not facilitate this change and persist in believing negative stereotypes of men.
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CHAPTER III
THE “I” FOR GENDER EQUITY
In Dreams from my Father; A Story of Race and Inheritance and The
Audacity of Hope, the narrator employs the combination of flashbacks, flash- forwards and also geographical emplotment to narrate his life. This method is commonly used in life narrative.
This section is to discuss the answer to the first research question i.e. how does Barrack Obama try to project the “I’ into the spirit of gender equity in his life narratives? This chapter is divided into four sub-sections; one, involvement in domestic responsibility; two, participation in nurturing; three, provision of a space for women to speak; and four, consideration for women in the decision making process.
A. Involvement in Domestic Responsibility
In the first narrative, Dreams from My Father; A Story of Race and
Inheritance, the narrator depicts the “I” boy as a nice and helpful child. He projects him as someone who helps his family doing various domestic works. “I” may ignore other important things, but completes the task his mother and maternal grandmother assign him to do. The narrator exemplifies this by saying; “My father asked me to sit down beside him on the bed, but I told him that Toot needed me to help her, and left after relaying the message. Back upstairs, I had begun cleaning my room….” (DFMF, 73).
The quotation displays how “I” prefers helping his grandmother to staying and siting with his father. He realizes that his father’s presence is very rare and that is the first time for them to meet and to be physically close. However, “I” PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
ignores the fact and continues assisting his grandmother to do another domestic task.
In such situation, indeed “I” should be given credit for his willingness to share his grandmother’s activities completing the housework. “I” does not count on other people in his house to look after his own room. He does the cleaning himself. He helps them without any physical or emotional force. This shows that
“I” has been educated and applied the practice of gender equity. He shares the domestic chores that the women load in the family.
Nevertheless, it can also be assumed that “I” does the activities because he has no other choices. There is no purpose to stay with his father and disobey the order of the maternal grandmother. “I” never connects physically and emotionally to his father. Both have been separated for eight years. His presence is a myth’s resurrection that brings confusion and awkwardness to his life and his family’s57.
Besides, the restriction and anger that his father exercise when he prefers watching television to does his homework (DFMF, 72), teaches him that his father is not an easy man to deal with. Thus, it is very clear what choice he will make regarding the situation.
hooks asserts that this picture is easily captured in a black family. Black fathers are more likely to be absent in the family. It is difficult for them to glue emotionally to his son too58. The black fathers easily neglect and abandon their own biological children. For them, to involve in the domestic responsibilities is
57 Theoretically, a good family requires the presence of both father and mother. However, this concept is not applicable for most of the black family. Living isolated from the biological father for black family is not a form of unstable or incomplete family; instead it is a complete formation and something common. (John H Scanzoni, The Black Family in Modern Society, (London: The University of Chicago Press, 1977) 3 58 hooks, 97
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emasculating. A data shows that in 1963 the national proportion of urban black husband–wife complete existence in a family had dropped and there were only two third of black children less than eighteen years old living with two parents at home59. It shows that this un-involvement in the child rearing and domestic chores has been very strong and difficult to be altered shortly.
During his adolescence60, the narrator also tells that “I” remains helpful to his mother, but starts questioning some different roles his mother does at home.
He learns from his friends that a mother is supposed to provide food, clean the house, and bake cake for her children (DFMF, 80). Yet, he finds that his mother is busy with her school and research projects. She never allocates her time to do the complete domestics routines as his friends told him about their mother.
This social tradition influences his mind. “I” wishes to have the same situation like his friends. He expects that the house is clean and the cakes are prepared when he comes home from school or when his friends come to visit.
However, the unachieved expectations do not change his attitudes to share the burdens that his mother has carried. He represses the hopes and continues living cooperatively with his mother. He shares her activities to go shopping, doing the laundry and caring his half-sister. The narrator describes it as: “…I did my best to help her out where I could, shopping for groceries, doing the laundry, looking after the knowing, dark-eyed child that my sister had become” (DFMF, 80).
59 Scanzoni, 44 60 Erikson explains that this stage ranges from the age of 12 to 18 years old. This is a critical stage when someone usually starts to develop or finds his own identity, struggle with social interaction, and wrestle with moral issue (Arlene f. Harder, “Erik Erikson's Stages Psychosocial Development”, 11 March 2013
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In the quotation “I” emphasizes that he involves continuously in some domestic chores during his critical age, the adolescence. While it is a stage when life is getting complex, and rebellion becomes one of the behaviors commonly found among black teenagers, he chooses to be good and responsible to his mother. He does not seek to match his identity to his black friends. He represses his desire from the hegemonic gender norms applied in his community.
When “I” reaches his late adolescence, he indisputably follows the quality of the dominant black men’s behaviors in his society. He does a sport that is culturally essential to show a man’s strength and pride61. Yet, while most black men do boxing he prefers basketball. This choice infers that he does not glorify violence and brutality in his life62. He intends to choose the sport that involves more strategy and cooperation among people than only muscle or physical strength.
Furthermore, he has a young white girlfriend like another black man to show that he is as worthy as a white man in his society. Nevertheless, the relationship that he builds with the white girl is not based on lust, sexual, and material exploitation. He does not harm the woman materially or physically as it
61 Richard Majors and Janet Mancini Bilson, Cool Pose: The Dilemma of Black Manhood in America (New York, Touchstone, 1992) 76. This part exhibits that black man does sport to express his pride and masculinity. In the black community, boxing is the idolized sport because it can make a man imagined as physically powerful because of the blood, the wound, the bruise that this sport produces. 62In many black man’s narratives such as in Malcolm X’s autobiography, it is clear that black man prefers to play boxing to the other sports. This sport proves the man’s strength and symbolizes their manliness. In his adolescence, Malcolm himself practices the sport to prove his competitiveness and power among his friends and siblings. In addition Lolo also does this sport and he trains it to “I” in order to make him strong. If only “I’ s the supporter of the partriarchal norms, he would have continue this sport. Yet, the fact that he stopd iyt may show that he is working on releasing himself from the negative image of blak man. Kath Woodward in his article Rumbles in the Jungle: Boxing, racialization and the performance of masculinity mentions that boxing is a hard sport mostly prefer by men from the black race to show their masculinity and strength (Woodward, Kath (2004). Rumbles in the jungle: Boxing, racialization and the performance of masculinity. Journal of Leisure Studies, 23(1), pp. 5– 17
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is commonly found among the black men who dated the white girls in the past. In order to prove their manliness and equal position to the white man, black men chased the white women to increase his pride, take her wealth, and show his sexual superiority as stereotyped in the society63. “I” treats the woman well and gives her sufficient attention before finally they break-up.
The narrator also projects the spirit of gender equity in his second narrative The Audacity of Hope. This narrative specifies the story when “I” becomes a husband, a father, and also a senator. In this stage, “I” works hard to balance his position as a good father and husband, and a successful legislature member. Yet, in certain time, he also undergoes a set back from his struggle for balancing the roles. He falls into the spirit of gender inequity in this period.
This happens due to his excessive interaction with larger forces of patriarchal society. This makes the ‘school’ that his maternal grandparents and mother implemented at home during his childhood degrading. It is rinsed by the pragmatism of manhood defined by the dominant society saying that a husband must be the breadwinner, provider, and protector of the family. The social pressure to conform the tradition is intense and makes “I” works crazily until his wife complains about his routines. The narrator quotes her anger as “You only think about yourself,” she would tell me. ‘I never thought I’d have to raise a family alone” (TAOH, 336)64
63 Shawn Taylor in his book Big Black Penis: Misadventures in Race and Masculinity explains that black men are always confident in his relationship with woman due to the myth of their “big penis”. Although the premise is not applicable for all of the black man, but in majority, they agree to the myth and make us e of the stereotype to eliminate the power of the white men. (Shawn Taylor, Big Black Penis: Misadventures in Race and Masculinity ( United States of America : Lawrence Hill Books, 2008) 47 64 Barrack Obama, The Audacity of Hope. (New York; Crown Publisher, 2006) 341; All subsequent reference to this work (abbreviated TAOH) will be used in this thesis with pagination only
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The narrator narrates that Michelle complains about the “I”’s isolation from any domestic tasks. He is busy with his job in a small civil right firm, in the
University of Chicago Law School, and in the state legislature. With the jobs, he often absents from home, and this is objected by Michele. She wants him to consider not only himself and his public role but also his domestic duty, Michelle, and their daughters.
This complaint makes “I” aware of his domestic responsibility. As the start of his commitment, he and his wife wisely arrange the schedule to share their housework responsibilities. He realizes that both of them are busy with equally important jobs and responsibilities in the public. Therefore, it is the best decision to cooperate in handling the domestic activities (TAOH, 336).
The narrator narrates the “I”’s resolution as follow;
“For starters, Michelle’s and my status as professionals meant that we could rework our schedules to handle an emergency (or just take a day off) without risk of losing our jobs. Fifty-seven percent of American workers don’t have that luxury…” (TAOH: 2006, 341)
The quotation infers that “I” tries to prevent any possible loss that he and his wife may encounter as a young professional parent. Living as modern black
American family who faces many different challenges and has to strive together to fulfill their increasing daily needs, he believes that they should balance their domestic and professional responsibilities by scheduling their time very well. “I” does not want to fail like most parents in America who lack of the balance between earning money and involving in domestic chores and child bearing. “I” observes that the social needs and pressures have made the harmony and equity of man and woman in most of American family are difficult to attain. Men focus on his role as the family breadwinner and let the women manage the house unaided.
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They put no schedule for domestic responsibilities even in the weekend or when they have their day off from work.
The narrator describes that “I’ also schedules his daily routine for dinner together with his family at home and clean the dishes after it (TAOH, 325). None takes care of the dishes, but him. He does the dishes himself, while also observing his daughters’ activities after the dinner.
This job, of washing dishes, sounds to be simple, very ordinary, and easy job to do for the average of modern White or Asian father in today’s era.
However, this is not for a black man. Involving in the domestic chores such as washing the plates at home is strongly opposed by black man65. Men of African’s descent always bind to the traditional beliefs in the “home” country that view the washing and other domestic chores belongs to woman. Therefore, when Obama, as an African descent does the job, he represents the transformation of black man’s attitude toward the domestic chores.
Moreover, the “I” shows that he also takes part in the preparation of
Sasha’s birthday party. He tells it as follow:
When I can, I volunteer to help, which Michelle appreciates, although she is careful to limit my responsibilities. The day before Sasha’s birthday party this past June, I was told to procure twenty balloons, enough cheese pizza to feed twenty kids, and ice. This seemed manageable, so when
65 I thank Father Andalas for sharing the story about his African-American friend in my thesis defense. When Father Andalas was in America, he saw that his friend refused to do any domestic chores in the apartment. He mentioned that his friend always tried to find some reasons to be free from the job. This situation happens because the friend sticks to his African’s perspective that regards the job belongs to woman. Thus, this justifies that the patriarchal principle rooted from African tradition is a fact and rooted in black man’s psyche strongly. Likewise, this is also supported by a personal story written by Giselle in her blog. She has an experience living with her Black boyfriend in Uganda. She writes that she finally broke up with him because he is very patriarchal. She realizes that he always refuses to share the domestic chores with her. She states that she asks him to go to the store and he answers that “it was a woman’s job to do the shopping, cooking, and cleaning”. Therefore, it is obvious that black man strongly internalized the patriarchal ideology in relation to the domestic chores. (Giselle, “Refusing “Women’s Work” in Uganda” http://blog.internations.org/2012/01/refusing-womens-work-in- uganda/ , the data retrieved on 14 May 2013)
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Michelle told me that she was going to get goody bags to hand out at the end of the party, I suggested that I do that as well. (TAOH, 349)
The quotation illustrates that Michelle leads the preparation for the party and “I” listens to her instruction and shares the responsibility to supply the needs.
Although the data may infers that “I” thinks that the preparation is not his responsibility, indicated by the use of “volunteer” and “help”, this parts remains showing that there is an equal job distribution between the two for the party. This shows how the collaboration between the two works well. The choice of words, which are patriarchal in their spirit, does not reflect his objective.66 They are simply unconsciously chosen and virtually unavoidable choice of words commonly found in the communication produced by black men. Most of the linguistic features in their communities are prominent with sexism.
Furthermore, “I” does not refuse the request from his wife to buy Ant traps while he returns from work. The narrator narrates his experience as follow:
Wanting to share the good news, I called Michelle from my D.C. office and started explaining the significance of the bill— …… Michelle cut me off. “I found ants in the kitchen. And in the bathroom upstairs.” “Okay…” “I need you to buy some ant traps on your way home tomorrow. I’d get them myself, but I’ve got to take the girls to their doctor’s appointment after school. Can you do that for me?” “Right. Ant traps.” “Ant traps. Don’t forget, okay, honey? And buy more than one. Listen, I need to go into a meeting. Love you.” I hung up the receiver, wondering if Ted Kennedy or John McCain bought ant traps on the way home from work. (TAOH, 326-327)
66 Robin Tolmach Lakoff in Joseph mentions that language in both their structure and their use binds the ideology that marks out a superior and domination of man (John E Joseph, Language and Politics (Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2006) 73. Thus, it is indeed always problematic to observe man’s gender ‘performance’ through their language as oppose to their real action. As to the “I”, the choices of words are mostly sexist, but his attitude shows his effort to transform the spirit implied by the ideology embedded in the words. This ambivalent phenomenon may not be denied.
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The above quotation explains the problematic situation of “I”’s public role and his involvement in the domestic work. After a long busy day, it can be assumed that the call he makes to his wife only aiming at sharing his stories about the bill he successfully enacted in the parliament. “I” does not expect any interference on any subjects. However, Michele interrupts and requests him to buy an ant trap.
Looking at the tradition of black men and their attitude toward the domestic chores, when this situation happens to them, it must trigger conflict between the two. Interestingly, it does not occur to the “I”. He is not angry or stops listening to the demand. He shares with her to complete the family needs as she asks for. This, again, shows that “I” shares housework responsibilities with his wife. While she does one domestic chores, he helps her for the other things.
This depicts the man’s resilience toward the responsibility that socio- biologically unsuited and rejected by unlimited men in the past. Black man’s culture provides the ideology that legitimizes system of male authority which oppresses women through the familial, social, political and economic institutions.
This represents a significant shift from the lack of participation and bad-tempered stereotype of black man husband in the black man history in America. “I” does not refuse or respond harshly to the interruption that Michele does. Again, the positive transformation of “I” to disrupt the patriarchal convention is verified.
Nevertheless, closely observing the data from the narrative, it is identifiable that “I” feels insecure with his involvement in housework. It is reflected from the comparison he makes over himself and two prominent white
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senate members of the country namely Ted Kennedy 67and John McCain68. He is curious whether the senators also do the same thing like he does.
In this situation, “I” is racially insensitive. He is a utopian who forgets the racial history inflicted black man. The social status that he has achieved turns him into the ‘white’ man. D’sauza mentions that indeed the narrator does not have any problem with racial issue69. He explains that the narrator “runs from race like black man runs from cop”. Besides, the fact that he is a biracial from a Kenyan father and Kansas white mother, whose live is free from black American slave history, nurtured by a white middle class family, and experiences privilege opportunity, such as attending a good private school in Hawaii and traveling to
Indonesia, legitimizes his insensitiveness. He does not feel the burden of race in as the same way as the black men who are directly attached to the history of
American slavery.
In addition, this ignorance leads to his thoughtlessness to the historical record of household division in the black family, where there is no specific role distribution in the family. Women were not supposed to be someone who handles all of the domestic jobs. Historically, black American females have been thrust with responsibility to work. They have to work in greater proportion than white women at all stages of the family life-cycle70. Within the black society, wife employment is more of the right than an option. It becomes a part of the female
67 Edward M. Kennedy (Ted Kennedy) is Democratic member of the United States Senate from Massachusetts (“Ted Kennedy”, Microsoft Students with Encarta DVD (United States, 2009) 68 He is the Republican member of the United Senate from Arizona.(“McCain”, Microsoft Students with Encarta DVD (United States, 2009) 69 Dinesh D’Souza, The Roots of Obama’s Rage (Washington Dc: Regnery Publishing, 2010) 10 70 Scanzoni, 228
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role in the family if she wishes to have. The black wife stands in equal bargaining
“strength” as her husband. In this case, Michelle’s equal position inherited by the historical record is something that the “I” should have been conscious too. Thus, he should not wonder about the distribution of job or the cooperation that she demands for completing the domestic needs.
Billingsley in Scanzoni explains that there are many factors suggesting black man to remain inconsistent to the gender equity. They are headed by social rules and also religious principles that maintain their track to the paradigm. Based on the social norm, men’s job and social status are very important and deserve to die for71. A father will work very hard for his family and his status as a successful man. Besides, based on the religious structure institutionalized among black
American culture, man is also regarded as the head and provider of the family.
Concurrently, it has been easier to challenge and change racism in the society than to alter the rigid patriarchal thinking about gender that abounds in black life and is often reinforced by religion72. Therefore, his position to embrace the spirit of gender equity is somewhat problematic.
Nevertheless, through the narrative, the narrator narrates that “I” is different. He remains in cool pose73 and tries to strongly block himself from repeating the same misdeed done by the black men in the past. He helps his mother, his grandmother, and his wife completing some domestic works. His involvement might be not enough, but he has shown that he has done his best to transform and break the old-school manhood.
71 Scanzoni, 11 72 hooks, 111 73 “It is about how black males have created a tool for hammering masculinity out of the bronze of their daily lives” (Richard Majors & Janet Mancini Billson, Cool Pose: The Dilemmas of Black Manhood in America, (New York: Touchstone Book, 1992) 2
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B. Participation in Nurturing
Dreams of My father; A Story of Race and Inheritance and The Audacity of Hope also presents the contradictory image from the mainstream or belief adhered by patriarchal rule that requires men to stay out of nurturing and maintain his silence and inexpressiveness. The narrator narrates the “I” as communicative, sensitive, and someone who can sustain intimate relationship with young people.
He narrates that from adolescence until adult, “I” has no problem with nurturing.
In his adolescence, for instance, “I” looks after his half-sister Maya. He helps to take care of her when their mother is busy doing something else.
Furthermore, as young adult, “I” still continues nurturing other younger people too. He raises an understanding to Kyle and Bernard upon how to be a black man in the present world. Kyle is the son of his colleague in the community organizer, Ruby. She worries about Kyle’s future. His grades continuously drop and he hides many things from her. She is afraid that Kyle falls into criminality and drug dealers like many young black men in her surroundings. Since she is a single mother; Kyle does not have any male role model that shapes his social function and identity. Thus, Ruby wishes the “I” to nurture him about how to behave properly.
The narrator describes his effort to nurture Kyle in the following:
“I ain’t no punk,” Kyle muttered. And then again, “I ain’t no punk.” We were lucky; somebody had called the security guard downstairs, but the orderly was too embarrassed to admit to the incident. On the drive back, I gave Kyle a long lecture about keeping his cool, about violence, about responsibility (DFMF, 243)
The above narration describes the post-fight situation involving Kyle. He brags that he is not a criminal because he is not the one triggering the fight. “I”
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responds to the situation humbly by emphasizing that in any situations violence is always bad. He intends to stop the seeds of violence fertilizes Kyle’s head.
Agreeing Ruby’s expectation (DFMF, 241), he also does not want him to neglect his responsibility to his school. He stresses the importance of completing his school, suggests him to remain “cool”, and asks him to stop worshipping any racial and patriarchal wisdom on masculinity and violence that will only lead him to destruction.
In this way, the “I” breaks the culture of silence and making distance flourished between black men and the youngsters in his race. Most of the black men were as silent as a grave. They rejected the request to build intimacy with the youth. To the case that Kyle confronts, they might give no comments or suggestions to avoid violence or any physical harassment. For them fighting is a test to prove one’s manliness. It shows one’s power and strength that includes into the basic rule of masculinity “Give ‘em Hell”74.
Likewise, the narrator tells that “I” does the same thing to Bernard, his own half-brother. Bernard is influenced by a strong patriarchal norm in Kenya. He is deeply affected by his father’s dominant power and successful position in his paternal family. The narrator narrates that “I” begins a thorough communication with Bernard, an experience that Bernard never have with any man in his family.
The conversation leads Bernard to realize that he has lived in unproductive years.
He starts projecting some fruitful activities for his future after the talk (DFMF,
306).
74 In 1970s, there are four basic rules of masculinity ; “no sissy stuff”, “be a big wheel”, “be sturdy oak”, and give ‘em hell” (Michale S, Kimmel, “Why Men Should Support Gender Equity”, Women’s Studies Review , 2005 102-114) 106
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When “I” starts his own family and becomes a father of his children, the narrator describes that “I” also shares the nurturing responsibility with his wife.
He illustrates it as follow:
For three magical months the two of us fussed and fretted over our new baby, checking the crib to make sure she was breathing, coaxing smiles from her, singing her songs, and taking so many pictures that we started to wonder if we were damaging her eyes. Suddenly our different biorhythms came in handy: While Michelle got some well-earned sleep, I would stay up until one or two in the morning, changing diapers, heating breast milk, feeling my daughter’s soft breath against my chest as I rocked her to sleep, guessing at her infant dreams. (TAOH, 339) The above excerpt explains “I”’s full participation in taking care of his first daughter. He works together with Michele to nurture Malia. For three months without stopping, he does the entire possible thing together with Michele to nurture the baby. From the quoted narration, “I” is happy and enjoys sharing the activities of child rearing during his absence from public activities.
Besides, the narrator tells that as a father, “I” considers his daughter as the most precious and important thing for him. He cares nothing when he knows that she is sick. This is proven when the narrator says “Michelle and I spent three days with our baby in the hospital, watching nurses hold her down while a doctor performed a spinal tap, listening to her scream, praying she didn’t take a turn for the worse” (TAOH, 186).
This verifies that “I” manifests the spirit of gender equity in his role as a father and a husband. What usually appears in the family is the mother stays and accompanies the children in the hospital, while the father keeps working to pay for the living and the hospitalization. Nevertheless, the narrators depicts that “I” puts family to his priority above his jobs, his schedule and also his future career.
He joins Michele to look after Sasha when she is sick. He is protested and
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criticized by media for his absence in an important discussion on vote on gun bills
(TAOH, 106), but he does not feel disappointed for the decision he has made.
This transformative position is a good model to be taken by other working and busy men. “I” has renewed the tradition of black man refusal to fathering in the past. Job and social position were regarded as the pride and symbol of masculinity that black man must yearn. Yet, “I” stands that fathering and taking care of his family is also the strength not the weakness of a man. He proves that he stands for the will to nurture himself and other people by avoiding any possible hurtful and abusive actions. His love over the family conquers the patriarchal domination that he could possibly exercise75.
Furthermore, the narrator narrates how “I” divides his daily role as a breadwinner and father. He shows that “I” involves in the taking care of his daughter. He is not only at home physically but also emotionally. He does not only watch but also communicates interactively with his daughters. For instance every Friday he always comes home early and plays with his daughters. He admits that it is very tough job to handle and appreciates Michele’s hard work and patience to manage this responsibility every day. The narrator narrates the “I”’s interaction with his children in the following:
It’s Friday afternoon and I’m home early to look after the girls while Michelle goes to the hairdresser. I gather up Malia in a hug and notice a blond girl in our kitchen, ...... “Listen, Daddy…you don’t shake hands with kids.” “You don’t?” “No,” Malia says. “Not even teenagers shake hands. You may not have noticed, but this is the twenty-first century.” Malia looks at Sam, who represses a smirk. “So what do you do in the twenty-first century?”
75 hooks asserts that love heals the wound in the past. It can avoid man from being abusive and hurtful in any relationship with women (bell hooks, All about Love: New visions (New York, Harper Perennials, 2000), 6
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“You just say ‘hey.’ Sometimes you wave. That’s pretty much it.” “I see. I hope I didn’t embarrass you.” Malia smiles. “That’s okay, Daddy. You didn’t know, because you’re used to shaking hands with grown-ups.” I walk upstairs to find Sasha standing in her underwear and a pink top. She pulls me down for a hug and then tells me she can’t find any shorts. ………. “These shorts aren’t comfortable, Daddy.” ……….. Malia and Sam walk in to observe the stand-off. “Sasha doesn’t like either of those shorts,” Malia explains. I turn to Sasha and ask her why. She looks up at me warily, taking my measure. “Pink and blue don’t go together,” she says finally. (TAOH, 345)
Child rearing is a frustrating activity and man is usually unable to control his emotion in this job76. Usually, they get mad of the hyperactive, talkative and over demanding children. However, with his limited training and capacity, “I” handles it well. It is identifiable from the above quotation that his interactions with his daughters are full of tenderness and affection. He can be very patient and lovely to the kids. He breaks the rule of manhood requiring men to be away from child care and parental caregiving action, and to be silent and timid, “be a sturdy oak”. In his fathering activity “I” involves his emotional resources that have been traditionally forbidden for men to reveal. “I” is full of compassion, tenderness, and attention to his daughters.
Moreover, “I” also emphasizes the importance of man’s transformative position in the gender role within the community. He suggests another father to restore the flaws of their father’s parenting abilities for the future of their children.
He realizes that men, particularly the black men, carry a deep wound as the result of their physical and emotional distance from their father. Most of them grow with
76 The stereotype in the society locates man as someone who is not trained and in capable of nurturing. Some experts believe that it is not mans’ role to do jobs like teacher, nurse, or any profession requiring him to patiently taking care of someone or something.
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the absence of father or in remote relationship with him, or with an abusive and domineering father. This brings their fathering as a copy of the insufficient and inappropriate example passed from their father in the past. Thus, they have to fight against the negative manhood that has isolated them from their family and excluded communicativeness and tenderness in the business of child caring. He clearly campaigns it by mentioning that: “I suggested that it was time that men in general and black men in particular put away their excuses for not being there for their families. (TAOH, 347)
The narrator stresses that “I” insists men to involve in the childcare both physically and emotionally. He suggests men to break the unnecessary form of traditional masculinity in order to help guiding their children to success in the future. Men are indeed a fundraiser of the family, but this may not hinder them to participate in raising their children. They may not only physically appear at home but must take part and interact with them. The co-parenting between father and mother are very important for the future of the children. He adds that being a mature man equals to being aware of their important and significant role in nurturing children.
However, the “I”’s positive doings are in setback when his position improved from the Illinois senate member to the U.S senate member. Taking the position as the U.S senate member, he mainly focuses on his political career and public presence. He realizes that his choice somewhat selfish, but he describes that he does that for his wife and the future of his daughter (TAOH, 348).
It is the conversation with one of his daughters that awakes “I” from his
“ridiculous” schedules outside the family. It is the simple question from Malia
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asking him “whether their family is a rich family or not” that takes him back to the spirit of gender equity. Responding the question, “I” answers that their family is rich and better than most of other people, and she replies that she does not want to have rich family, but she wants a simple one (TAOH, 351). “I” feels it stabs him. “I” understands that it is a protest that she tries to say for his overwhelming activities in the public. Unlike the father of her friends, he is the only one who never attends his daughter’s school potluck and team soccer game. This conversation resurrects him and makes him aware that he must do something better.
The narrator admits that “I” neglects most of his valuable time that he prepares to share with his daughters. Feeling guilty, he tries very hard to pay for his “ignorance” by being at home every time when he is not out of town, reading a story for his daughters before they sleep, off on Sunday, going to the zoo and pool with them on summer, and visiting a museum and aquarium in the winter (TAOH,
348). Although “I” cannot give them a “quantity time”, but it is the “quality time” that he promises to provide in order to build intimate relationship with the children77.
Thus far, the narrator has presented the “I” as a profeminist man who considers the issue of gender equity through nurturing the young black man and his children. He communicates actively with the black man who needs assistance and shares the burden that his wife always manages at home. Indeed the awareness to consistently run the spirit of equity is uneasy. He must reconcile his
77 To this condition, a columnist in Time Magazine notes that the narrator seriously keep trying to be a good husband and father by presenting himself in the dinner table everyday although he is very busy with many mandatory jobs and as a very important man in the country77. He uses the dinner time maximally to chat and listen to the stories that his daughters share. (Michael Scherer, “Obama Plays Hard Ball” Time Magazine 8 September 2012; 20)
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personal ego with the family need. “I” finally wins the problematic situation. He shows an important alter of black man tradition in the participation of child rearing. Unarguably, this is the support from his wife and his daughters that allow him to be consistent to the spirit of gender equity in his life.
C. Provision of a Space for Women to Speak
In the past, life narrative is very much gendered78. Women are ignored either as the writer or a character presented in the writing. This does not happen because they are incapable to write or produce autobiographical writing. Their narratives are simply considered as unimportant, crude, illegitimate, and can never be thought as ‘great writing’. Besides, since the society is strongly under the patriarchal ideology, that sustains women to be the second after men, their presence in the writing is also considered insignificant. Therefore, it is found that in life narrative many women are underrepresented or muted.
Nevertheless, in Dreams from my Father; A Story of Race and Inheritance and The Audacity of Hope, the narrator provides a room for the women to express their opinions about the men and the system in their society. He gives the room for women to show their disagreement, criticism, or anger with “their own” expressions. In the narratives, for example, the women express their thoughts and feelings to the narrator’s father, Barrack Sr., his maternal grandfather, Gramps, the narrator himself, and the patriarchal system which is strongly implemented in
Kenya.
Based on his memories, the narrator narrates that her mother characterizes
Barrack Sr. as a domineering man. She confirms the stereotype of black
78 Anderson, 86
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masculinity that black man must be strong and regard the other black men, and also the white men, as their competitor or potential enemy and threat. They must be reluctant to show their innermost feelings. They will pose themselves in a bravery quality to project a strong and controlled self-image. The narrator represents her claims as: “Your father can be a bit domineering,” (DFMF, 19).
Besides, she describes Barrack Sr. as selfish and irresponsible husband.
She states that he is a man who thinks about himself. He decides everything without considering its effect on the people in his circle. This is strongly reflected from the decision he made for the school of his graduate program. He is accepted both in the New School in New York and Harvard university. The New School agrees to give him scholarship and job in the campus, while Harvard only gives him scholarship. With the opportunity offered by the New School, he can take and keep the family close to him. Yet, he insists on choosing the Harvard school to prove his intelligence and superiority. Ann expresses her feeling by mentioning
“…Barack was such a stubborn bastard; he had to go to Harvard. How can I refuse the best education? He told me. That’s all he could think about, proving that he was the best….” (DFMF, 126). Barrack Sr. never calculate the result of his decision to the family he has just built. This finally makes the marriage break-up.
Similarly, Granny, “I” paternal grandmother, shows her emotion on
Barrack Sr. For her, he is an arrogant and “heavy-hearted” man(DFMF: 394-395).
He always believes that he is more superior than anyone else in the country. She explains that every problem occurred to him is due to this arrogance. He is isolated and therefore he is not given any access for higher professional position by the government of Kenya because his uncontrollable comments that insulted
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the man in power. She gives him many suggestions to overcome the problem, but he always refuses it.
Furthermore, Auma, Obama’s half-sister, speaks indifferently from the one previously stated by the women about Barrack Sr. She wishes him to die. She cannot tolerate his bad behavior too long. He is an abusive and alcoholic father.
He never realizes that his manners have harmed people around him. Auma mentions her sentiment as “…I began to wish that he would just stay out one night and never come back” (DFMF, 207). She becomes irritated and tries to find some ways to liberate herself from the situation. Finally, she flies to Germany and escapes from the threat of Obama Sr. She can study and live peacefully and far from the “bad man” for a while.
The narrator also gives a space for his maternal grandmother, Toot, to express her feeling and criticism to her husband, Gramps. As he recalls his memory, he finds that Toot articulates certain disagreement to Gramps’ principle and reason for choosing the local Unitarian Universalist congregation. Gramps mentions that he will enroll the family to the church because the “Unitarian” idea implies simplicity. Toot criticizes him by saying: “For Christ’s sake, Stanley, religion’s not supposed to be like buying breakfast cereal!” (DFMF, 27)
Toot views religion differently from Gramps. It is basically because Toot grows with sufficient knowledge on religion while Gramps is not (DFMF, 24).
Her understanding in the nature of religion is better than him. Thus, over the discussion on the appropriate church for the family to enroll, she gives an exclamation to his view about it. She stops him to simplify the essence of religion.
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She also shares that he is an imaginative man. He loves to stay in his own imaginary world. He creates his own “fairy” world to cope with unfulfilled realities in his life. For example, to his family, he explains that they have to leave
Texas because he dislikes the strong atmosphere of racism there. Yet, the true reason for the moving is far from the one he has said. It is because his business in
Texas is unsuccessful and his boss offers him to manage the new branch in
Hawaii (DFMF, 30). Toot explicitly mentions that Gramps is someone who often rewrites and plots his own story.
Also, the narrator does not conceal the fact from his narrative when woman criticizes him. He narrates that his half-sister complains about his physical look and attitude. Maya finds “I” to be skinny, bossy, and authoritative. When she wants to spend her evening to watch television, he insists her to read the novels he bought for her. She hates and complains to this manner. The narrator explains the situation by narrating; “……..I would overhear Maya complaining to my mother.
“Barry’s okay, isn’t he? I mean, I hope he doesn’t lose his cool and become one of those freaks you see on the streets around here.” (DFMF,122-123)
Living separately from his mother and maternal grandmother in the New
York City, where many black men are easily found, makes “I” develops a similar character of the black man in the city. He lives very simple and becomes very sensitive and commanding. He loves to lecture about the discrimination and ill treatment that the city and politics has made to the black people. Maya worries if he transforms into the black man who considers the street as the community living room, recreational place, which he definitely inclines to perform79.
79 For the black men coming from impoverished family, the street becomes the best place to hustle and earn living. It becomes their main stage of life. It is the best school that gives them
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Auma also criticizes the “I” in the same way Maya does. She mentions that he is “bossy” (DFMF, 200). She explains that he loves to control someone else. He inherits Obama’s Sr. characteristic that is very disagreeable. To this criticism, the “I” is portrayed to give no response. The narrator elucidates that he simply smiles and says no word to indicate whether he agrees to the accused or disagrees with it.
Furthermore, in his narrative, the narrator also does not mind to narrate that his wife is very contributive to his life. He narrates that most of his perspectives and actions are inspired by her suggestions. He says that Michelle provides good perspective for the small or big matters that he concerns about.
I started to grumble, Michelle told me to relax, my little sister could handle herself. She was right, of course; I looked at my baby sister and saw a full-grown woman, beautiful and wise and looking like a Latin countess with her olive skin and long black hair and black bridesmaid’s gown (DFMF, 409)
The above quotation shows the narrator’s disapproval to his sister’s behavior. In his opinion she behaves indecently in front of the men attending his marriage party. Michele suggests him to stop bursting or do any interference to his sister’s acts. She believes that she grows up and can take care of everything herself. It is observable that the narrator listens to her opinion. He accepts it and stops worrying about her sister.
Besides, Michele also contests the narrator’s view on his unsuccessful communication with his father during his childhood. He paraphrases his wife’s explanation in his narrative as: relevant education. This becomes the place of early training for some illegal activities such as pimping, gambling, bootlegging and prostitution. Nevertheless, for the middle or the high class black society, the street is simply a shortcut to neutrality and danger (Richard Majors and Janet Marcini Billson, Cool Pose: The Dilemmas of Black Manhood in America (New York, Simon and Schuster, 1992) 85
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“My wife offers a simpler explanation-that boys and their fathers don’t always have much to say to each other unless and until they trust-and this may come closer to the mark, for I often felt mute before him, and he never pushed me to speak” (DFMF, 71).
From the quotation, it is clear that Michele becomes someone who always enlightens the “I”. She is the best woman for him as she can help him to see the solution from the complex problem he encounters. By exploiting the problem of the intimacy between the black father and the son, Michele convinces the narrator that he is not the exception to experience the distance with his biological father.
Black man and black children generally face the same issue. Hearing the answer the narrator feels comforted. This supports him to be positive and very careful to step when he becomes a father.
In addition, the narrator also reveals the condemnation that Auma says about patriarchal ideology implemented in Kenya. Auma believes that the system has undermined women. She disagrees with all of the implementation of patriarchal traditions such as the tradition of arranged-marriage and the abuse that a husband may do to his wife in the Kenyan society. Women are subordinated and have no way to expose her-self in the society. The men’s overuse of power that is regarded as something normal and tolerable in the country must be changed. In her views the ideology harms women and she strongly opposes to the tradition
(DFMF, 380-381).
Nevertheless, from all of the commentaries and expressions the women have given in the narrative, the narrator’s position to the remarks is unclear and ambivalent, especially in the first narrative. He allows the women to exposes the fact that Barrack Sr. is abusive, and alcoholic, but he remains uncritical to his behaviors. He does not blame his contradictory traits against the postmodern
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masculine features in his narrative. Also, to the criticism Toot expresses on
Gramps and the criticism of patriarchal system in Kenya exposed by Auma, the narrator does not dispute and show his solid standpoints; either he agrees with the women or not. He simply puts the women’s expressions and criticisms into his narrative and leaves it opens for various judgments.
The narrator’s respect, concern, and pro-woman stance have just truly appeared in a firm expression in his second narrative, when he sets his feet into the stage of adulthood and acquires respectable position in the community. He believes that women and girls should be given a room for their own and may not be suffered from any unfairness. They deserve to get equal opportunities and rights as the men. Children will not be halted to the opportunity for higher degree of education due to their race and gender. He also adds that mothers and women should be respected for their hard work and given absolute freedom to control their own ‘body” (TAOH, 268-269, 331, 344).
In short, traditionally life narrative is written to disclose the writers’ potential and hide their weakness point80. The man, whom by history coined as the ‘proprietor’ of the genre, usually creates his positive image within the narrative by omitting any possible aspects that may ruin it. He often underrepresents and speaks for women with imbalance manner. Some problematic facts and expressions that can damage the construction and does not support the creation of his positive or expected image produced by women are often removed from his narrative.
80 Smith and Watson, 42-45
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However, from the presented data, the “I” allows the woman to express their impressions “independently”. He does not limit their expressions or records only some positive claims benefited his public look. He is not afraid of showing his imperfect nature as a man. He is open to narrate all of the history of his life, his male caretakers, and the system ruling the society truthfully.
Indeed, in the first narrative the narrator does not clarify his position over the arguments that the women have revealed. This shows the ambiguity of his attempt for embracing gender equity. Yet, this changes when it comes into the second narrative. He shows his supports to the women’s aspiration by mentioning the same hatred to the ongoing system of patriarchalism that gives no room for women to develop and reach equal opportunity in the future.
In the reality, the narrator’s commitment to give access for women to express their thought and then listen to them is proven in his manner during his campaign for the second round of being elected as the president of America. He opens question sessions gendered-wisely. He gives the opportunities for his audiences to give him questions in alternating order; girl-boy, girl-boy. As he points and invites a woman to address the questions, the woman tries to give the microphone to her husband. Seeing this, Obama responses:
"No, you can't do that. I called on the young lady," Obama said. "That is what's called a bait-and-switch." "OK, here is what I'm going to do. I'm going to let him go ahead and ask his question, and then I'm going to call on two women in a row, because this is -- we got cheated here." 81
From the above excerpt, we may read that the narrator prevents himself and the others to subordinate and underrepresent women. He believes that they have ideas
81 Pema Levy, Obama Enforces Gender Equity In Questions At Town Hall (video), July 16, 2012:
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to share and deserve to be listened to. The diverted role that he has made during the session reflects this concern.
D. Consideration for Women in the Decision Making Process
Decision making is one of the most important aspects that people supposed to observe when identifying the balance power relation in certain
“institution”. In the family where equal power is shared by husband and wife, decision making will be shaped under the agreement of both parties. Husband does not dominate his wife upon his will and the wife will refuse to be silenced and let the husband to control and have absolute right over her.
In the narratives, “I” develops the awareness on the importance of involving women in decision making process since he reaches his adolescence period. The “I” decides that he will not continue his education after he graduates from his senior year in the High School of Punahou. To be friend with many black teenagers he believes that education is unimportant82. He considers luck as the gateway to be living well, not the school or education. He plans to stay in Hawaii and works part-time like the other black men. Nevertheless, after listening to her mother’s perspective, he changes and decides to continue to get college education.
This is an attainment that the “I” reaches during his adolescence period. He breaks the patterns contested in the black man life namely stopping from going to school and listening to people’s suggestion.
82 This is clarified by Majors and Billson that Black man avoids unimportant and uncool activities such a studying, going to museum, and anything closely related to education. This has become a systemic proposition embody the body and the brain of the black man. Society, no matter how hard they work, cannot directly change the tradition. If any black man tries to conform the expectation of taking school and study hard, he will be accused by his peers and labeled as losing his own culture (Majors and Billson, 46-47).
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Furthermore, his involvement in the community organizer strengthens his understanding of the need to co-decision making with women. In the organization, he coordinates with some women to plan and decide every step for the project of the organization. For example, the narrator describes that “I” listens to Angela,
Shirley, Mona, and his other women colleagues about the work for Altgeld project
(DFMF, 161). As they face a problem in the project, he listens to their perspective equally and does not look at the problem one-sided, to head of the project, to solve the project.
This continues when “I” marries Michele. He shares the equal position by involving her in any decision making that will closely affect their family. The narrator explicates his manner when “I” plans to join the Illinois legislature. He is fully aware that entering politics will change his life and his family’s. It will force him to put the public as his number one priority to his family. In such situation, it will affect the harmonious life that he and his wife have just started to build. The narrator narrates it as; “After discussing it with my wife, I entered the race and proceeded to do what every first-time candidate does; I talked to anyone who would listen” (TAOH, 1). This shows that “I” enters politics with the permission of his wife. He does not decide himself. Michele explains that she hates politics but she allows him to enter the politics. She refuses to block his husband dream
(TAOH, 339).
Two other important aspects are also decided together by the “I” and his wife. As the head of the family, “I” does not rule the family like a dictatorial ruler.
The conclusion where the family lives and whether the family will have pets are
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not decided by the ‘I” himself. “I” considers Michele’s condition into account.
This is how the narrator narrates the condition;
Michelle and I had decided to keep the family in Chicago, in part because we liked the idea of raising the girls outside the hothouse environment of Washington, but also because the arrangement gave Michelle a circle of support—from her mother, brother, other family, and friends—that could help her manage the prolonged absences my job would require. (TAOH, 71)
The above quotation explains that “I” and his wife decide to stay in
Chicago. This decision is unanimous and agreed by the two. None have different hopes. They realize that “I” may be absent from home, as the consequences of his position as a politician, to accompany and share the domestic responsibilities.
Thus, they take Chicago for the location because it is the strategic place surrounded by the house of their relatives. This is done to anticipate if Michele needs some urgent helps while “I” is away for his job.
Besides, having pet at home becomes the subject that they also discuss together. When his daughter asks him the possibility of raising a dog, ‘I” does not answer the subject directly. He asks her whether she has asked Michele and got her agreement. “I” would never alienate Michele from contributing to the decision of the problems occurs in the family.
“Daddy, I have a question.” “Shoot.” “Can we get a dog?” “What does your mother say?” “She told me to ask you. I think I’m wearing her down.” I looked at Michelle, who smiled and offered a shrug. “How about we talk it over after the game?” I said. (TAOH, 352)
The above illustration explains that a further discussion will be done by
“I” and his wife over the request of having pet at home. Although Malia tells him that she has “worn Michele down”, he does not immediately answer the request.
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He plans to talk about it with her and gives the answer afterward. “I” remembers that in Michele’s family pet is forbidden because her mother believes that it will make the home untidy and will tear up the house (TAOH, 330). Therefore, he would not take the decision for the problem himself.
The “I” does not overwhelm with the image of “tough guy” that black man generally develops to manage social and family matters. It appears to him that listening to partners and making a decision together is not emasculating. This is a form of the current feature of masculine image that man must perform, respecting competence and sharing power and leadership83
Thus far, based on the quotations presented, “I” never overuses his power to dominate women. He believes that every case that affects the stability of the family demands a discussion. Unanimous decision is the one that is required to achieve. From his decision to continue to school, join politics, until the decision to have a dog as a pet at home, are the important aspects to discuss. He would hear and put women’s suggestion into priority.
Broadly speaking, the ability to involve women in decision making is represented in the administration he manages in the U.S. government. Obama’s administration has posted some women’s name to sit with him in the important position to produce certain policy for the country. For instance, he has chosen
U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to his cabinet rank, Hillary Clinton as the secretary of State, Kathleen Sevelius as the Secretary of health and human service, Janet
Napolitano as the homeland security director, Hilda Solis as the secretary of labor, and EPA administrator Lisa Jackson. His top lawyer and top domestic policy
83 James B. Nelson, The Intimate Connection; Male Sexuality, Masculine Spirituality. (The Westminster Press, US 1988) 86
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adviser are women too. His staff directory is then indeed full of women. The New
York Times explains that forty three percent of women in Obama’s officials are sitting in very important places. It is higher than the one appointed in Bush administration84. This demonstrates that “I” manifested his understanding of the spirit of gender equity well.
E. Concluding Remark
Historically, black men are considered as the unstoppable actors who practice patriarchal system in the society. However, in most of American black families today, the black patriarchal culture has been changed considerably. Men start to actively participate in the domestic responsibilities. It can been seen in the attitudes of Obama as reflected in his life narratives, where he tries to project the
“I” into the spirit of gender equity
In his narrative it is noticeable that “I” does not bother to share the domestic chores. From his childhood, gender stereotype does not cling in his mind. He shares the domestic chores of his mother and maternal grandmother. He makes an effort to take the loads consistently until he starts his own family. The narrator projects that “I” washes the dish, does the grocery, and buys ant tramps for the family, the activities that black man would never have done in the past. ‘I” successfully reconciles his ego as a black man and his role as a boy of a single mother, a professional, and a husband of brilliant and talented black lady. He never totally focuses on the realization of the traditional masculine basic rules, and neglects his responsibility at home.
84 John Dickerson, “All the President’s men” January 10, 2013, 10 January 2013
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Furthermore, “I” involves in taking care of young adult black man, his half-sister, and his daughters. This job is also never been done by black men in the past because nurturing violates the principles and images of black man’s masculinity, the sturdy oak. “I” from his childhood, adolescence, and adulthood represses his motivation to be the same with the other black men who enjoy the culture of domination in the society. “I” forces himself to be at home for dinner every day. He uses this moment to listen to the stories from his daughters. He also allocates his weekend to play with his daughter. He learns from his past that communication between parents and children are very important to create intimacy, to monitor children’s development, and to build children’s confidence in the future. “I” never has this experience when he was young. Learning from his past, he does not let his daughters live unassisted and not get enough love and care from him. For him, children are the family’s asset that their future is significantly influenced by the parent’s role in raising them.
Besides, “I” always opens the opportunity for women to speak. He does not want them to be unrepresented. He writes their opinions and expressions in his narratives. He does not reduce the messages that the women intend to expose in their real utterances. The opinions that do not suit to the dominant system implemented in the society will remain appear in the narrative. He is not afraid to be embarrassed by his own writing that exhibits the women’s criticism upon himself or the weaknesses of men to the society.
As the head of the family, “I” also shares his power in ruling the house with his wife equally. He involves Michele in every process of making decisions.
Running into the politics is one of the decisions that he shares with Michele.
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Joining politic is a big thing and may create instability towards domestic works’ distribution that both has arranged together. As he realizes it, he discusses whether he should go to the field or not with his wife. In addition, towards the location of the house and the pet, “I” also discusses them together with his wife. “I” proves that despite the turbulences he encounters, he plants the spirit of gender equity within his attitude. He centers his direction to the alternative masculine image that centralizes in pro-feminist activism.
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CHAPTER IV
THE GENESIS OF “I”’S RECONCILIATION
This chapter is dedicated to discuss the last research question, namely what are the factors that powerfully influence Barrack Obama to project the ‘I” into the spirit of gender equity in his life narratives? In this discussion, the section is divided into two sub-titles; the struggle and suffering of women and the profound disappointment on male caretaker.
A. The Struggle and Suffering of Women
Women are one of the most influential factors that build the narrator’s gender identity position. His life has been surrounded by them. He lives with his mother and grandmother, closely interacts with his half-sister Auma, and cooperates with women in the community organization for couples of months. His observation to the struggle and suffering of the women encourages him to consider his manners. He prevents his attitudes from harming any women after the contemplation and observation of the women’s situation.
“I” is aware that he is raised, educated, and cared fully by female caretakers, his mother and grandmother. He witnesses their difficulties to make a living and to raise a boy with ignorant male figures. The men who should have helped them are busy with their own “story”. They focus to construct or maintain their masculine image. They let the women to bring all the loads, domestic and public chores, in their shoulder alone. The narrator narrates this situation by saying “Still, as I got older I came to recognize how hard it had been for my mother and grandmother to raise us without a strong male presence in the house. I felt as well the mark that a father’s absence can leave on a child. (TAOH, 346) PLAGIATPLAGIAT MERUPAKAN MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TIDAK TERPUJI TERPUJI
The quotation clearly represents that the men in the narrator’s family are the least to ‘appear’ or involve in the parenting. They are in the house physically but not emotionally. The ongoing patriarchal traditions have taken them from alleviating the women’s burden in the family. They do not aware that parenting needs both hands of male and female. It is a hard job to do because it covers many responsibilities like educating, nurturing, comforting, providing security and many other things.
He sees that all of these responsibilities are handled by his mother and grandmother alone. He considers this situation must be hard and difficult. Yet, the women seem fine and dedicate their power to create betterment for the people they have loved unconditionally; the son and the husband. There is no expression of serious anger or regret coming from the women for their dedication.
The women in “I”’s house does everything independently. They are annoyed by the irresponsible men, but consistently manage to finish their responsibilities for the family. Toot, his maternal grandmother, has taken the role as the nurturer and significant fund-raiser. She works hard to support the insufficient income that Gramps earns.
It may or may not have been true that she would have preferred the alternative history she imagined for herself, but I came to understand that her career spanned a time when the work of a wife outside the home was nothing to brag about, for her or for Gramps-that it represented only lost years, broken promises. What Toot believed kept her going were the needs of her grandchildren and the stoicism of her ancestors. “So long as you kids do well, Bar,” she would say more than once, “that’s all that really matters.”(DFMF, 62)
The above quotation narrates that his grandmother is a hardworking and very responsible woman. She sacrifices her happiness and dream only for her family.
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With insufficient education background, she trains herself intensely and then becomes a successful clerk in a bank. She does not complain to her husband, whom people in common would consider as irresponsible man, for his lack of contribution to fulfill the family need. She deserves to be angry because his income is only enough to fulfill their daily needs. She cannot save any dollar from his income for the future preparation when one condition requires an instant expense. Nevertheless, she refuses to do so. She patiently accompanies Gramps and does not criticize him for this.
She works for twenty years without any vacation that any American families always allocate to spend at least once in a year. For regular woman, this strength may not be found. A woman usually leaves and finds another man when she knows that her husband cannot bring sufficient wage home, or provide wellbeing for the family85. Yet, with her patience, Toots remains faithful to her husband. Even, she helps him fulfilling the need of the family.
Furthermore, this sort of strong and hard-working is also shared by the narrator’s mother. After she divorces Barrack Sr., she marries Lolo and moves to
Indonesia. The narrator gives an appreciation that she can adapt and survive in the new world that is very different from her place. She never protests about the climate, sanitation, and electricity which are worse than the one she has ever had
(DFMF, 49). She stays in Indonesia for several years and passes through many
85 One of the trigger of the divorce case happening in many countries is the economic problem. A woman is not afraid to sue her husband for his inability to provide her with sufficient support for daily need. Indeed, this is not the primary cause, but it is strongly embedded in many cases found in several countries, such as in Indonesia. (“TrenPerceraian di Indonesia Meningkat”http://www.poskotanews.com/2012/07/03/tren-perceraian-di-indonesia-meningkat/ 3 July 2012) the data retrieved on 10 July 2012
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difficulties. In some ways he is amazed by her endurance. He expresses that she is undeniably stronger than anybody ever thinks of.
The narrator describes that Ann also works to help Lolo supporting their family’s needs. She does not want Lolo to be burdened by her coming to
Indonesia. She finds that he is stressful because of his ‘poor’ income. When she arrives in the country, he only works for the army as a geologist, surveying roads and tunnels, with low salary. Ann does not want to give him additional problem.
Therefore, she decides to work while staying in the country.
She hadn’t traveled all this way to be a burden, she decided. She would carry her own weight. She found herself a job right away teaching English to Indonesian businessmen at the American embassy, part of the U.S. foreign aid package to developing countries. (DFMF, 50)
From the above illustration, the narrator presents that his mother is a strong and independent woman. She helps Lolo to overcome the family’s economic crisis by teaching English for the Indonesian businessman in the American embassy in
Indonesia. From this job, she earns a good income and can help Lolo minimizing his burden.
The narrator also witnesses that his mother does an extra activity to secure his future alone. She supplies him with fundamental values and moral standards that he needs to grow as a good man. Even until she marries Lolo, she is the one who educates and introduces him with some constructive values. Indeed, Lolo helps, but his teaching is full of patriarchal principles. For example, he teaches him how to be a strong and unbeatable man. Besides, he shows his immense workaholic ethic to supply the family’s needs, which is proven to be the source of calamity in his marriage. Ann concerns about this much and she never stops to
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provide the counter arguments or examples from the values Lolo explains to “I”
(DFMF, 56).
She tutors the narrator about the true characteristic that a person should have. She schools him about how to be honest, fair, independent, and straight. She insists that he must own these values in order to grow as a complete and loveable human being.
Ann also nourishes “I” with education. She believes that this is the asset for her son to grip the world. She is ready to suffer and halt her personal ego for the sake of his better future.
Her efforts now redoubled. Five days a week, she came into my room at four in the morning, force-fed me breakfast, and proceeded to teach me my English lessons for three hours before I left for school and she went to work. I offered stiff resistance to this regimen, but in response to every strategy I concocted, whether unconvincing (“My stomach hurts”) or indisputably true (my eyes kept closing every five minutes), she would patiently repeat her most powerful defense: “This is no picnic for me either, buster.” (DOB, 54)
With the economic limitation that she and Lolo have, “I” cannot enroll into the
International school that can serve good books and facilities. Consequently, Ann provides extra schedule to teach her son with corresponding material from
America, textbooks that he does not get from his school. Everyday, she always gets up very early, teaches his son, prepares breakfast and gets ready for herself to work. She admits that she does not like to do many activities very early. However, she keeps doing this activity almost every day. She sacrifices her personal interest and ego only for her son.
His half-sister Auma also does the same thing, as Toot and Ann, for her big family in Kenya. She has to be responsible for the economic condition and prosperity of her family and relatives. The irresponsible father who inherits
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nothing, but problem, forces her to concentrate on earning money for the family.
She mentions that;
“Then I’m here and everyone is asking me for help, and I feel like they are all just grabbing at me and that I’m going to sink. I feel guilty because I was luckier than them. I went to a university. I can get a job. But what can I do, Barack? …..” (DFMF, 300-1)
Auma becomes the breadwinner of her family. Everyone asks her helps without stopping. She works two different jobs during the summer. She does the jobs because she wants to save the money and build a house where all of the member of the family can live together. Her father has left nothing for her and the other family, not even a house to sleep. She feels distress under this situation, but decides to keep her goals ahead, which are to rebuild and reunite the family.
Furthermore, the spirit of gender equity that the narrator practices is influenced by his interaction with women in the community organization for
Altgeld project. He observes, communicates and cooperates with women who are mostly the victim of patriarchal system. He meets Mrs. Crenshaw who is forced to stop her education because her parents can only pay one of their kids’ education fees. Because he has a brother at home and her parents believe in the patriarchal norm, the money is given for her brother’s education (DFMF, 181). Also, he hears how Mrs. Stevens hides her cataract from her boss and friends. She is afraid that this will make her being fired from the job as a secretary (DFMF, 182). He listens to the story how Mary is abandoned by her black husband and must take care of their son alone, and how a single mother Angela, Shirley, and Mona have to raise their children alone without the presence and help of a man in the family (DFMF,
244).
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Indeed the social system and tradition of masculinity perpetuated by men in the society have made the women impaired. Nevertheless, it does not sink them, but stimulate them to improve. It encourages them to keep working hard and form a better life for themselves and the people they care.
Thus far, those facts remind the narrator that women have been undermined by the patriarchal supremacy. They live unhappily because of the system. He believes that it is unacceptable because the contributions of women are very big. He reflects to himself that without his mother and maternal grandmother, he will not reach this level. They nurture him patiently and provide the best lesson for him to face the life. Therefore, this warns him to redefine the patriarchal legacy by promoting the idea of pro-feminism through his manners.
B. The Profound Disappointment on Male Caretaker
There are three prominent and influential male figures affecting the “I”’s life direction. They are Barrack Sr., Lolo, and Gramps. His gender perception and identity is produced from the interaction with these men. They become the models that help him to decide on what kind of man he wants to be in the future. Their attitudes are the examples of the alternative positions that he can copy to deal with his masculine embodiment and goals of life.
In his life, the narrator identifies that each of the male caretakers has some flaws in their performance as a man, a husband, or a father. His father, whom he has thought as his exact role model is abusive, silent, and ignorant to his children and family; his stepfather is workaholic, busy to earn money, psychologically castrated by his past, making the least communication with his wife and betraying his own idealism; his grandfather is an unsuccessful businessman and imaginative
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man who loves to escape from his real life and recreate his own story. Their behaviors and interpersonal relationships are mostly based on the tradition of masculinity rules. They sustain the practices of “no sissy stuff”, “be a big wheel”,
“be a sturdy oak” and “give them hell” that with or without their consciousness, influence negatively to their spouse, children, and people living with them86.
The narrator explains that he is responsible to fix their mistakes. He is also the man who is in charge to accomplish the dream and hope that the three fail to achieve. He convinces himself that he will be successful professionally and financially as to fulfill the deferred dream of Gramps and Lolo, and will be a good husband and father who prioritize family and engage to the domestic responsibilities as to restore his father’s mistakes. The “I”’s determination to be better than his male caretakers can be observed from the following quotation;
“I determined that my father’s irresponsibility toward his children, my stepfather’s remoteness, and my grandfather’s failures would all become object lessons for me, and that my own children would have a father they could count on. (TAOH, 346)”
“I” believes that his primary goal is to be a father that his daughters can be proud of. This idealism becomes the foreground of his interaction with his family. He wants to make a contribution to his children’s upbringing because the lack of the involvement of his own father to him. The history of the ‘remote fathering’ leads him to start to father differently as a mechanism to heal himself.
The narrator narrates that Obama Sr. abandons him and his mother shortly after he was born. He meets him once when he is ten years old. Obama Sr. visits him and his mother in Hawaii for the recuperation after his serious accident. He interacts with him, Ann, and both of his maternal grandparents for several weeks.
86Linda Brannon, Gender: Psychological Perspectives (6th Edition). (Englewood Cliff, N.J: Prentice Hall, 2010) 159-185.
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The narrator tells that Obama Sr. recites many stories about Africa and the condition of his half-brothers and sisters in Kenya. He also gives him some souvenirs from the continent as a reminder that he inherits one of the greatest civilizations in the world.
Yet, during his visits, the narrator does not feel the existence of a father in the house. Obama Sr. is physically present but is emotionally absent for him. He speaks rarely and cannot use the time during his visit to fix his irresponsibility in the past well. As a black man with a strong tradition of patriarchal background, he does not know what a father should feel, be, and do (DFMF, 207). “I” and Obama
Sr. never interact in any games or playful activities as it is usually done by a father and his son in the white family. He creates distance and does very little attention to his own son.
Also, he is not the figure who has an ability to make the people around him relaxed and happy. Similar to the image of father in the dominant patriarchal supremacy that bell hooks explains in her We Real Cool Black Man, Barrack Sr. is stubborn, inexpressive, bad tempered, and dictatorial87. Stress and tension suddenly become the situation created after his arrival in the house. He is bossy and dominant. He changes the family’s regulations that the member has agreed prior to his presence. Gramps and Toot often complain for this “horrible” manner in their home (DFMF, 72-73).
Among his unacceptable attitudes, the narrator believes that his silence is the most annoying one. Obama Sr. is very uncommunicative. “I” notices that it is the source of disharmony between him and his father. When they are together,
87 hooks, 96
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they never have a good communication. If Obama Sr. considers that he should not ask something to him, he will never initiate or start conversation. Likewise, as a young man, “I” also never dares to start asking him questions. He waits him to blow the whistle first. Therefore, they mostly spend their togetherness by reading books, the “I” reads his book and Obama Sr. reads his (DFMF, 75).Obama Sr. chooses to preserve himself far from being looked expressive and feminine88.
In the family where men and women co-exist, the narrator believes that children deserve to have emotional connection not only with the mother, but also the father. Father may not create a gap or refuse to nurture his children. Boys, especially, need his presence to teach them how to negotiate, work, and produce undamaging self-concept for their future. The figure of father helps shaping their identity and vision (TAOH, 347). The boys or children who grow up without emotional intimacy to their father, or adult male caretakers, are potential to be wounded, unhappy, difficult to identify his gender identity, and become an abusive adult89. Therefore, he strongly obliges men to reconsider their contribution in the parenting.
The narrator is sure that with active communication and participation to his children, a father can secure the children’s future and guide them to avoid any possible misfortune and harm produced by the uncontrollable social systems.
Moreover, Kimmel90and Lemons91 explain that changes among men to participate in gender equality will benefit them, rather than making some losses. By stopping
88 In the black man tradition, child rearing and being expressive is not preferable because it is not the source for gaining status and power in the society (Polatnick in Pease, 91). Black man only prefers to focus on the role as the breadwinner because it is closely associated with power, status, and money that in the end prove his manliness. 89 Pease, 52-53 90 Michael S. Kimmel, “ Why Men Should Support Gender Equity”, Women’s Studies Review Fall (2005) 103 91 In Pringle and Pease, 154
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to be remote, starting to be present for his children and building communication well, a man can live a life without any constraint of particular system that physiologically degrades him. He will be close to his children and get a sense of accomplishment when doing well as parent.
However, Obama Sr. represents the patriarchal fathers who ignore the fact that a child needs to experience a strong connection with a loving father. The desire to change him as a communicative figure is only a dream. He inherits the tradition from his patrilineal family who teaches him about alienating the emotional bond to the son. Besides, he does not have the other models to teach him how to be a good father. Even people, particularly men, living in his neighborhood practice the same thing. It has become a strong pattern in the
African culture that men isolate themselves from any attempts to nurture the children as women do. Uncritically, they continue to believe that children do not need the father’s care as much as they need the mother’s. If a father has to perform well to the children, he will do it to other children instead of his own. He does not want to look weak in front of his own son. Therefore, Barrack Sr.’s ignorance and silence continue to prevail.
When the narrator meets his half-siblings, Auma and Roy, and listens to their stories about some misdeeds that their father has conducted, he is convinced that he will not do the same thing like his father’s. Obama Sr. does not only ignore the narrator, but also his half brother and sister in Kenya. He is so hard, temperamental, and abusive to all of them. Auma tells the narrator that he “never spoke to Roy or myself except to scold us. He would come home very late, drunk”
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(BOD, 206). She mentions that none of his behaviors make her and Roy feel secure and happy.
Furthermore, Obama Sr’’s. uncontrollable manners makes Auma suffers from a trauma. She is afraid of having any serious relationship with men. She says that “Sometimes I think it’s just impossible for me to trust anybody completely. I think of what the Old Man made of his life, and the idea of marriage gives me, how do you say…the shivers”( DFMF, 201).Obama Sr.’s behavior has caused an extreme emotional and psychological distress to Auma. She shares that
Otto, a German man, loves her and wants to marry her. Auma mentions that she likes him too, but she refuses his proposal because she is afraid that Otto will do the same bad attitude as her father does when they married. She witnesses that marriage allows a man to abuse and harm the woman and this makes her to be skeptical to the idea of marriage.
The narrator also hears the same experience from Roy. He describes that
Roy hates Obama Sr. too. He makes him to inherit the misleading practices that ruin his future. Almost every day Obama Sr. comes home angry and drunk. As a boy living with him, the young Roy assumes that the deeds are the way how a man supposed to perform in the society (DFMF, 252). Roy records his attitudes and adopts his behaviors as his direction when he grows up and has a family. This gives detrimental effects for him and makes him fail in his marriage. Her wife protests him and says “She says she’s tired of me staying out late. She says I drink too much. She says “I’m becoming just like the Old Man.” …… “The truth is,” he said, leaning his weight forward, “I don’t think I really like myself. And I blame the Old Man for this.” (DFMF, 208)
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Roy has stayed with Obama Sr. in Kenya and witnessed his unsupportive attitudes to the idea of gender equity. Growing in the location where patriarchal culture is strongly implemented, Roy is not informed that the tradition is harmful and must be refined. There are no other alternative attitudes he can learn from the other men in his community92. Therefore, undoubtedly he perpetuates the tradition.
He has also wounded by the emotional ignorance, punishment, and physical abuse from Obama Sr. He has been the target of his anger before he decides to leave the house and manage his own life. His failure in the marriage, indeed, is due to his own mistake, but all of the initial causes are from his father.
He is the indirect cause of the calamity in Roy’s marriage. Roy hates himself in the same way he hates his father due to his dull manly teaching. Like some other black men, Roy needs a proper father to be the role models to teach him how to negotiate the patriarchy practices that are not soul damaging and to create healthy alternative self-concepts around the system.
Listening to the protest and sad stories from his half-sibling about his father, “I” believes that he will learn from his mistakes. He states it clearly as;
A bitter drunk? An abusive husband? A defeated, lonely bureaucrat? To think that all my life I had been wrestling with nothing more than a ghost! For a moment I felt giddy; if Auma hadn’t been in the room, I would have probably laughed out loud. The king is overthrown, I thought. The emerald curtain is pulled aside….Whatever I do, it seems, I won’t do much worse than he did (DFMF, 210)
92 Cultural impediment is the biggest problem that cannot turn or shift the domination and bad attitudes of men in Kenya. “The culture of patriarchy in Kenya as well as other African countries provides a gender challenge which may be a complicated web. To obstruct the continuation of the tradition needs a very hard effort. (Loreen Maseno and Susan M. Kilonzo, “Engendering development: Demystifying patriarchy and its effects on women in rural Kenya” International Journal of Sociology and Anthropology Vol. 3(2) pp. 45-55, February 2011
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The above narration elucidates that the narrator tries to accept the fact that
Barrack Sr. is not a completely successful man. He may accomplish the greatest educational and professional achievements, but he fails as a great man in his family. “I” finds that he is “a biter drunk”, “lonely”, and “abusive” husband.
Then, he explicitly states that “I” will not “do much worse than he did”93.
Lolo is a young, handsome, pleasant, a good tennis player, with an even smile and imperturbable temperament man from Indonesia (DFMF, 39). He met the narrator’s mother in 1965 when he studied in the University of Hawaii. As an individual, Lolo was a traumatized boy. During the Indonesia’s fight for
Independence against Dutch, he witnessed his father and eldest brother killed and his house burned94. He has been an orphan when he was ten years old. He has stayed with his mother in the countryside after the event. Practically, his life was similar to the narrator who grows up fatherless.
The narrator explains that he experiences a good time with Lolo before and after he moves and stays with him in Indonesia. He considers that his attitudes are better than Obama Sr. He states that although he does not talk too much, he is easy to be with (DFMF, 39).
Lolo is very good man who is not bad-tempered and abusive. He can manage his emotion very well. He does not mind to start a conversation, show his care to him, and engage in physical and emotional interaction with him. Lolo nurtures him like his own son.
93 This phrase somehow sounds paradoxical because it can infer two ideas. First, it means that he can still do the same thing that his father performs but just not as severe as his father has done, second he will never do the activity his father did. Nevertheless, it is observable that he is different and the confession represents that he knows the best thing to fix the problem. 94Avner Falk, The Riddle of Barrack Obama (United State of America, Praeger 2010), 48
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So it was to Lolo that I turned for guidance and instruction. He didn’t talk much, but he was easy to be with. With his family and friends he introduced me as his son, but he never pressed things beyond matter-of- fact advice or pretended that our relationship was more than it was. I appreciated this distance; it implied a manly trust. And his knowledge of the world seemed inexhaustible. Not just how to change a flat tire or open in chess. He knew more elusive things, ways of managing the emotions I felt, ways to explain fate’s constant mysteries (DFMF, 45) From the above quotation it is clear that the “I” learns many things from
Lolo. The fantasy of the father’s image that he has missed from his father is substituted by Lolo. In the first period of living in Indonesia, he introduces him with some masculine values that he never gets from his father. He trains him boxing, chess, and repairing car. Even more, he invites him to have adventure of eating “wild and tough” food such as dog meat, snake meat, and grasshopper He seems to be the right gender identity model that he is looking for95.
Nevertheless, the racial difference and the change of Lolo’s nationalism to his motherland contradict to the narrator’s belief. The narrator projects that he will protect his mother when they arrive in Indonesia96. Though he was very young, he has formed a belief that his mother is very important and must be saved from any harms (DFMF, 40). He also promises to repair his broken family (DFMF, 253,
301) and to protect his community (DFMF, 130, 210). These represent the narrator’s nationalism symbolically. Besides, he also mentioned repeatedly about his promise to protect America in his speeches97 which is in contradiction to
Lolo’s. Feeling betrayed98 by his country, Lolo alters his populous idealism, while
95 Lolo is directly introduced “I” to the practices imposed by most of Javanese men to be considered as a real man. He introduced the tradition of violence, through boxing, that is culturally symbolizes power and strength in Javanese culture (Ardie Raditya, “Maskulinitas Jawa-Madura”, 12 October 2010, kompas.com) retrieved on 03 May 2013) 96 For the narrator, protecting his mother is a symbolism of his dream to protect his nation 97 Falk, 270 98 Lolo has been “kidnaped” before his feet stepped out from the plan bringing him from Hawaii. He was sent to Papua and lived miserably there. After this event, the government did not
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“I” remains hard to be loyal. Although “I” experiences quite the same way of
‘betrayal’ from his country, from the racism and discrimination threat projected by the American society, he is consistent with his spirit of “defending” his country.
Furthermore, Lolo is very busy and he could not be very sensitive to the needs of communication that his wife demands. This also affects the narrator’s vision to consider copying and idolizing him entirely. His effort to serve and provide his family with wealth and prosperous life backstabs himself. His marriage ends because his overvalue on the ‘gold-digging’ responsibility and the unachieved dynamic communication with his wife.
Looking back, I’m not sure that Lolo ever fully understood what my mother was going through during these years, why the things he was working so hard to provide for her seemed only to increase the distance between them. He was not a man to ask himself such questions. Instead, he maintained his concentration, and over the period that we lived in Indonesia, he proceeded to climb. (DFMF, 53)
The above quotation explicates that Lolo’s economic position has increased slightly after he changes his job. He was only a geologist with very limited salary.
He can only pay a refrigerator with two month salary. He is so depressed and afraid that he cannot fulfill the need of his son and his mother (DFMF, 50). Now, he has a new job with higher salary to secure the life of his children and his wife.
However, this economic improvement is incomparable with the consequences that he has to bear.
This job makes him very busy. This also triggers a conflict with his wife because they seldom communicate. The narrator believes that his mother is compensate him by providing a good job to earn a good income. With the pressure of fulfilling the daily needs and irresponsible manner of his country toward his life, he enrolls to foreign company working at “exploiting” Indonesian’s natural resources. For Obama and his mother, Lolo has been disloyal to his country.
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immature but tough woman who survives many emotional problems. Being abandoned by her first husband, her separation with him leads her to dream for having responsible and caring man in her life. Lolo comes and shows all the signs that he can comfort and give her attention. Yet, his work steals it and she returns to the state of loneliness that she refuses and never ready for (DFMF, 49).
Also, the job Lolo runs against the idealism that he has shared to his wife to achieve together. The narrator often hears his mother and Lolo argues in their bedroom about his job that has made him too busy and has betrayed his nationalism. In Ann’s perspective, Lolo’s job in the American oil company has taken him into the dark cave and insisted him to agree with the corrupted power that designs the operation. She wants to take him out from the foreigners who exploit and take advantage from the natural resource in his country treacherously
(DFMF, 53-54). She wants to bring him back to his nation and his goal to build his country through educational sector, teaching. Nevertheless, this effort is meaningless and creates them to finally separate.
Gramps’ life is also similar to Lolo’s and the narrator’s. He is an orphan who has to stay with his grandparents. His mother committed suicide when he was eight. He was the one who found her at home. His father was abusive and a bad guy who cheated his wife. These past events influence Gramps’ psychological development. He grows as a disobedient and bad-tempered young guy who drops out from school. He does weird works with less income most of the time.
The narrator narrates that he loves Gramps, but he is slightly the figure that he avoids to be identified or wishes to transform into. He knows that Gramps
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suffers from hypomania99.As the result, he writes his own life different from the realities.He tells some stories to his friends and family and re-images his unsuccessful life in it. For instance, he plots his own stories to back up his business failure to the family. Instead of telling his wife and his daughterthat they move to Hawaii because his business is unsuccessful and his boss opens a new branch in Hawaii, he explains that they have to move because he feels uncomfortable with the racial prejudice springs in the society. He adds thatHawaii is a multicultural place that serves neutrality on such problem.
Nevertheless, he recreates another story when they already live in Hawaii and finds that his business does not run well too. He uses “I” as his reason to be always at home. He mentions that he loves and cares him much.Therefore, he does not let him to be unassisted. While Toots and Ann often stay out of the house for their job, he prefers stays at home to take care of him.
Another reason of “I”‘s disagreement to Gramps’ is on his attitude to name his mother with a man’s name. Gramps feels disappointed for his incapability to have a son. In order to fulfill his dream, he names his daughter as, “Stanley” Ann.
He does not think about how his daughter may feel about it (DFMF, 29). What is more important for him is the prevention from being gazed as a failed-man.
Giving the “Stanley” as the name of his daughter leaves a story that he has a son when someone ask him about “what is the name of his child?”.
This is the view that the narrator really hates. He promises that he would never stick to the idea that a son is better than a daughter. He would love his daughter unconditionally. Also, he will allow his daughter to pursue education
99 This is a form of denial. This is identified when someone does not want to accept his failure and every bad experience he has suffered in his past life. One with this problem often builds his own stories to deny those unwanted facts about the past (Falk, 2)
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anywhere she wants. He will not restrict her exploration like Gramps does to his mother.
Thus far, the narrator disagrees to the practices his male caretakers have done. As he grew older, he sees all the male caretakers provide some irrelevant practices that suffer many people like the wife and the children. He takes their mistakes as the sample to be a better man, father, and husband. He ends the features of being ignorant, silent, money-oriented, and imaginative from his list and transforms into a man who believes in the spirit of gender equity practices.
C. Concluding remark
“I” has been proven to put aside his ambition to perform the masculinity practices that are ascribed in the black community. He has transformed himself into someone who upholds gender equity. The underlying reasons for his performance are the suffering and struggle that women have to experience as the result of the tradition and the negative result of the traditional masculinity done by his male care takers.
His new manner on gender equity is activated or functioned because he observes that women always become the victim in the community. He believes that they do not deserve to experience it. Looking at his mother, grandmother, half-sister, and friends that are affected and becomes the victim of the unjustifiable system, “I” segregates himself from the archetype or model of masculinity that is manifested in the society.
Furthermore, “I” identifies some negative impacts that will be personally felt when one takes the tradition from the patriarchal system. He sees the results that Obama Sr. has unharmonious relationship with his wives and children.
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Similar to his father, Lolo’s over concentration on his work makes his mother divorces him. Meanwhile, the worship to the image and definition of successful that is unattainable has made his grandfather to be imaginative. Therefore, “I” decides to redefine his gender-relation practices far from patriarchal beliefs intothe spirit of gender equity.
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CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION
As mentioned in the first chapter, this research investigates Dreams of My
Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance and The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on
Reclaiming the American Dream. to achieve two aims: first, to explain the representation of “I” into the spirit of gender equity, second, to illustrate the factors that contribute to the emergence of the spirit in “I”’s attitudes. Applying visionary feminism from hooks, it is identifiable that the narratives contain pro- feminist ideology. It is actualized through the practices that “I” has performed. He does dissimilar actions to the hegemonic model of black patriarchal tradition.
In the United States today where notion of manhood remains bound up with the patriarchal supremacy asking the black man to be strong, cool, reticent, and firm, “I” builds the deconstruction images over the qualities in his narratives.
He does some affirmative actions that are grouped as the attitudes representing the spirit of gender equity in the following; a. The “I” shares domestic responsibilities. This is a transformative turn
because black men used to be resistant to any domestic chores such as
washing and nurturing children. In their tradition, the concept of “domestic
sphere” belonged to the women. Their responsibility was the activities in
the public. They refused to create physical interaction and psychological
connection with their children or their young brothers. Nevertheless, from
the narratives, the narrator exemplifies that “I” washes dishes, involves in
the parenting, and does not refuse to communicate expressively with
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b. “I” respects women’s right to speak. “I” is also aware of the issue on the
freedom of speech the women have to exercise. He gives them a place in
his narratives. He does not politicize his narratives by exploiting the good
side of him and his peers. He vocalizes or represents the women’s feeling
against the dominant social system and its agent (men) in his narratives.
Being open to criticism is the new quality of a black man represented by
the narrator through his narrated “I”. c. “I” considers women in the decision making process. The narrator projects
that “I” does not overuse his power to solve any issues running in his
family. He invites Michele to discuss every problem. He creates the
balanced power-relation with his wife. While in the past black man is
stereotyped as the ruler of the family who has the absolute right to lead the
institution, “I” promotes that co-working with the wife in making a
decision is the right thing to take. He neglects the black traditional
perspective mentioning that asking some ideas from others, especially
women, shows that he has incapacity to lead the house, and thus implies
his failure as a man.
Indeed, all of the aforementioned practices are achieved through difficult processes. The patriarchal norms spreading in the society may hamper the “I” to be committed constantly to the spirit of gender equity all the time and at every intersection of life. For him it is hard because his black body and the place he lives are dominated by men who support the patriarchal principles. One of the biggest things hampering the consistent efforts of promoting gender equity is the set of beliefs about a job.
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Until today, job is the hardest section that a man would sacrifice. It always becomes the parameter for society to measure a man’s status and value. Job determines the money that one earns and money symbolizes someone’s privilege, power and social class in this capitalistic world. it is hard for a man to accept the fact that he should reconcile his patience over his job in the public that may increase his social status and pride to the domestic chores that are dominantly perceived as giving less social pride for him.
Thus, indeed, the ideal gender equity cannot be achieved completely by a man living in the community where its social system and government does not provide the policy or way to realize it. The “I”’s incomplete and often ambivalent commitment to gender equity is also triggered by the society and also policy produced by the government. For example, the working hours that make a man spend more time outside the home should be fixed as to fulfill the better equity between man and women. Being burdened with too many working hours, a man will not be able to share and involve in the domestic chores at home. American’s government must learn from the Nordic countries like Sweden which have been so visionary in its efforts to involve men in the family. In Sweden, the state encourages men to take parental leave to be a part of their children’s first month.
It also releases a policy namely “Daddy day”, a reformation insisting that men have to balance his work, public appearance, and family. As the result of this policy, the percentage of men involvement in the house climbs from twenty percent to over ninety percent in 2005100.
100 Michale S, Kimmel, “Why Men Should Support Gender Equity”, Women’s Studies Review , 2005 102-114) 112
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Nevertheless, the practices that are represented by the “I” at least can show an alternative for feminist movement to create gender equity in the society. As hooks mentions that feminist is for everybody and it is not only the responsibility for women to create equal society, man can start to transform his attitudes by imitating the “I” as the starting point. A man can begin to observe the position of women in his family and community, and the attitude of his father, grandfather, or brother and identifies whether their behaviors are abusing or undermining women.
After the identification, they must progress into the re-identification of his personal attitude by always remembering the facts from the narratives that; a. Patriarchal tradition brings more harm than good for women. It can make
them suffer from trauma and distrust on the social system. Man has to
realize that the roles and contributions of women are irreplaceable in the
family and community. b. Patriarchal ideology brings danger and destructive power to the man
himself. The obvious example is the potential divorce, the hatred from the
children and spouse, and the psychological degradation that is strongly
enacted in the narratives. c. Harmony and children’s best development can only be fully achieved with
the participation of father in the process of child rearing.
Besides, from the result of the analysis, it can be said that the best institution to start promoting gender equity is family. It is the site of transformation that significantly helps to alter the ongoing patriarchal worldview spreading among the people in the community. It is the most important social
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system constructing someone’s personality101. It is the first institution that teaches children about life and emotional intimacy. It is also the place where children firstly learn about the stereotype, role of gender, and how to socialize with others before they interact with the various and complex group of society.
The existence of women in the family is also undeniably the factor through which the transformation of patriarchal domination can be achieved. The nurturing by his mother and maternal grandmother has unleashed the “I” from the trap of hegemonic patriarchal system. They bring him out of the box of the black tradition. Despite his undeniable conscious desire to embrace the system in his attitude, he is always capable of repressing and turning back to the noble attitudes that are different from the black man masculinity images. This is achieved because of the guidance and education given by his mother and maternal grandmother.
Therefore, indeed women have very fundamental position to develop the awareness of the men towards gender equity. Their position is very significant to influence and reconstruct the existing patriarchal paradigm. This is not only proven to the case of Obama, but also to another black man whose life was more strongly afflicted to the patriarchal norm than Obama, such as Malcolm X102.
Malcolm X, who used to be considered as the misogynist, changes into someone who behaves according to the spirit of equity because of a woman103. Malcolm’s
101 John Bradshaw in bell hooks, We Real Cool Black Man; Black Man and Masculinity (Routledge, New York, 2004) 96 102 Nina Bosnicova, Malcolm X and the Fair Sex: Representation of Women in Malcolm X’s Autobiography” unpublished Master Thesis on the Department of English and American Studies Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague, 2006. 103 Yuri Kochiyama “The Impact Of Malcolm X On Asian-American Politics And Activism” in James Jennings, ED., Blacks, Latinos and Asians in Urban America: Status and Prospect For Politics and Activism (London: Praegen, 1994) 29-41
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transformation is achieved because of his wife, Betty, who patiently accompanies him and shares his happiness and sadness.
The analysis on Obama’s life narratives has confirmed the theory of visionary feminism from bell hooks. It proves that a man, even black man whom historically sexist, is potential to change and believe in the spirit of gender equity.
It also demonstrates that women’s position is very crucial in encouraging the transforming man to maintain his trust in the spirit of equity. The purpose of changing the community from the patriarchal to the egalitarian one is a possible mission when woman and man cooperate and engage in harmonious relation.
Obama, his mother, his maternal grandmother, Michele, and his daughters are the interlocking agents promoting the spirit of gender equity.
Nevertheless, the theory from bell hooks is not sufficient to work beyond the focus of gender equity from the narrative. This limitation occurs because the theory is mainly based on the case study of gender discrimination and class oppression on working-class black woman and man of American society. It is not equipped with certain sensitivity to identify or explain another social problem extended from the two categories, for example the case on a mixed race of black and white man. Therefore, this theory cannot expose the psychological conflict that a man of mixed race or “mulatto” may experience as he yearns for his identity and non-stereotyped gender relation. It is also incapable of explaining or theorizing the interplay of race, gender, and class issue, for the “mulatto” coming from the American middle class family. The theory only hits the issue that cooperation between man and woman from black society is important and feasible to create gender equity without considering the existence of “the hybrid man” and
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his problematic situation living between the white middle class caretakers and black world. Thus, it is expected that the next research focusing on Obama’s narratives continues this embryonic research by incorporating another theory such as Fanon’s theory in his book Black Man White Mask and Wretched of the Earth to sharpen the analysis.
Fanon believes that “race” is not biologically constructed. It appears through social construct by the powerful agencies. Race, he mentions, is a historically constructed phenomenon and culturally mediated artifact. It appears as the result of simultaneity of “colonizer” and the “colonized” from the colonial time. Since the time, there is a fact that white man considered their race as superior to black men. As they want to prove that they are better and higher in many things they need to put a firm line to differentiate them from ‘the rest’. They tried to lay the difference in institutions like religion, education and economic. In such institution they describe themselves as virtue, smart, and one who possess the wealthy. Rich, beautiful, handsome, intelligent, good, and merciful will always be the white. As the consequence, black were incapable of resisting the dominant domination as they are inexperienced and lack of ‘knowledge’ to refute back upon the white. Thus, they surrender to receive the stenotype that full of contradictory quality of the white fellow.
Fanon elucidates that “colonial” culture may maintain the hierarchy relation between the “colonizers/white” and “colonized/black” by replacing indigenous stories and cultures with the one newly constructed with the racial ideologies. Through religious constitution, for instance, the white/colonizer equated darkness with evil and inhumanity. This tends to instill submission
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feeling to the superior, angelic, white. Later, these are transferred and internalized into psyches and structures of society through the cultural component of language that will always jail them under the hegemony of the white.
This un-biological construct has been buried in most of Blacks’ mind as a solid constrain that makes them difficult to run. Their body has always become a prison whenever they have to mingle with other people outside their community.
In the white world, they encounter difficulties in the development of his bodily mental pattern. A consciousness over their body for them is solely a negating activity. The white world banned any black from all participation and suggests them to behave like they expected to behave, to act inferior and obedient under the white’s order.
Thus, in order to be accepted, the black have to turn themselves like the white or be part of them by any possible means. Many of the black women and
“mullato” wish to marry with a white man. The “mullato” women do not want to fall into the ugliness by marrying a black man. They want to make their position strong in the civilization by having the white man beside them. Meanwhile, many of the black women bleach their body and mind in order to be liked by white men.
She will submit everything to the white men she love and never ask or demand anything from him, except of the whiteness in her life. She will never value whether the white man is handsome or ugly because the most important thing is he has blue eye, blond hair and white skin.
The black man does the same as the black woman, to find love from the white woman. It is also based on the stigma that someone we love will always determine and strengthen their manhood. They also have to seek the sanctuary
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from the existing superior white man and his power. The love and admiration given from others, the white women, to him will meet the valuable position as he sees the world. As a white women falls in love with a black man, It proves that he is worthy of a white love and acknowledgement that he is loved as a white man being loved. Thus, it makes the black man becomes a white man. He marries white culture, white beauty and white whiteness.
Fanon, in his theories, also reminds us that racism always becomes the determinant principle of society. It permeated in most of social institutions. It created the super structural effect of economic base.
Therefore within the boundary of theories promoted by hooks and Fanon, a comprehensive and elaborated close reading to the narrative will be achieved. It can reveal the aspect of race, gender, and class better, in regard to the fact that
Fanon writes his theory with his perspective as a mixed race black man, “mulato”.
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