Thick: And Other Essays

by Tressie McMillan Cottom

There is indeed a philosophy in how Jones desires being desired. That Nyong’o was atop a list of the world’s most beautiful people does not invalidate the reality for many dark-skinned black women any more than Mark Zuckerburg making a billion dollars as a college drop-out invalidates the value of college for millions. Indeed, any system of oppression must allow exceptions to validate itself as meritorious.

Femininity is not about biological sex, but about the traits that have become ascribed to biological sex. And this set of traits carries a set of ideas and histories contingent upon the economics and politics of any given time. You cannot separate what it means to be a “woman,” often used to mean a performance of acceptable femininity, from the conditions that decide what is and is not acceptable across time and space. We all do this kind of performance of ourselves, be it our gender or race or social class or national identity or culture. As we are doing it, we are always negotiating with powerful ideas about what constitutes a woman.