Race intensifies the experience of gender in the United States, and is the dominant factor in determining a person's position in society. The nonwhite population in America has historically been disproportionately represented in the lower stratum of society, regardless of gender: "White supremacist, capitalist, and patriarchal structures unfolded in a complex, historically contingent manner in which racialization fundamentally shaped the class- and gender-specific experiences of both the white and nonwhite populations" (Almaguer 209). In exploring the gender experiences of women of color, it is clear that race played an important role in the degree of discrimination to which they were subjected.
The fundamental basis for gender discrimination is the patriarchal authority that pervades American culture. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries this form of authority dominated the legal system as well. According to Dill, women in early America were valued for their "reproductive labor in the domestic sphere" and thus, were accorded public and private protection in support of their roles as wives, mothers, and daughters (215). A woman's place was in the home because of her ability to reproduce children who would, in turn, provide assistance in family-run businesses such as farms or shops. Women in early America were only allowed to participate in the labor force when family survival necessitated it. With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, women's roles changed. The economic productivity of the patriarch was no longer centered on the home, thereby eliminating the necessity of child labor. Nevertheless, women were expected to provide a nurturing home atmosphere for the male breadwinner: "Tied to the notion of wife as homemaker is the definition of masculinity in which the husband's successful role performance was measured by his ability to keep his wife in the homemaker role" (Dill 217).
Nonwhite women in ea...