Mammy stereotype

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A mammy is a U.S. historical stereotype depicting women of African descent, usually enslaved, who did domestic work, including nursing children. The fictionalized mammy character is often visualized as a dark-skinned woman with a motherly personality. The origin of the mammy figure stereotype is rooted in the history of slavery in the United States, as enslaved women were often tasked with domestic and childcare work in American slave-holding households. The mammy caricature was used to create a narrative of women of African descent being content within the institution of slavery among domestic servitude. The mammy stereotype associates African-American women with domestic roles, and it has been argued that it, alongside racial segregation and discrimination, limited job opportunities for Black American women during the Jim Crow era (1877 to 1966).

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