 They were characterized as strong, masculine workhorses who labored with black men in the fields or as aggressive women who drove their children and partners away with their overbearing natures.Her assertive demeanor identifies her with the Mammy, but unlike the Mammy, she is devoid of maternal compassion and understanding.One social scientist has claimed that black women's dominance and matriarchal status within their families, rather than discriminatory social policies and economic inequalities, were responsible for the unemployment and the emasculation of black men, which ultimately resulted in poverty, single parenthood, and the production of criminally inclined, academically low-achieving black children.