Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Tina K. Sacks
Keyword(s):  
Health Outcome ◽  
Black Women ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Gender Discrimination ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Healthcare Settings ◽  
And Gender

Invisible Visits tells the story of middle class Black women whose experiences of race and gender discrimination in healthcare settings are all but overlooked in social science research. The book uses interviews and focus groups to analyze how the perception of bias and stereotyping affect healthcare for Black women who are not poor but remain socially and economically vulnerable nonetheless. The introduction argues that these women anticipate being stereotyped and often feel they have to emphasize hard won skills, like their education or careers, to push back against their physician’s biased or discriminatory views. This chapter also presents data on healthcare and health outcome disparities among Black middle class women. In so doing, it lays the groundwork for the remainder of the book.

Invisible Visits

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tina K. Sacks
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Gender Discrimination ◽  
The United States ◽  
Negative Stereotypes ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Healthcare Settings ◽  
Exam Room ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Gender

Although the United States spends almost one-fifth of all its resources on funding healthcare, the American system is dogged by persistent inequities in the treatment of racial and ethnic minorities and women. Invisible Visits analyzes how Black women navigate the complexities of dealing with doctors in this environment. It challenges the idea that race and gender discrimination, particularly in healthcare settings, is a thing of the past. In telling the stories of Black women who are middle class, Invisible Visits also questions the persistent myth that discrimination only affects racial minorities who are poor. In so doing, Invisible Visits expands our understanding of how Black middle-class women are treated when they go to the doctor and why they continue to face inequities in securing proper medical care. The book also analyzes the strategies Black women use to fight for the best treatment and the toll that these adaptations take on their health. Invisible Visits shines a light on how women perceive the persistently negative stereotypes that follow them into the exam room and makes the bold claim that simply providing more cultural competency or anti-bias training to doctors is insufficient to overcome the problem. For Americans to really address these challenges, we must first reckon with how deeply embedded discrimination is in our prized institutions, including healthcare. Invisible Visits tells the story of Black women in their own words and forces us to consider their experiences in the context of America’s fraught history of structural discrimination.

“Looking Good and Sounding Right”

2010 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 349-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine L. Williams ◽  
Catherine Connell
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Gender Discrimination ◽  
Retail Stores ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Labor Practices ◽  
Job Segregation ◽  
Aesthetic Labor ◽  
Consumer Interests ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Retail Workers

Upscale retail stores prefer to hire class-privileged workers because they embody particular styles and mannerisms that match their specialized brands. Yet retail jobs pay low wages and offer few benefits. How do these employers attract middle-class workers to these bad jobs? Drawing on interviews with retail workers and Bourdieu’s theory of habitus, the authors find that employers succeed by appealing to their consumer interests. The labor practices we identify contribute to the re-entrenchment of job segregation, race and gender discrimination, and fetishism of consumption. The conclusion argues against rewarding aesthetic labor and suggests other rationales for upgrading low-wage retail employment.

Sexual Harassment in Healthcare: A Psychological Perspective

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dana Kabat-Farr ◽  
Ellen Crumley
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Harassment ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Gold Standard ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Psychological Perspective ◽  
Healthcare Settings ◽  
Coping Process ◽  
Standard Response

Social science research shows that sexual harassment is still occurring in the modern workplace, including in healthcare settings. This article discusses sexual harassment in healthcare from a psychological perspective, identifying unique contextual factors in nursing that may influence harassment experiences, such as sexual harassment to protect status, the healthcare hierarchy, and the challenges of reporting. We highlight the faults of using official reporting of harassment as the “gold standard” response and explain the range of responses victims may take as part of their coping process. Also included are recommendations for improving organizational cultures to address sexual harassment, and implications for future research.

Black mothers’ experiences of violence in Rio de Janeiro

2012 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luciane de Oliveira Rocha
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Black Men ◽  
African Diaspora ◽  
Gender Discrimination ◽  
Rio De Janeiro ◽  
Black Mothers ◽  
Urban Violence ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Main Components

This exploratory essay approaches gendered aspects of anti-black violence through the experiences of black mothers whose children were the victims of homicide in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Commonly understood to primarily affect black men, urban violence in Brazil has less-visible effects on black women. Their struggles to survive encompass not only their own fights against poverty, discrimination, and race and gender discrimination, but it also entails the consequences of violent acts perpetrated or facilitated by the state upon black men in their families. However, these experiences are either invisibilized or not taken into consideration in traditional analyses of violence. How can black women’s experiences deepen the analysis of anti-black violence and enrich African diaspora studies? Do the violent deaths of their relatives contribute to black women’s radicalization and activism? What are the main components of their political struggles? This essay addresses these issues in the framework of African diaspora scholarship and black feminist theory.

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