4. Black Women and Work in Nineteenth- Century Canada West: Black Woman Teacher Mary Bibb

Author(s):  
Afua P. Cooper
Author(s):  
Daina Ramey Berry ◽  
Nakia D. Parker

This chapter analyzes the lives of enslaved women in the nineteenth-century United States and the Caribbean, an era characterized by the massive expansion of the institution of chattel slavery. Framing the discussion through the themes of labor, commodification, sexuality, and resistance, this chapter highlights the wide range of lived experiences of enslaved women in the Atlantic World. Enslaved women’s productive and reproductive labor fueled the global machinery of capitalism and the market economy. Although enslaved women endured the constant exploitation and commodification of their bodies, many actively resisted their enslavement and carved out supportive and sustaining familial, marital, and kinship bonds. In addition, this essay explains how white, native, and black women could be complicit in the perpetuation of chattel slavery as enslavers and slave traders. Considering women in their roles as the oppressed and the oppressors contributes and expands historical understandings of gender and sexuality in relation to slavery.


2021 ◽  
pp. 009579842110212
Author(s):  
Martinque K. Jones ◽  
Tanisha G. Hill-Jarrett ◽  
Kyjeila Latimer ◽  
Akilah Reynolds ◽  
Nekya Garrett ◽  
...  

The Strong Black Woman (SBW) schema has been consistently linked to negative mental health outcomes among Black women. However, few have begun to explicate the mechanisms by which the endorsement of the SBW schema may influence mental health outcomes. Accordingly, the current study examined coping styles (social support, disengagement, spirituality, and problem-oriented/engagement) as mediators in the association between endorsement of the SBW schema and depressive symptoms in a sample of Black women. Data from 240 Black women ( Mage = 22.0, SD = 4.0 years) were collected assessing SBW schema endorsement, coping styles, and depressive symptoms. Parallel multiple mediation analysis was conducted using PROCESS Macro. Of the four coping styles examined, disengagement coping partially mediated the association between greater endorsement of the SBW schema and greater depressive symptoms. Study findings add depth to our understanding of the association between the SBW schema and mental health outcomes and lend themselves to research and clinical implications.


2018 ◽  
pp. 83-107
Author(s):  
Ralina L. Joseph

Chapter 3 examines showrunner Shonda Rhimes’ twenty-first century Black respectability politics through the form of strategic ambiguity. Joseph traces Rhimes’ performance of strategic ambiguity first in the pre-Obama era when she stuck to a script of colorblindness, and a second in the #BlackLivesMatter moment when she called out racialized sexism and redefined Black female respectability. In the shift from the pre-Obama era to the #BlackLivesMatter era, this chapter asks: how did Rhimes’ careful negotiation of the press demonstrate that, in the former moment, to be a respectable Black woman was to perform strategic ambiguity, or not speak frankly about race, while in the latter, respectable Black women could and must engage in racialized self-expression, and redefine the bounds of respectability?


Author(s):  
Linda Steiner

This chapter use theories of status politics (conflicts as proxies for important debates over the deference paid to a particular group’s lifestyle) to show the importance of nineteenth-century suffragists’ own newspapers and magazines to the movement. The women who wrote for, edited, and published these outlets essentially invented and then celebrated at least four different versions of a new political woman and then proceeded to dramatize that new woman, showing how she named herself, dressed, dealt with her family, and interacted in the larger public sphere, and showing why she deserved the vote. The pre-Civil War suffrage periodicals essentially proposed a “sensible woman” while the postwar period saw competition between the “strong-minded” women aggressively promoted in the Revolution and the more moderate “responsible women” advocated by the Woman’s Journal. Later, the Woman’s Era dramatized an “earnest” new black woman.


Author(s):  
Terrion L. Williamson

For commentators concerned with black cultural production in the contemporary era, there are few images more controversial than the angry black woman, particularly as it is reproduced within the confines of reality television. This chapter traces the lineage of the angry black woman back to key black feminist texts of the 1970s, arguing that the trope emerges out of a distinct sociopolitical history that was codified within both public policy and popular culture throughout the decade. Blaxploitation films became the site where black women’s anger was most visibly commodified, even as black women involved in an emergent black feminist movement worked to combat withering social commentaries that included Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s matriarchy thesis and sexist takedowns of black women writers like Ntozake Shange and Michele Wallace.


Author(s):  
Alisha Gaines

Chapter Three considers the political, racial, and social crises plaguing the late 1960s by reading Soul Sister, Grace Halsell’s 1969 memoir. A freelance journalist and a White House staff writer for the Lyndon B. Johnson administration, Halsell was also a protégé of John Howard Griffin, who famously passed for black in 1959. While previous scholarship on Griffin has wrestled with his place as an enduring icon of racial empathy, this chapter details Griffin’s previously unknown mentorship of Halsell. Bolstered by extensive archival research, this chapter demonstrates how Halsell prepared for her performance of black womanhood by relying exclusively on Griffin’s instruction without any advice from black women. The chapter also situates Halsell’s blackness within important discussions around the contentious relationship between racial equality and 2nd wave feminism. Ultimately, Halsell’s six-months as a black woman in Harlem and Mississippi during the burgeoning black power movement ironically reveals grotesque assumptions about black sexuality, authenticity, and class.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (s1) ◽  
pp. 107-107
Author(s):  
Maha Baalbaki

OBJECTIVES/SPECIFIC AIMS: Black women experience discrimination that targets their intersecting gender and ethnic identities, termed gendered racism (Essed, 1991). The gendered racism Black women experience has been linked to negative mental health outcomes (Thomas etal., 2008). The ‘strong Black woman’ is a cultural symbol of strength depicting the Black woman as unwavered by hardships, such as gendered racism (Shorter-Gooden & Washington, 1996). However, recent research suggests that belief in the strong Black woman cultural construct is associated with negative mental health outcomes (Watson & Hunter, 2015). The goals of the current study were to (1) replicate previous findings suggesting that experiences with gendered racism is positively correlated with psychological distress, (2) replicate previous findings suggesting that belief in the strong Black woman construct is positively correlated with psychological distress, and (3) explore how experiences with gendered racism and belief in the strong Black woman construct might interact to predict distress. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: A national sample of 112 Black women completed an online survey via MTurk. Survey measures included the Gendered Racial Microaggressions Scale, Strong Black Woman Cultural Construct Scale, and Psychological Distress Scale. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: Pearson correlation revealed that experiences with gendered racism was positively correlated with psychological distress, r = 0.23, p = .02. Pearson correlation also revealed that belief in the strong Black woman cultural construct was positively correlated with psychological distress, r = 0.39, p < .001. Multiple linear regression revealed an interaction between experiences with gendered racism and belief in the strong Black woman construct (β = -0.18, p = .04) that predicted psychological distress, R2 = .20, F(3,108) = 8.63, p < .01. Namely, for those with high belief in the strong Black woman construct, experiences with gendered racism did not predict distress, β = -0.31, t = -0.29, p = .78. However, for those with low belief in the construct, experiences with gendered racism positively predicted distress, β = -2.57, t = 2.31, p = .02. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF IMPACT: The results underscore the harmful effects of gendered racism and gendered racial stereotypes on Black women’s mental health outcomes. Striving to appear as the strong Black woman is not likely to help Black women overcome daily hardships. In fact, belief in the strong Black woman construct is likely to add extra difficulties.


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