At the Intersection of Racism and Sexism are Black Women
- Iesha
- Aug 8, 2020
- 12 min read
"There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives."
- Audre Lorde
Black Women possess two identities yet are often being forced to choose between these two, being Black and being a woman. The recognition that they are Black, but ignoring that they are women erase what they go through as Black Women. The recognition that they are women, but ignoring that they are Black erase what they go through as Black Women. Hence, my reasoning for capitalizing the "B" and "W" when using "Black Women" because both parts of the identity are crucial when acknowledging and understanding Black Women. Yet these two identities are seen as mutually exclusive and that is where the problem lies. What Black Women go through involves being discriminated based on race, sex and the combination of them both. Just like their identities should not be seen as separate, neither should their discrimination.
Intersectionality
I keep saying "what Black Women go through" and mentioned discrimination in regards to being a Black Woman, but what exactly does that mean? To answer that, we have to look at what sexism and misogyny is and how it coincides with racism.
Sexism is prejudice, discrimination, and stereotyping on the basis of someone's sex and the idea that one sex is superior to another, mostly expressed and used towards girls and women. Misogyny is the dislike, hostility, denigration, and violence against women, especially when women do not adhere to the patriarchal norms and expectations of what women "should be".
Sexism is systemic and misogyny is systematic. This means that sexism is institutional and structural, affecting every part of our society. Misogyny is the method or plan that carries out sexism, mostly done more explicitly. Believing that leadership is a man’s role is sexist. Objectifying women is misogynistic. All sexists are not misogynists: one can believe stereotypes about women but not have a disdain for women. However all misogynists are sexists: the dislike and hostility towards women is developed from the fear that women who fight against the rules of a patriarchal society will dismantle it and ruin the benefits, they believe, men should have.
So what exactly does sexism and misogyny have to do with racism? They intersect with one another. Think of it like this: the area where two or more roads meet and cross, you call it an intersection. In this case, we have three roads: sexism, misogyny, and racism. These roads are meeting and then merging into one another. Right at the center of the intersection are Black Women. This is known as intersectionality, a word coined by professor Kimberle Crenshaw. She defines the word in a 2018 interview as a "metaphor for understanding the ways that multiple ways of inequality or disadvantage sometimes compound themselves and they create obstacles that often are not understood within conventional ways of thinking about anti-racism or feminism or whatever social justice advocacy structures we have." The conventional ways of thinking that Crenshaw is mentioning is looking at these structures as just one problem.
"Black women are regarded either as too much like women or Blacks and the compounded nature of their experience is absorbed into the collective experiences of either group or as too different, in which case Black women's Blackness or femaleness sometimes has placed their needs and perspectives at the margin of the feminist and Black liberationist agendas." - Kimberle Crenshaw (1989)
When it comes to social justice issues that affect Black Women, it is usually not ONLY a race problem, or ONLY a gender problem. It is often times both, and that is not really understood by those who view race and gender issues as mutually exclusive issues, which lead to those believing that one cannot affect the other. Often when speaking about the struggles of women, it is based on white womanhood, and white womanhood only, and paints it as the universal experience for ALL women. The same goes for struggles of Black people, where the experience is based of Black men, and paints is as the universal experience for ALL Black people.
Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antiracist Politics by Crenshaw focuses on the multidimensionality of the Black Women experience by referring to how the courts, feminists, and civil rights thinkers have not been able to grasp the Black Women experience. She wrote her critique in 1989 and is still just as relevant today.
Misogynoir
When sexism, misogyny, and racism intersect with one another to create a different type of discrimination that affect Black Women, it is called misogynoir. This is a word coined by Moya Bailey and is characterized by the tropes and stereotypes that exist about Black Women and are pushed onto them. These common tropes are the Mammy, the Jezebel, the Angry Black Woman, and the Strong Black Woman. Let's look into these and why they are harmful.
The Mammy stereotype is rooted in the history of slavery where African-American women were given the role of cooking, cleaning, and caring for slave owner's children.This transitioned into the Reconstruction Era where Black Women were finding jobs that involved the same line of work. The reason for this is because Black Women were (and are) looked at as the caregivers of white people. Going to school in the city, I notice how the caregivers of white toddlers are almost always Black Women. This is far from a coincidence.
The Mammy is a caregiver: warm, nurturing, supporting, and, most importantly, selfless. So selfless that she does not have a family of her own, and the only family that she knows and has is the white family. If she does have a family, she is more nurturing to the white family than she is to her own. She's a great example of a maternal idea ... only to white families though. She is usually darkskin, overweight, and older than those she is caring for (50s and up). Yet the romanticized idea of a Mammy that we have seen portrayed in the media is just that: an idea, a figment of white people's imagination. While African-American women were given a domestic role, it was usually YOUNG Black Women, not "grandmotherly types" like we are used to seeing. Writer and political commentator Melissa Harris-Perry argued this, saying that the domestic servants were re-imagined as soothing, calm, and consenting, most likely to show some sort of justification and righteousness in slavery.
The Mammy demonstrates a deference to white authority, where Black Women will always be seen as submissive to white people. This stereotype displays "white comfort" or "white fragility", where it is ensured that white people are not offended or taken aback as well as accommodating them by being inferior to them. When the Mammy is warm and nurturing, it is usually to make sure white people are not insulted and upset.
This trope does not allow Black Women to be more assertive and refrains them to only being able to be nice and understanding. When Black Women display emotions other than kindness, they are then seen as aggressive, hostile, and, a word commonly used to describe Black Women in such an instance, angry. This trope works as being seen as a "good one", where it is the opposite of how Black Women usually seen, which is being ghetto, ratchet, or overly sexual, but still causes harm. How Black Women are usually seen though leads to the next trope.
The Jezebel stereotype is where Black Women are seen as voraciously sexual, innately promiscuous, and the idea that Black women always desire sex. This idea originated from when the Europeans first landed in Africa and saw semi-nude African Women, as well as seeing tribal dances and thinking of them as "pagan orgies". Viewing this led Europeans to believe that African Women were immoral and tainted, the opposite of what they expected their European Christian women to be. Additionally, because of their immoral actions and taintedness, African Women were more likely to be dishonest. Because of this, it gave the "excuse" of African-American slaves being raped by their slave owners, being that rape simply did not exist for African-American slaves because they always desired sex, and gave the "excuse" of not trusting Black Women because their inability to be chaste makes them liars. These thoughts have contributed to the idea that rape is natural, that sexism is natural.
The Jezebel stereotype is why Black Women are more vulnerable to sexual violence and sexual exploitation because of the fact that they are hypersexualized. Black Women are automatically seen as being promiscuous without mentioning their sexual activity, or even engaging in sexual activity. If a Black Woman is raped or sexual assaulted, their credibility is automatically doubted.
This trope assists the adultification of Black Girls. Adultification at the surface is the act of dehumanizing children, robbing them of their childhood and innocence. However when it comes to Black Girls, adultification is a "social or cultural stereotype that is based on how adults perceive children in the absence of knowledge of children's behavior and verbalizations" which is based on race (Epstein, Blake, Gonzalez). The perception of Black Women as sexual beings continues on to Black Girls, where they are hypersexualized at an age as young as five. The fact that Black Girls go through puberty at a faster rate than white girls, thus are perceived as older, only contributes to their adultification. Puberty is a NATURAL stage and the fact that even that is stripped away from Black Girls and is seen as "sexual" and "too grown" is unfortunately seen as normal. Black Girls are not seen as children, but are almost instinctively seen as adults simply because of their color.
"Compared to white girls of the same age, survey participants perceive that Black Girls need less nurturing, need less protection, need to be supported less, need to be comforted less, are more independent, know more about adult topics, know more about sex." - Epstein, Blake, & Gonzalez (2017)
White women can explore their sexuality and are told that they are "empowering", that they are "liberating", that they are breaking societal norms because white is pure, white is innocence. Black women do not have the liberty to do the same because of the inability to be in control of their sexuality, which is due to this trope created by the Europeans and their European ideals from over 200 years ago.
Black Women are hypersexualized since the age of five ... this trope controls Black Women.
This cartoon was published in 2018 by cartoonist Mark Knight in Australia's The Herald Sun after the U.S Open Final on September 8th, 2018. It displays Serena Williams, throwing a tantrum, with the umpire asking Naomi Osaka, "Can you just let her win?". Williams is drawn with a wide nose and large lips and Osaka is drawn with a light skintone and blonde hair. Knight said he drew the cartoon in response to seeing Williams lash out and thought it was interesting to draw. Yet there is no denying that his drawing has racist and sexist depictions.
Williams does not have such a wide nose nor does she have large lips and looks like a caricature from the Jim Crow Era. Osaka is extremely whitewashed, being that she is not that light nor does she have blonde hair, and paints her as the complete opposite of Williams: innocent, heroic, and in her place. The fact that Knight chose to draw her with these characteristics is not a coincidence, as we know that white is always seen as "innocent". Williams is depicted as an Angry Black Woman.
Amos n Andy, a radio show with an almost all white cast that mocked Black people, introduced us to the Sapphire stereotype, based on the character Sapphire Stevens. The Sapphire stereotype is the early version of the Angry Black Woman stereotype. Sapphire paints Black Women as angry and difficult, and often thought to emasculate Black men in relationships. With the emasculation of Black men happening at the hands of Sapphire, this puts the blame on Black women for their matriarchal status in the family instead of on the socio-economic policies that have affected the Black community for more than hundreds of years. A stereotype, created by white men, went on to be used to hurt Black Women and transition into the greater known stereotype we know today, the Angry Black Woman. The Angry Black Woman stereotype is one that punishes Black Women for voicing their concerns by painting them as aggressive, rude, loud, hostile, which encourages them to stay unseen, unheard, and passive. After the U.S Open, Williams was fined $17,000 for her behavior, the same behavior that is exhibited by male tennis players but never penalized. There is clearly a sex bias here, where men are allowed to be angry, but women must always be positive. However the racial bias here is clear as well. Williams tried defending herself and displayed irritation and anger but instead was given code violations and fined for attempting to voice her concern and displaying anger, a very natural emotion. Her refusal to stay silent and repress her emotions cost her. This is nothing new to Black Women.
The need to tell Black Women to come across more passive and speak in a more gentle tone can be seen everywhere: in the workplace, at school, even in our normal conversations. The need to accommodate for white feelings is at play here, as well as the need to accommodate for EVERYONE's feelings but the feelings of Black Women. The thought of not wanting to come across as offensive, but wanting to stay direct at a work meeting. The thought of not wanting to be seen with an attitude, but wanting your feelings and concerns to be validated and taken seriously.
"Outspoken" is for white women... Black women get labeled "angry". - Dr. Lovelee
Passion is misinterpreted as being angry, emotional, and sassy. Black Women are then looked at as being unreasonable and irrational, with their feelings being invalidated. Being aware that emotional displays are met with resistance, Black Women become desensitized to their own feelings, unable to express themselves in a healthy manner, and suppress so many emotions. All of this can lead to stress, anxiety, and depression, leaving a negative toll on mental and physical health. However suppression comes across as another word Black Women know too well: strong.
The Strong Black Woman trope, unlike the other tropes we have covered, was created by Black Women as a coping mechanism to go against the harmful stereotypes of Black woman and is usually taken as a compliment. The Strong Black Woman is seen as a superhuman. She is unbreakable, does not tolerate any BS, nurturing, disregards her own needs, and has met extreme hardships and obstacles that she has proven to be immune to.
The Strong Black Woman is like the Mammy, only enhanced. She is a responsible, independent, self-denying caregiver in their own homes and communities who takes no nonsense. And no matter how difficult life may turn out, she always comes out okay. At first glance, all of this seems all positive. But ultimately, it has caused more harm than good.
Firstly, this trope implies that there is no need for systemic change for Black Women because they are strong enough to handle it all. We know this is false by just examining how racism and sexism affect Black Women. Secondly, because of this trope Black Women are "strong beings", they are "independent beings", they are "fighters", anything that deals with strength ... but they are not seen as HUMAN beings. Portraying strength but having the increased likelihood of experiencing, and then concealing, trauma leads to Black Women being less likely to ask for help and seek treatment. Dealing with racism and sexism is enough trauma for Black Women ... having to hide and suppress HUMAN emotions and adhere to surreal expectations (i.e. having to work twice as hard to outperform their white colleagues) is more trauma.
The idea of Black Women being strong affects them in mental health, physical health, and even in education. Concealing trauma and emotions and not having a healthy way to express them results in anxiety and depression. Yet with the stigmatization of mental health in the Black community, instead of seeking professional help, seeking to self-medication and isolation is the answer for most. Admitting to needing help regarding mental health is seen as a sign of weakness. The fear of appearing weak is too deafening for many Black Women. In regards of physical health, Black Women are less likely to be believed about pain than white women, thus being less likely to receive pain medication. This has been written in medical books, where they claim that Black people have a higher pain threshold than white people, and these medical books are still used today. This trope also contributes in the adutification of Black Girls, where their pain and suffering is disregarded and are seen as needing less protection and nurturing. Black Girls are more likely to get suspended than white girls the same age because of the fact that they are seen as more strong.
Colorism
It is important to note how colorism takes part in all of these tropes. Where the Mammy and Angry Black Woman are mostly represented by darkskin Black Women, the Jezebel is mostly represented by lightskin Black Women. Darkskin Black Women are seen as being more aggressive, difficult and domineering, such as Pam from Martin, whereas lightskin Black Women are seen as being more sexual and attractive, such as Foxy Brown from Foxy Brown. The Strong Black Woman, while can be represented by all Black Women, is mostly represented by darkskin Black Women because if they are not angry and difficult, then they are strong and bold.
Black Women have dual identities. To ignore one or the other, ignores the oppression that comes from each identity and in turn creates an one-sided narrative of Black Women's experience that will always be false. To view our experience as one that is universal for all women and all Black people is harming and paints it as something not worth acknowledging. Acknowledge the Black Women's experience. Acknowledge Black Women.
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