Another Four Women: AfroCubana Entrepreneurs as Womanist Praxis

BackgroundBlack women are underrepresented in engineering and face barriers as a result of their race and gender. While existing research often focuses on strategies Black women can adopt to become successful engineers, this study asks how engineering institutions might change to better accommodate Black women.PurposeThe specific purpose of this study is to explore the following questions: (a) How does the educational environment in engineering marginalize Black women in ways that are beyond their control? (b) How can institutions transform their policies and practices to improve Black women's experiences and participation in engineering?Design/MethodI conducted interviews with 12 Black women studying engineering at one university. Informed by critical race theory and sociological theories of race, a constructivist grounded theoretical approach was used to identify and refine common themes across interviews.ResultsThe findings explore the ways Black women describe their marginalization. Common themes include an acute sense of isolation, grappling with hypervisibility, difficulties forming study groups, and regular exposure to microaggressions.ConclusionsBy drawing attention directly to Black women's stories and experiences, this study offers ways to begin thinking about how institutions can adopt policies to recruit and retain more Black women in engineering. Strategies discussed include promoting new messages of inclusivity in engineering, supporting and creating “counterspaces,” and encouraging engineering educators to create student study groups and recognize microaggressions.

Editors' Note Karen Powell Sears and Stacey L. Brown Recent public health, political, cultural, economic, and environmental changes have refocused public attention on women's intimacy, sexuality, family, and relationship experiences. While academic research in these areas increased in recent years, our understanding of Black women's experiences remains limited. Research and public discourse have often framed Black women's lives through a "problem and pathology" prism. In popular culture, a functional classroom to the masses, essentialist tropes of Black womanhood persist offering contemporary spins on historical notions of our sub-humanity reflected in exaggerations of our power, understatements of our vulnerability and denied evidence of our joy and pain. The storied history of academic research about Black women reflects patterns seen in the public sphere. Across disciplines Black women have been understudied and frequently misrepresented. The dearth of research about our organic needs and desires reflect the priorities of the gatekeeping power structures that define and govern the parameters of knowledge deemed scientific and worthy. We recognize that the opportunity to focus on Black women's experience- in the academy and in general social discourse- in ways that is celebratory and uninhibited is a rarely granted privilege. All too often definitions about what is worthy and valid knowledge reflects the same unequal power structures that question Black women's value outside of the academy. It has often been the case that "worthy science" reflects "outsider" imaginations at the exclusion of Black women's insider knowledge. Black and African Diasporic women continue to experience dramatic and rapid shifts in family/intimacy patterns worldwide. With global changes in Black and African Diasporic women's family and relationship formation patterns, discourse in sociology, psychology, Black Studies and Women Studies suggest a need for additional theoretical and methodological perspectives. [End Page 1] The need to engage these issues is of particular concern as crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, climate instability, and persistent anti–Black racism pose obvious threats to Black women's lives health and sense of wellbeing in the global context. This special issue attempts to respond to this need by exploring the nuanced experiences of Black women's sexuality, intimacy, and leadership from Black scholars from a range of fields including psychology, sociology, Black studies and women's studies. We are grateful for the courage and determination of academic pioneers, past and present, who have broken through erected institutional boundaries to share the insider stories of Black women's experiences. This volume is a collection of such pioneers, who offer new and renewed perspectives, illuminate social patterns that have been obscured and celebrate a range of Black women's humanity. The authors in this collection explore diverse meanings and constructions of intimacy, sexuality, relationships and satisfaction and contemplate Black women's vulnerability in ways that resist narratives of pathology and make visible offer powerful re-conceptualizations of Black women's humanity. [End Page 2] Copyright © 2023 James C. Wadley

Exploring Black women's experiences of consent to vaginal examination during labour.

In Vintage: Families of Value (1995) Anita Jones proclaims, have chose to do like my mother and be a warrior... 'cause I'm a lesbian. My life has evolved around women being sensual, and I rather enjoy it. Speaking forthrightly to the camera, Jones identifies some of the larger challenges raised by black women's lived experiences and by black feminist paradigms working to disrupt the silences surrounding black female sexualities. In Thomas Allen Harris's innovative documentary, which chronicles the lives of three sets of black queer siblings over a five-year period, the women portrayed--Adrian Jones, Anita Jones, Anni Cammett, and Vanessa Eaddy--articulate the impact of their respective familial experiences on their mappings of sexuality and identity. Vintage, as a forum, opens a dialogue in which these women add their voices to black feminist work that redresses socio-political misconceptions of familial gender roles, matrilineal histories, and, more recently, black lesbian sexualities. Through this dialo gue the women in the film implode (a)historical renderings of black familial dysfunction as they imbue black women's experiences and sexualities with agency. By situating black women's experiences as an integral narrative of his experimental documentary, Harris's film enacts the necessity of the experience of supposedly 'ordinary' Black women whose 'unexceptional' actions (Smith and Hull xxi) become the peculiar project of a developing black queer narrative. Harris's film succeeds at appropriating the black family from its demoralized public media representation through a radical framing of the black family within a queer context. His queer depiction of the black family functions to dispel myths of its pathology by refusing to entertain its departure from a nuclear model. In its subject matter, Harris's documentary dispenses with overtly addressing structures of familial normativity imposed by hegemonic racial models. Instead, the film allows the historic racial and sexual prohibitions of the black family in the United States to be explored through the familial and sexual reclamations of the documentary's black siblings as doubly queer self -expression. Harris claims that, because few African American families conform to the patriarchal, nuclear-family model, they are depicted in popular media and government studies as amoral and in decay. Vintage cuts through these fictions of the 'vanishing' black family. Harris's film reconfigures the terms black and family in an attempt to depict the difference and diversity of meaning which these terms suggest. As a bold critical move in African American and queer cultural production, Harris's project subverts the notion of queerness as a discrete sexual identity or relation to others by taking as its focal point not the lover relationships of the queer siblings but the intra-familial, intra-racial, and class negotiations of identity and agency that each queer sibling grapples with in order to define him- or herself and his or her queer sexual desires. This broadened approach to exploring queerness is a much needed perspective if queer, as a critical model, is to prove useful beyond a select group or an essentialized sexual identity of lives and work. Harris's film, through the use of documentary, fantasy, and archival footage, theorizes as queer the contradictions and connections that the combinations of black and family and sexuality create in the United States. With many barriers set in place by the profit-motivated institution of slavery that defined for generations the destiny of a black woman's sexual being, as well as her children's, rupturing the silences and oppressions imposed on black female sexualities has been an endeavor fraught with violent revisitings and violating erasures. Over the course of the past two decades, at least since the appearance of Barbara Smith's essay Toward a Black Feminist Criticism, the process of breaking such silences through a critical black feminist perspective has been in progress. …

Mapping fertility trajectories: An endarkened narrative inquiry of Black women's fertility experiences and pathways through infertility treatment.

From intersectional invisibility to visibility: Black women in Health Disparity Data and Quantitative Intersectional Models

The prevalence of mental health issues among black women is high, but they are underrepresented among mental health service users. This article details a systematised review of the literature that explored black women's perceptions and experiences of, and barriers to, engaging with mental health services. A total of 16 articles from the UK and North America were included in the review. Four main themes were identified as presenting barriers to black women's engagement with services: mistrust; sociocultural factors; lack of awareness; and practical barriers. The intersection of gender and race was evident in the 'strong black woman' ideal, which may have hindered their recognition and disclosure of mental health conditions, as well as in practical barriers such as costs and caring responsibilities. Historical and cultural perceptions of mental health issues and healthcare services, alongside their previous negative experiences of services, may prevent many black women from accessing essential support. Nurses and other healthcare professionals have an important role in engendering trust, challenging racism and promoting positive mental health.

Despite the CROWN Act of 2022, which stands for Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair, current hair bias research and frameworks have not fully accounted for how hair microaggressions connect to Black women's experiences at work. Grounded in social identity theory and conservation of resources theory, we introduce the hair and its ramifications model, a comprehensive model on the consequences of hair-related microaggressions with a distinct focus on Black women's hair. We emphasize Black women because they are the targets of hair bias for reasons that include both their racio-ethnic status and their gender status (intersectionality), which results in their unique experience of identity threats and subsequent adverse outcomes. The hair and its ramifications model offers boundary conditions that either increase the possibility that identity threat will occur after a hair microaggression or reduce the negative impact of an identity threat on perceived inclusion. We also discuss implications related to Black women's experience when the environment devalues their natural hair and encourages them to modify their hair to meet Eurocentric standards of beauty, particularly if they want to advance within organizations. Theoretical and future research implications of the hair and its ramifications model are also offered. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Historically, Black people have, along with other forms of resistance, used aspects of dress and their appearance to defy and reject racism, oppression, and discrimination (Baxter & Marina, 2008; Ford, 2015). Black women specifically have used dress and appearance as a form of resistance to oppression and as a means for expressing their Black identity (Ford, 2015; Miller, 2016; O'Neal, 1998). To build on past work, in this thesis I examine how Black women use dress and appearance as an embodied practice and as a way to negotiate both their Black and activist identities. I focus on a particular space and time: campus life at predominantly white institutions during the Black Lives Matter movement era from 2013 to 2019. Examining Black college women's experiences on predominately white college campuses is of importance because of the historical connection between United States colleges and Black empowerment as numerous Black activist movements started either at predominately white institutions or by college-aged people (Cohen, 2018; Morgan & Davies, 2012). Understanding these experiences will add to our knowledge of how Black women continue to resist oppression and express their Black identity through dress, adding to the much-needed modern-day history of Black people. Additionally, examining Black women's experiences in research recognizes their stories as important through counterstorytelling (Bell, 1992; Delgado & Stefancic, 2017), allowing Black women to write their own history in their own voices. To achieve my purpose, I conducted in-depth interviews with photo and garment elicitation components with 15 Black women college students between the ages of 18-28 who are currently attending predominately white institutions in Iowa. Critical race theory informed my data collection and analysis processes (Bell, 1992; Delgado & Stefancic, 2017). After analysis of the data, I found that the Black women participants had significant, identity-affirming experiences at predominately white institutions in Iowa, and these experiences informed their dress and appearance practices in relation to expressions of Black and activist identities. Across the interviews, three larger themes were identified in relation to expressions of Black and activist identities: (1) experiences on campus, (2) Black identity through dress and appearance, and (3) activist identity through dress and appearance. Numerous subthemes were also identified within the larger themes. Participant quotes and images were utilized to support the themes. Much of the findings of my research were supported by past literature, including reports of Black student experiences at predominately white institutions (Chen & Hamilton, 2015;

Cervical cancer is the third most common gynecological cancer. Effective population-based cervical cancer screening programs exist, but improvements in morbidity and mortality continue to demonstrate racial disparities. For example, Black women are 41% more likely to develop cervical cancer than White women and are 75% more likely to die from it. It is therefore important to understand whether these inequities in cervical cancer outcomes are related to differential access and uptake of screening programs. In this systematic review and qualitative meta-synthesis, we used an intersectional lens to understand Black women's experiences and perspectives of cervical cancer screening (CCS). We identified 12 factors related to the perspectives and experiences of Black women participating in CCS. Understanding Black women's experiences and perspectives of CCS can help individual clinicians and policymakers implement CCS in a way that is culturally appropriate and cognizant of structural oppression.

Background: Few research studies have focused on the sexual and reproductive health care (SRH) experiences of Black women who identify as lesbian or gay compared with studies on lesbian-identified White women or heterosexual-identified Black women. Black women who identify as lesbian or gay may have different SRH needs and concerns than Black heterosexual women. This scoping review extracts, synthesizes, and interprets relevant qualitative and quantitative research studies. The primary aim of this review is to explore existing research regarding lesbian-identified Black women’s interactions and experiences with SRH. Methods: The review was conducted using the following databases: PubMed, Embase, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, and PsychINFO. The search was limited to qualitative and quantitative research studies published in English. Studies were selected and extracted based on broad inclusion criteria, without a specified date range, and were synthesized and summarized using the theoretical framework of intersectionality. Results: A total of 18 studies met the inclusion criteria. The studies showed five common themes: (1) Racial and heteronormative systems of oppression negatively affect the SRH experiences of this population and can hinder future engagement. (2) Sexual orientation disclosure in health care settings is provider-dependent and situation-dependent and depends heavily on the inclusivity of the facility and language used by health care providers. (3) Lesbian-identified Black women voiced the need to trust health care providers to feel comfortable divulging sexual information and returning for follow-up visits. (4) Black women who have sex with women underestimate their risk of contracting sexually transmitted infections, and their health care providers also need more education in this area. (5) Lesbian-identified Black women have unique barriers to SRH wellness screenings that range from social and cultural to financial. Conclusion: This review reinforces the need for more research around SRH barriers and needs specific to lesbian-identified Black women that include the personal perspectives of this population.

PURPOSE Routine gynecologic screening detects cervical cancer symptoms. Black women are 75% more likely to die from cervical cancer than White women, suggesting disparities in screening adherence. Under the Paper Gown, a campaign by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, seeks to encourage screening behaviors among Black women. The campaign portrays awkwardness as the Black woman protagonist's impediment to gynecologic screening. There is limited research examining how social anxiety acts as a barrier among Black women to undergo gynecologic screening. Instead, socioeconomic determinants and perceived racism are oft investigated as factors to Black women's gynecologic screening hesitancy. This study conceptualized awkwardness as social anxiety defined by Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Thus, this study aims to challenge the archetypes of barriers to positive health behaviors presented in cancer prevention research. The study has two main goals: (a) to gain insight into Black women's perceived barriers to gynecologic screening and (b) to examine whether a health campaign's portrayal of awkwardness reflects real-life gynecology experiences as reported by the participants. METHODS A cross-sectional survey of Black women (N = 20) was conducted to examine gynecology appointment frequency and the role of social anxiety before and during the appointment. Semi-structured interviews (n = 10) guided by the Health Belief Model further explored how social anxiety acts as a hinderance to gynecologic screening. RESULTS One-way ANOVA tests revealed that participants' anxiety leading to their appointment did not lead them to skip their appointment. Phronetic iterative analysis of interview transcript analysis produced eight themes: Barriers to scheduling, Gynecology knowledge gaps, Awkwardness valence, Vagina talk, Cues to action, Realism of campaign, Physician dialogue, and Black women physicians' innate understanding (race and gender concordance). Participants reported discordance between the campaign's portrayal and their real-life gynecology experiences. CONCLUSION Despite participants' willingness to attend gynecologic screening appointments, there exists knowledge deficits regarding the recommended frequency. This may potentially exacerbate disparities in cervical cancer mortality. Additionally, health campaigns should consider the implications and consequences of ill-representative portrayals of Black women's health experiences. Future studies should explore the multidimensionality of Black women's experiences concerning gynecology and prevention screening.

Black women may be particularly vulnerable to negative shame experiences, shaped by racism and sexism. Yet, the breadth of research that examines shame experiences from Black women's perspective is limited. This study sought to describe the sociocultural context in which Black women experience shame in America. Forty Black women (Mage = 41 years) across the United States participated in a narrative study. A thematic analysis focused on understanding shame cues in participant narratives. One major theme of racialized shame experience was revealed. Sociocultural contexts of these experiences were identified including Black women's state of invisibility; experiences in the workplace and academia; treatment related to skin color, hair, and body; and romantic relationship expectations. These findings warrant further attention to the consequence of Black women's shame experiences. Implications for addressing shame and well-being for Black women are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

"Am I Truly Invisible?": A Qualitative Study on Black Women's Experiences of and Coping With Intersectional Invisibility in Uterine Fibroid Treatment.

Black Women's Perceptions of Race-Concordant Midwifery Care and Home Birth: Liberation in Labor.