“Why wouldn’t I be able to do it?”: The Role of STEM Socialization in Nurturing Black Girls’ STEM Interest and Engagement

Reviewed by: Investing in the Educational Success of Black Women and Girls ed. by Lori D. Patton, Venus E. Evans-Winters, and Charlotte E. Jacobs Emerald Templeton Investing in the Educational Success of Black Women and Girls Lori D. Patton, Venus E. Evans-Winters, and Charlotte E. Jacobs (Editors) Sterling, VA: Stylus, 2022, 312 pages, $37.50 (softcover) In her seminal work, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, Hill Collins (2000) described the "hidden space of Black women's consciousness" (p. 98) that includes self-definition; self-determination; and resistance to racism, sexism, classism, and white supremacy. Lori D. Patton, Venus E. Evans-Winters, and Charlotte E. Jacobs's work is an embodiment of this consciousness. Much like how Hill Collins designed Black Feminist Thought, the editors of this volume created an accessible text grounded in Black women and girls' experiences, knowledges, and existence. As a Black woman scholar whose research underscores the experiences of Black women in higher education while uncovering the logics of valuing diversity, I recognize the authority of this work and find that it aligns with and informs my scholarly interests. As a former Black girl who has trudged through misogynoir throughout my educational experiences, I feel incredibly affirmed, seen, and celebrated through this work. Written from the vantage point of women and girls across the spectrum of Black womanhood and girlhood, the authors of this edited volume artfully describe how we navigate the American system of education while maintaining our meanings and intonating our expressions (Hill Collins, 2000). This text is organized into four sections: (a) Mattering for Black Women and Girls in Schooling Contexts, (b) Naming and Challenging the Violence and Criminalization of Black Women and Girls, (c) Navigating Politics and the Politicization of Black Women and Girls in Higher Education, and (d) Still We Rise: Black Women and Girls Lifting and Loving Black Women and Girls. The chapters in these sections provide the reader with context, discussion questions, further reading, and additional resources. These sections weave together narratives that illustrate the depth, breadth, and rigor of scholarship about Black women and girls. Each section sheds light on multiple experiences and voices, which I will describe below. In the first section, Mattering for Black Women and Girls in Schooling Contexts, Patton et al. set the tone for this volume and lay a foundation for understanding the ways of knowing (epistemologies), being (ontologies), and thinking (ideologies) that influence Black women and girls' efficacy in school. Chapter 1, "Mid-Twerk and Mid-Laugh," uncovers how Black girls' ability to express themselves through laughter and dancing in culturally situated ways is stifled and criminalized. Further, the author posits that this level of expressiveness provides an opportunity for learning that schools can engage for transformation. In Chapter 2, readers are presented with ways to enact the Black girls' literacy framework, which allows schools to expand learning and literacy beyond simply reading and writing to a nuanced practice that situates learning in sociopolitical, historical, and cultural contexts. Similarly, Chapters 3 and 4 discuss the ways myths and stereotypes depict Black girls as older than they are, disrespectful, and underachieving. Such myths must be dispelled so that Black girls can find belonging and safety in spaces that were not intended for them. Together, these chapters encompass why [End Page 250] Black girls matter and how schools can begin to embrace that fact. The second section, Naming and Challenging the Violence and Criminalization of Black Women and Girls, begins by situating the education of Black women and girls within a political context that surveils, polices, and arrests them. Chapters 5 and 6 detail the ways in which schools are failing Black girls—pushing them out and deeming them "nobodies"—by highlighting compelling cases and data related to their involvement with school discipline and the legal system. Further, the ways in which a lack of care and value for Black women and girls persist through higher education are explicated in Chapters 7 and 8. The authors herein urge educators and administrators to challenge their biases about gender and race and interrogate how the intersection of those identities reveals the ways they characterize and value Black women and girls...

Black women are particularly vulnerable to obesity, with a prevalence rate of >50%. The higher mortality and morbidity from cardiovascular disease, stroke, and diabetes have been attributed, in part, to their obesity. In recent years, a particular public health concern is the increasing secular trend in obesity with an even greater racial disparity, especially in girls and women. Between the early 1960s and late 1980s, the prevalence of obesity tripled in young black girls 6 to 11 years of age, while it doubled in white girls. Similarly, both overweight and obesity in adolescent girls 12 to 17 years of age also increased, with a greater increase again seen in adolescent black girls. This secular trend in obesity with a greater increase in black girls signals a potentially grave future chronic disease burden on black women, which is already higher than in white women. The increasing occurrence in children and adolescents of noninsulin-dependent diabetes, traditionally viewed as an adult-onset condition, may be a consequence of the currently high prevalence of obesity in American youth. Not surprisingly, this condition is seen more frequently among black youths. Prepubescent black girls are generally leaner than age-comparable white girls, but by 20 years of age, black women are considerably heavier than are white women. Thus, it is assumed that the racial disparity in adiposity evolves during adolescence. However, the specific age at which this occurs and underlying factors are yet to be identified because of the current paucity of longitudinal cohort data. In 1985, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) initiated a 10-year longitudinal multicenter study (the NHLBI Growth and Health Study [NGHS]) to investigate the development of obesity in black and white girls during adolescence and its environmental, psychosocial, and cardiovascular disease risk factor correlates. The purpose of this report is to examine the natural history of adiposity and weight accretion during adolescence in a biracial cohort of girls to investigate the evolution of the racial divergence in adiposity and to examine the relationships between increases in adiposity and pubertal maturation, energy intake, and physical activity. A total of 2379 black (51%) and white (49%) girls, 9 to 10 years of age, were recruited from public and parochial schools in Richmond, California, and Cincinnati, Ohio, and from families enrolled in a large health maintenance organization in the Washington, DC area. Participant eligibility was limited to girls and their parents who declared themselves as being either black or white and who lived in racially concordant households. DESIGN AND STATISTICAL ANALYSIS: The NGHS is a multicenter prospective study of black and white girls with annual visits from 9 to 10 years of age through 18 to 19 years of age. The follow-up rate was 89% at the 10th annual visit. Skinfold measurements were obtained at the triceps, suprailiac, and subscapular sites with Holtain calipers. Sexual maturation was assessed by trained registered nurses. The onset of menarche was ascertained annually by questionnaire. All clinical assessments were conducted using a common protocol by centrally trained staff. Longitudinal regression (generalized estimating equations) models were used to examine the relationship between adiposity and race, age, pubertal maturation, daily energy intake, and physical activity. The main outcome measure was the sum of skinfolds (SSF) at the triceps, subscapular, and suprailiac sites as an index of adiposity for comparison between the 2 racial groups. Body mass index (BMI; weight in kilograms divided by height in meters, squared) distributions were examined by age and race. Racial differences in SSF, unadjusted for maturation, were evident at 10 years of age. For each chronological age, there was a higher proportion of black girls with more advanced pubertal maturation than white girls. The 15th percentiles for SSF were similar and remained thus throughout the study. The median for SSF for black girls, although similar to the median SSF of white girls at 9 years of age, became greater for black girls at 12 years of age (36 mm vs 32.5 mm) and at age 19 years the difference was 6 mm (49.5 mm vs 43.5 mm). In contrast, the difference in the 85th as well as the 95th percentile values for SSF were substantially higher in black girls at all ages (9 mm and 10 mm, or 18% and 15%, respectively, at age 9 years) and these racial differences widened with age (20 mm and 26 mm, or 25% and 24%, respectively, by age 19 years). The racial difference in the median BMI increased from 0.4 to 2.3 kg/m(2) between ages 9 and 19 years. Unlike SSF at the 15th percentile, the BMI for lean 9-year-old black girls was ~3% higher than whites. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED)

Feminist Studies 47, no. 1. © 2021 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 175 Ashley L. Smith-Purviance Masked Violence against Black Women and Girls In May 2020, mass media outlets widely reported the murder of twenty-seven-year-old Breonna Taylor in Louisville, KY.1 Two months later, in July 2020, some news outlets also reported the story of Grace, a fifteen-year-old Black girl in Michigan who was incarcerated during the COVID-19 pandemic for not completing her online schoolwork.2 These two incidents are connected: violence against Black girls in schools and classrooms is inextricably linked to the anti-Black state violence that Black women and girls face in society and in their homes. The violence that Breonna Taylor, Atatiana Jefferson, Korryn Gaines, Aiyana Stanley-Jones, and many more have experienced results from the same interlocking systems of oppression that marginalize the suffering of Black girls in 1. Taylor had been killed two months earlier, in March 2020. See Errin Haines, “Family Seeks Answers in Fatal Police Shooting of Louisville Woman in Her Apartment,” Washington Post, May 11, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com /nation/2020/05/11/family-seeks-answers-fatal-police-shooting-louisvillewoman -her-apartment. 2. Brande Victorian, “15-Year-Old Black Girl Sent to Juvenile Detention Center for Not Completing Her Online Schoolwork during the Pandemic,” Madame Noire, July 14, 2020, https://madamenoire.com/1176948/15-yearold -black-girl-sent-to-juvenile-detention-center-for-not-completing-heronline -schoolwork-during-the-pandemic. 176 Ashley L. Smith-Purviance schools.3 However, there is a lack of exploration about how these systems —schools, criminal justice, juvenile justice, law enforcement, and media—operate together and simultaneously shape and enact violence against Black women and girls. Assault and violence against Black women and girls that result in murder are masked forms of Black death.4 Information about their deaths is rarely shared across mass media platforms. Brittney Cooper argues that there is much less outrage surrounding Black death when it is Black women and girls who are murdered. She suggests that one reason is that they are often killed in their homes rather than in public spaces and therefore there is less public recognition.5 Because their murders often occur in containment and confinement, Black women and girls’ narratives become hidden, covered up, and written off in ways that deny their victimization and justify the violence they face.6 I have come to understand these kinds of “erasures” as endemic to the structure of this antiBlack world, which only sees us when we are “dead and dying.”7 Indeed, we would not know about Breonna Taylor’s life and that she was an “essential” worker if she had not been killed. A recent 20/20 documentary segment about her murder shows how Breonna Taylor was at first considered a suspect in her own murder case for months, which diminished 3. Treva Lindsey, “The Lack of Mobilized Outrage for Police Killing Black Women Is an Injurious Erasure,” Bustle, June 3, 2020, https://www.bustle.com /p/the-lack-of-mobilized-outrage-for-police-killing-black-women-is-injuriouserasure -22953764. 4. Christina Sharpe, In the Wake: On Blackness and Being (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016). 5. Brittney Cooper, “Why Are Black Women and Girls Still an Afterthought in Our Outrage over Police Violence?” Time, June 4, 2020, https://time.com /5847970/police-brutality-black-women-girls. 6. Beth E. Richie, Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America’s Prison Nation (New York: New York University Press, 2012); Kimberlé Crenshaw, Andrea Ritchie, Rachel Anspach, Rachel Gilmer, and Luke Harris, Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women (New York: African American Policy Forum, 2015); Lashawn Harris, “#SayHerName: Black Women, State Sanctioned Violence & Resistance,” Organization of American Historians, https://www.oah.org/tah/issues/2020/history-for-black-lives /sayhername-black-women-state-sanctioned-violence-resistance (accessed April 12, 2021). 7. Patrice D. Douglass, “Black Feminist Theory for the Dead and Dying,” Theory & Event 21, no. 1 (January 2018). Ashley L. Smith-Purviance 177 the availability of accurate information about her death.8 Criminal legal systems, law enforcement, and mass media outlets mask the violence against Black women and girls when they withhold or...

Feminist Studies 47, no. 1. © 2021 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 175 Ashley L. Smith-Purviance Masked Violence against Black Women and Girls In May 2020, mass media outlets widely reported the murder of twenty-seven-year-old Breonna Taylor in Louisville, KY.1 Two months later, in July 2020, some news outlets also reported the story of Grace, a fifteen-year-old Black girl in Michigan who was incarcerated during the COVID-19 pandemic for not completing her online schoolwork.2 These two incidents are connected: violence against Black girls in schools and classrooms is inextricably linked to the anti-Black state violence that Black women and girls face in society and in their homes. The violence that Breonna Taylor, Atatiana Jefferson, Korryn Gaines, Aiyana Stanley-Jones, and many more have experienced results from the same interlocking systems of oppression that marginalize the suffering of Black girls in 1. Taylor had been killed two months earlier, in March 2020. See Errin Haines, “Family Seeks Answers in Fatal Police Shooting of Louisville Woman in Her Apartment,” Washington Post, May 11, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com /nation/2020/05/11/family-seeks-answers-fatal-police-shooting-louisvillewoman -her-apartment. 2. Brande Victorian, “15-Year-Old Black Girl Sent to Juvenile Detention Center for Not Completing Her Online Schoolwork during the Pandemic,” Madame Noire, July 14, 2020, https://madamenoire.com/1176948/15-yearold -black-girl-sent-to-juvenile-detention-center-for-not-completing-heronline -schoolwork-during-the-pandemic. 176 Ashley L. Smith-Purviance schools.3 However, there is a lack of exploration about how these systems —schools, criminal justice, juvenile justice, law enforcement, and media—operate together and simultaneously shape and enact violence against Black women and girls. Assault and violence against Black women and girls that result in murder are masked forms of Black death.4 Information about their deaths is rarely shared across mass media platforms. Brittney Cooper argues that there is much less outrage surrounding Black death when it is Black women and girls who are murdered. She suggests that one reason is that they are often killed in their homes rather than in public spaces and therefore there is less public recognition.5 Because their murders often occur in containment and confinement, Black women and girls’ narratives become hidden, covered up, and written off in ways that deny their victimization and justify the violence they face.6 I have come to understand these kinds of “erasures” as endemic to the structure of this antiBlack world, which only sees us when we are “dead and dying.”7 Indeed, we would not know about Breonna Taylor’s life and that she was an “essential” worker if she had not been killed. A recent 20/20 documentary segment about her murder shows how Breonna Taylor was at first considered a suspect in her own murder case for months, which diminished 3. Treva Lindsey, “The Lack of Mobilized Outrage for Police Killing Black Women Is an Injurious Erasure,” Bustle, June 3, 2020, https://www.bustle.com /p/the-lack-of-mobilized-outrage-for-police-killing-black-women-is-injuriouserasure -22953764. 4. Christina Sharpe, In the Wake: On Blackness and Being (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016). 5. Brittney Cooper, “Why Are Black Women and Girls Still an Afterthought in Our Outrage over Police Violence?” Time, June 4, 2020, https://time.com /5847970/police-brutality-black-women-girls. 6. Beth E. Richie, Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America’s Prison Nation (New York: New York University Press, 2012); Kimberlé Crenshaw, Andrea Ritchie, Rachel Anspach, Rachel Gilmer, and Luke Harris, Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women (New York: African American Policy Forum, 2015); Lashawn Harris, “#SayHerName: Black Women, State Sanctioned Violence & Resistance,” Organization of American Historians, https://www.oah.org/tah/issues/2020/history-for-black-lives /sayhername-black-women-state-sanctioned-violence-resistance (accessed April 12, 2021). 7. Patrice D. Douglass, “Black Feminist Theory for the Dead and Dying,” Theory & Event 21, no. 1 (January 2018). Ashley L. Smith-Purviance 177 the availability of accurate information about her death.8 Criminal legal systems, law enforcement, and mass media outlets mask the violence against Black women and girls when they withhold or...

This editorial and themed issue is a call to redirect our efforts from teaching Black women and girls how to navigate and persist in toxic STEM learning environments to a greater vision of being and becoming. As we consider what becoming means for Black girls who transition into Black women in STEM learning spaces and careers, there is often an untold story of struggle, resistance, and resilience. I present the experiences of three Black women physicists who in very recent years became the first, while contributors in this issue share cutting-edge scholarship on how Black girls engage in youth participatory action research, the role of race and gender discrimination on Black girls’ mathematical attitudes and beliefs, and how Black girls develop scientific literacies in elementary classrooms. Additional research explores how Black women experience imposter syndrome in their pursuit of terminal STEM degrees, while the final piece in this issue shares counternarratives of Black women engineering teachers by drawing attention to aspirational capital and communal support. We elevate the voices of Black women and girls to author their own stories as unsung heroes in this body of work and reposition them as experts of their experiences. This courageous and radical shift requires coconspirators and agitators to move the equity agenda forward so that Black girls and women are not burdened with the labor of undoing, disrupting, and dismantling systems of oppression that they did not create.

Black women are at high risk for obesity and obesity-related health problems (1). Nearly 50% of black women compared to 30% of white women are obese (2,3). While many women who attempt to lose weight do so through caloric restriction and/or physical activity, smoking has been identified as an alternate strategy used for weight loss among black women with weight concerns or body image concerns (4). Nicotine's suppression of body weight facilitates initiation and maintenance of smoking among women (5,6,7). Despite the deadly health risks associated with tobacco use, 23.1% of women smoke (8). Female smokers are more likely to report smoking cigarettes to control weight (6,9) and less likely to quit smoking due to weight concern (10). Perkins et al. and Pirke and Laessle note that women tend to suffer more postcessation weight gain than men (as cited in Copeland) (11). Smoking cessation is less likely among women who fear postcessation weight gain or benefit from weight control when smoking. Additionally, women with the intention to control body weight by restrictive eating are more likely to smoke to control appetite and weight (12). Black women tend to have lower rates of smoking cessation and physical activity and higher dietary fat intake (13,14,15). Factors contributing to low prevalence of weight management among black women need to be identified for the development of appropriate interventions. Less reported social pressure to achieve thinness and greater perceived attractiveness at higher body weights may limit motivation for healthy weight management among many black women. The 2003–2008 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey found weight control through physical activity or dietary change to be positively associated with weight perception (odds ratio women 3.74; 95% confidence interval 2.96, 4.73) (16). Several authors assert that historical black-white differences in ideal female body image (17) and acceptance of overweight (18) may contribute in part to explaining racial differences in weight loss efforts and modifiable weight management behaviors. It has been indicated that black women have a high prevalence of obesity partly because self-image is not strongly dependent on body size (19). Body shape perception often varies by race and gender with blacks generally perceiving their bodies as lighter than indicated by their BMI (20). An understanding of factors such as body image and their relationship to weight loss behaviors is necessary to promote healthier lifestyles. This review investigates the association between body image satisfaction and dietary behavior, physical activity, and smoking as tools for weight control among black women. Due to the paucity of literature focusing solely on black women, this article considers both the experiences of black women alone and with other groups. Studies were identified through computerized searches of biomedical and psychological databases, namely PubMed, CINAHL, Psych Abstracts, Science Direct, and Web of Science and manual searches of article bibliographies focusing on dietary behaviors, physical activity, and smoking/alternative weight control techniques since 1990. Searches were performed on recurring authors and in recurring journals for additional articles on the topics. Variations of the term "body image," including "body dissatisfaction," "satisfaction," and "esteem," as well as "size," "shape," and "weight" were sought. Searches included these terms in combination with the target health behaviors, namely diet, physical activity, and smoking. The search was limited to studies including black or African-American females. We did not restrict our search to only studies that investigated ethnic differences because it is our aim to understand body image as it relates to health behaviors among black women to determine whether it may be a factor to address in designing interventions. We were not specifically investigating racial differences in regards to body image. Additionally, we found that many studies did not distinguish results by race or ethnicity. Thirty-one articles have been cited in this article. The list may not be exhaustive. Some identified articles were excluded for several reasons. Studies investigating dietary disorders were omitted as well as those that did not evaluate body image in association with the health behaviors. Findings and critiques of the remaining articles follow. Over the last decade, several seminal papers have documented the positive association between components of body image dissatisfaction and dieting frequency or dieting status among US adults and adolescents. An accumulating body of research has directly evaluated the relationship between dimensions of body image and dieting behavior or dieting status specifically in black women (see Table 1). Two studies bear mentioning first as findings have acknowledged the importance of identifying potential within group variation among black women with respect to dieting and body image disturbance (see Table 1). Kumanyika and colleagues were among the first to begin to clarify the link between dieting and weight satisfaction in a large sample of black women from the Washington DC community (1). Results showed that less satisfaction with weight and a history of dieting were more likely among the overweight women. Similarly, among black female participants in the CARDIA multisite investigation, a positive relationship between dimensions of body dissatisfaction and dieting for weight reduction was evidenced across BMI tertiles despite women of greater BMI reporting poorer body image (19). It is unclear however, whether results varied by study site. A series of cross-sectional studies assessed body image (using diverse instrumentation) among multiethnic samples of self-identified dieters inclusive of appreciable numbers of black females (21,22,23,24,25,26). In both adults and adolescents few differences in body image disturbance were observed between black and white female dieters (Table 1). This parity was particularly evident when analyses were adjusted for covariates correlated with both dieting status and body image perceptions (e.g., age, BMI regardless of race (21,23,25). Only a few studies to date have examined these relationships including nondieting controls as a comparison (22,24). In one early report, adolescent dieters residing in the Midwest irrespective of race, gender, and actual overweight status typically endorsed more disturbed body image attitudes relative to nondieting peers (24). Similarly, in a more recent investigation conducted in Los Angeles, both black and white adult female chronic dieters exhibiting high dietary restraint reported greater distortions in aspects of body image than nondieting females and male chronic dieters (22). However, these results were not controlled for BMI, age, or socioeconomic status. Another series of cross-sectional investigations compared the relationship between dimensions of body image and dietary restraint/dieting in ethnically diverse groups of black and white adult and adolescent females. Again, it appears that in general, the correlations between these factors are robust independent of age and race in community (22,27,28,29,30) and in-patient (26) samples. Notable exceptions, however, were observed in a few instances where patterns of relationships between indicators of poor body image and dieting behavior differed between women of both racial groups (Table 1 and see refs. 26,28,29). Interestingly, the one investigation in which no significant relationship emerged between components of body dissatisfaction and dieting among black females was conducted in the southern US region (26). A few recent reports have begun to explore the association between measures of body image and various dietary consumption patterns among black females and others (Table 2; please see Ard et al., for a description of findings using qualitative methodology) (31). Dependent variables included frequency of skipping meals (32,33), fast food consumption (34), and composite measures of dietary weight control (35) in predominantly black or ethnically diverse samples spanning a spectrum of ages and US regions. Components of body image disturbance tended to covary positively with poorer nutritional content (35) and behavior patterns (36) and negatively correlated with healthy dietary intake (37) with some exceptions (38,39). However, BMI and other socioeconomic status variables were not consistently controlled in analyzing these relationships. There have been varied findings regarding the association between body satisfaction and participation in physical activity (see Table 3). One study identified body image as a motivating factor for engaging in physical activity (14). Taylor et al. (14) investigated reasons for adolescent girls' participating or not participating in physical activity. Focus groups of black and Latina girls revealed that concerns with body image facilitated physical activity. The girls reported that extra body fat and size affected how they felt about themselves. Some noted positive effects of exercise were "keeping your right size," "a flat stomach," and "losing weight" as well as the desire to be skinny like the people on the exercise programs on TV and to lift weights to give shape to your body. Although there is qualitative evidence of body image being a motivating factor for physical activity, several other studies have found that low body satisfaction is associated with low physical activity. In a 5-year longitudinal study of socioeconomically and ethnically diverse adolescents, Neumark-Sztainer and colleagues (40) found that lower body satisfaction predicted lower levels of physical activity among females. Separate findings for black and white females were not presented. However, results were weighted by ethnicity, race, and socioeconomic status of respondents. Similarly, Yancey et al. (41) found that overweight black women and men were less likely to perceive themselves to be overweight than overweight Latinos or whites. Average weight blacks and Latinos who perceived themselves as being overweight were more likely to be sedentary than their white counterparts. In subgroup analyses by race/ethnicity, black and Latina women were grouped together due to small numbers (41). In another study, adolescents who perceived themselves as overweight were less likely to engage in physical activity despite trying to lose weight. Exercising was the method more often reported by whites than by other racial and ethnic groups (32). Some studies support the notion of cultural acceptance of fatness suggesting that blacks are less likely to engage in weight loss behaviors due to acceptance of large body shapes (42,43). Kelly et al. (33,42) found that black girls were more likely than white girls to report high body satisfaction. Results suggested that adolescent girls with high body satisfaction were less likely to use healthy or unhealthy weight control behaviors, including exercise, eating more fruits and vegetables, and eating fewer sweets and high-fat foods (42). Similarly, Mabry and colleagues (43) found that black adolescent girls demonstrated more acceptance and self-esteem with regards to having a larger body size than their white peers. This acceptance was associated with less participation in physical activity (43). Although many investigators are concerned with the impact of body image satisfaction on engagement in physical activities, others have investigated the opposite relationship. Some studies have found participation in physical activity to lead to improved body image (20,44,45,46). In a convenience sample with 60% black women Smith and Michel found that pregnant women who participated in an aquatic aerobic program reported improved body image scores. While analyses were not stratified by race/ethnicity, the diversity of the sample suggested that this association was true across race and ethnic groups (44). Likewise, Miller and Levy found that female athletes exhibited significantly more positive body image self-concept than female nonathletes (45). Again, results were not stratified by race. In a biracial population of young adults aged 18.5–35 in Bogalusa, LA, physical activity was not found to be a significant predictor of body image perception (20). While both black women and white women expressed negative body image views that countered the cultural tolerance of fatness theory attributed to black women, these groups expressed differences in ideal weight-loss methods. White women emphasized physical activity whereas black women emphasized food characteristics with no mention of physical activity (46). Some studies investigated both body image and physical activity but did not assess the association between these two factors; however, racial/ethnic differences were noted. Studies suggest that there is no significant difference between blacks and whites over age 22, whereas white teens and college-aged women are more dissatisfied with their looks than black women at this age (47). Perry et al. found that white girls had greater physical activity whereas black girls had higher ideal body sizes and greater body satisfaction than white girls. There was no significant difference between black girls and Hispanic girls on body satisfaction or physical activity (48). Contrarily, another study found that black women had higher ideal body image and more sedentary behaviors than Latin-American women (49). While there is evidence of contrary findings of the relationship between body image and physical activity and differences by race/ethnicity, in general the association tends to vary by age. Several researchers have examined the relationship between body image and smoking among females. However, the sample sizes of many of these studies assessing the role of body image on decisions to start smoking or smoking cessation included few blacks. King (13) noted that researchers had not examined the role of tobacco use for weight management among black women. Several clinical trials regarding tobacco cessation have assessed the impact that body image or weight image has in influencing smoking patterns among females. The studies can be separated into two types—those examining smoking initiation or smoking cessation. Several cross-sectional studies examined whether perceptions of attractiveness influenced smoking behaviors (50,51,52). Findings suggest that women smokers felt less attractive and disliked their bodies more than nonsmokers (52) (Table 4). Women with weight concern were more likely to smoke to achieve a smaller figure. Knauss and colleagues (50) found that female smokers considered other smokers to be more attractive and rated smoking as appealing. Utilization of media (magazines and television) may encourage smoking among weight-concerned adolescents. Carson surveyed 967 12th graders to examine whether exposure to media and drive for thinness influenced smoking among this population. Teens who read fashion, entertainment, and gossip magazines were more likely to be current smokers. The authors asserted that smoking is used by these teens in order to maintain a thin figure (51). Among studies of smoking for weight management, few studies have assessed the use of smoking for weight management among black women (53). An earlier review of barriers to smoking cessation among minority women did not include weight control as a barrier to quitting smoking (13). Many prior studies included small numbers of blacks. However, four studies examined the relationships between smoking and weight concern among larger numbers of black females. Several clinical trials have assessed factors affecting smoking cessation among black females. One study examined smoking cessation among blacks with HIV/AIDS (54). Another examined smoking cessation among low-income blacks (55). Both found black females with less weight concern were more likely to smoke. Only one study has assessed the role of weight concerns in smoking initiation among black females (53). Whereas 5.6% of African-American women initiated smoking as a result of weight concern, 11.3% of white women felt that weight was an important factor in smoking initiation. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY97) Cawley and colleagues (56) found that adolescent females with a higher BMI who were trying to lose weight were more likely to initiate smoking than the females who did not consider themselves overweight. Results were not stratified by race. Several studies assessed whether weight concern reduced smoking cessation among black women. Pomerleau et al. (53) found that overweight black smokers were less willing to risk weight gain by quitting smoking and concluded that weight concerns may motivate black women as powerfully as white women to continue to smoke. Two studies found that the majority of black female smokers were not concerned about postcessation weight gain (54,57). Obese black females were least concerned about postcessation weight gain. In contrast, another study reported that black female smokers were concerned about postcessation weight gain (56). Concerns about body shapes or the fear of postcessation weight gain differ from those of white females, yet have influenced some black women's decisions about smoking cessation. Further efforts must be made to provide weight gain education and prevention among black females (57). Numerous studies have investigated the association between body image and modifiable weight-loss behaviors among black females. In general, body dissatisfaction was found to be associated with poorer health behaviors. Females who were dissatisfied with their bodies were more likely to practice poor nutritional behaviors and less likely to participate in physical activity or to stop smoking. There were variations in findings due to race, age, and overweight status. Notable aspects of some previous studies regarding body image and weight control measures were the use of diverse populations, longitudinal study designs, and the consideration of inverse relationships. Several studies of body image and dieting behavior are particularly noteworthy for their methodological rigor of executing prospective longitudinal study designs (34,57) and for strategically sampling from both traditionally underrepresented groups in health research (e.g., ethnically diverse female hospital workers in an urban locale: (55) and from large regional segments of the US adolescent population (36,58,59). With small numbers of black females generally included in body image studies, two studies on smoking cessation are also noteworthy for investigating large groups of black females (54,57). The women in these studies were low-income, and in one study, the black women were HIV-infected. The bidirectional association between components of body image and weight control behaviors was highlighted by physical activity studies which investigated the impact of body image satisfaction on participation in physical activity(14,40,41,42,43,60) as well as the inverse influence of physical activity on body satisfaction (38,39,40,42) to assess motivators and barriers to weight control. Contrary to the strengths of a few studies, many studies suffered from analytical, methodological, and inclusion deficiencies. Little is known about the bidirectional relationship between changes in specific weight control behaviors and shifts in how black females may perceive their bodies and whether these patterns correspond with those reported by white females in this country. Most studies were cross-sectional in nature and unable to infer a clear directional relationship. The variations in findings of the associations suggest the need for more longitudinal research to clarify the directionality of this association. Additionally, there was great variation in measures of body image and classifications for dieting and physical activity status and perception. Most studies utilized a measure of self-perceived body image or weight status. It has been found that black females tend to be more accepting of larger bodies and generally underestimate their actual weight status with those who are overweight less likely to perceive themselves as overweight compared to other races (41,61). Those who are overweight perceive themselves as normal weight, and the obese consider themselves overweight (61). This discrepancy suggests the need for more culturally tailored programs to increase self-awareness of weight status, health consequences, and healthy lifestyle changes. Many studies on body image were mainly conducted on white females. Unfortunately, only small percentages of black females were usually included in the studies, therefore making any efforts to test for the potential differential impact of race on the relationship between measures of body image and behaviors untenable. Most authors discussed general findings irrespective of race (59,62), used race simply as a sociodemographic control variable versus testing it as a possible effect modifier (35,58), or tended to prefer emphasizing differences observed due to gender (37,59) or to overweight status (58). Additionally, studies were performed on a broad range of age cohorts suggesting an influence of body image throughout the stages of development and the need for further studies at each age level. Further investigation into differences by race/ethnicity within various age groups is needed. To design appropriate interventions to reduce obesity among black females it is necessary to understand whether body image is gaining influence in promoting dietary, physical activity, and smoking changes within the context of weight control. Based on the review of the literature offered here, the current state of the evidence is insufficient to adequately address this question at present. There are several factors to consider in improving the quality of the research produced and therefore strengthening confidence in the validity and applicability of findings. Chief among these is the need for greater attention to designing prospective longitudinal studies that would provide a more robust test of how dimensions of body image may act as determinants of weight control behaviors among black females. Additionally, with perceived overweight as well as high satisfaction with body image both being associated with more sedentariness, this presents quite a challenge for identifying motivators for black females to engage in health-promoting activities. A central question to target in future efforts is: What factors may modify the impact of weight and body dissatisfaction on engaging in dieting, physical activity, and smoking cessation among black females? The current review has provided some preliminary clues that may be involved in further delineating important individual differences in this line of research. These include overweight status (1), level of acculturation to mainstream US culture (22), and likely regional variation in the value placed on weight loss and tuning into feelings about the body as a mechanism of change (35,39). It is our hope that this critique may serve as a preliminary roadmap for both existing and future qualitative and quantitative research in this area to be effectively translated into culturally attuned healthy weight management promotion efforts among ethnically diverse females. The authors declared no conflict of interest.

Jezebel Unhinged: Losing the Black Female Body in Religion & Culture

Affinity programs have long supported the development, healing, and resilience of Black girls and women in educational contexts. Drawing on a conceptual framework of intersectionality and program planning, this descriptive qualitative study highlights the perspectives of six program leaders who manage support outreach programs designed to support Black girls and women. These findings provide greater understanding of the needs and challenges associated with developing programmatic outreach for Black women and girls by providing detailed descriptions about the experiences of leaders who develop and manage outreach programs designed to improve the social, academic, and health development of Black women and girls. Additionally, the contextual forces that influence the sustainability of programs designed to further the betterment of Black women and girls is discussed. Implications for both the researching and implementing programs designed to support Black women and girls is also provided.

Black Girls' Feistiness as Everyday Resistance in Toni Cade Bambara'sGorilla, My Love Aria S. Halliday (bio) Black women's literature positions resistance as one of the most important aspects of a Blacka woman's experience.1 Writers such as Zora Neale Hurston and Audre Lorde illuminate the connections between identity formation and resistance, especially in relation to patriarchal and heteronormative attitudes towards relationships and gender norms. For Toni Morrison and Alice Walker, resistance within mother/daughter relationships, as well as resistance to ancestral and community expectations, are at the center of Black female characters' experiences. Although included in Black literary constellations alongside Morrison and Walker, Toni Cade Bambara's shorter works have been anthologized without much criticism dedicated to her depictions of young Black women and resistance within the Black community. This article, then, focuses on Toni Cade Bambara's use of young Black girl protagonists as resistive characters who critique societal and intraracial issues in her short stories. Primarily, I feature Scout and Squeaky, two Black girl protagonists in Toni Cade Bambara's short stories "Gorilla, My Love" and "Raymond's Run." As girls who are assertive, willing to fight, and outspoken, Scout and Squeaky illustrate how communities and families infuse their girls with strategies to resist. Utilizing a Black feminist interpretation of James Scott's "everyday forms of resistance," I argue that Scout and Squeaky's feistiness is rooted in resistive [End Page 50] families and communities who reject normative aged, gendered, and racialized performances of girlhood.2 In doing so, I highlight how Bambara resituates feistiness as a necessary attribute created and secured in communities in the civil rights cultural moment of the 1960s and 1970s.3 This article contextualizes Black girls against traditional tropes of girls, challenging how Black girls have been made invisible because of their particular racialized experiences. I then turn to Bambara's characterizations of Squeaky and Scout to illustrate how "bad" Black girls cultivate feistiness as a survival skill. Lastly, I explore how feistiness could underlie "strong Black woman" stereotypes proliferated in popular culture that Black women confront daily. Despite their mischaracterizations, strength for Black girls is rooted in resistive communities and is necessary to promote the creativity, self-determination, and feistiness required of a world that constantly criminalizes and demonizes Black women and girls. Is She Really Bad? Racializing Bad Girl Tropes Previous scholarly work on Toni Cade Bambara has focused on her longer works, such as The Salt Eaters or three stories featured in the 1970 collection Gorilla, My Love: "The Lesson," "The Hammer Man," and "My Man Bovanne."4 Although Bambara has been anthologized as an author who centers African American culture and vernacular expression in her narratives, Nancy Hargrove implies that she is less often recognized as a young adult fiction writer like Twain, Joyce, and Salinger.5 Likewise, I have found that Bambara's writing has rarely been explored for her attention to Black girlhood. I contend, however, that Bambara positions girls as prominent actors in their communities. Set in the urban North, Gorilla, My Love contains fifteen short stories that explore Black families and love relationships. Many of Bambara's stories use a young girl protagonist or a representative character named Hazel. Although different in each narrative, Hazel, as a recurring character throughout the collection, provides literary continuity to feistiness as an important motif for Bambara. Moreover, Bambara's depictions of Black girlhood feistiness restructure normative conceptions of childhood because she resists simple characterizations of children as innocent or invisible. In traditional girlhood studies scholarship, the bad girl trope positions a girl who is angry, aggressive, and sexually active at the outskirts of society and community.6 Her isolation further fuels her anger, which incites her bad behavior. Marion Brown explains that white girls in literature who are considered aggressive or nonconformist are representatives of the bad girl trope—in addition to the sad girl who has low self-esteem and [End Page 51] strained relationships with women and the mad girl who adopts punk rock aesthetics and performativity to rebel—and are demonized for their "masculine" behaviors.7 However, these characterizations privilege narrow...

Racial microaggressions pose significant risk to health and well-being among Black adolescents and adults. Yet, protective factors (i.e., coping, racial/ethnic identity) can moderate the impact of racial microaggressions over time. Unfortunately, few studies have evaluated the role of these protective factors longitudinally or specifically among Black girls and women. In the current study, we focused on the experiences of Black girls and women and investigated the longitudinal links between racial microaggressions and mental health symptoms over 1 year. We then explored the role of two key protective factors as moderators-coping with racial discrimination and racial/ethnic identity-for mental health. Participants included 199 Black adolescent girls (Mage = 16.02) and 199 Black women (Mage = 42.82) who completed measures on two types of racial microaggressions, three types of coping strategies, racial/ethnic identity, and mental health symptomology. Girls and women completed measures at three time points over 1 year. Results indicated both types of microaggressions predicted increased mental health symptoms in Black women. Among Black girls, assumptions of criminality predicted increased externalizing symptoms only when protective factors were included in the model. Analysis of the protective factors indicated a potential direct benefit rather than a moderating role of coping with racial discrimination through positive thinking for mental health in both Black girls and women. Evidence suggests that coping may have had a direct rather than an indirect effect on Black girls' mental health over time. We conclude with future directions for research and considerations for practice.

Age at onset of type 2 diabetes has decreased during the past 20 years, especially in black women. Studies of factors associated with insulin resistance and hyperglycemia in preadolescent and adolescent populations are essential to understanding diabetes development. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) Growth and Health Study (NGHS) is a 10-year cohort study of the development of obesity in black and white girls. Two NGHS centers examined the associations of obesity, puberty, and race with fasting insulin, glucose, and homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR; a calculated index of insulin resistance) measures at 9-10 years of age (baseline) and 10 years later. Black girls had greater baseline and year-10 BMI than white girls, with a greater 10-year incidence of obesity. BMI-insulin correlations were positive in both black and white girls at both visits, but insulin remained higher in black girls after controlling for BMI. In black girls, insulin and HOMA-IR were higher in the prepubertal period (before the emergence of racial differences in BMI), increased more during puberty, and decreased less with its completion. Baseline BMI predicted year-10 glucose and the development of impaired fasting glucose (IFG) in black girls. In white girls, the rate of BMI increase during follow-up predicted these outcomes. The 10-year incidence of diabetes in black girls was 1.4%. Black-white differences in insulin resistance are not just a consequence of obesity, but precede the pubertal divergence in BMI. The development of IFG appears to be a function of the rate of increase of BMI in white girls and early obesity in black girls.

12 | BLACK HISTORY BULLETIN VOL. 79, NO. 2 79 No.2 CAN WE LIVE? WORKING TOWARD A PRAXIS OF SUPPORT FOR CAREFREE BLACK GIRLS By Aja Reynolds and Stephanie D. Hicks³0\FKLOG²DQG,¶PQRWPDGDWKHU²VKHZDVEUDYH HQRXJK WR VSHDN RXW DJDLQVW ZKDW ZDV JRLQJ RQ DQGGLGQ¶WEDFNGRZQ$QGLWUHVXOWHGLQKHUEHLQJ DUUHVWHG %XW ORRNLQJ DW WKH YLGHR ZKR ZDV really disturbing the school? Was it my daughter? 2UZDVLWWKHRI¿FHUWKDWFDPHLQWRWKHFODVVURRP and did that to the young girl?”²'RULV .HQQ\ PRWKHU RI 6SULQJ 9DOOH\ +LJK 6FKRROVWXGHQW1L\D.HQQ\ZKRVSRNHRXWDJDLQVW WKH IRUFLEOH UHVWUDLQW DQG DUUHVW RI KHU 69+6 classmate ,Q2FWREHURID%ODFNVWXGHQWDW6SULQJ9DOOH\ High School was forcibly removed from her desk and thrown across a classroom by Sheriff’s Deputy Ben Fields, D :KLWH VFKRRO UHVRXUFH RI¿FHU 7KH RI¿FHU DQG VFKRRO RI¿FLDOVFRQWHQGHGWKHVWXGHQWZDVKDQGOHGVRDJJUHVVLYHO\ because she refused to surrender her cellular phone and leave the classroom when asked. A video of the incident taken by another student went viral on the Internet, commanding the attention RI QDWLRQDO QHZV RXWOHWV ODZ HQIRUFHPHQW RI¿FLDOV DQG VXSSRUWHUV DQG SROLWLFDO DQG UHOLJLRXV OHDGHUV 5HDFWLRQV ranged from skepticism about the cause of the incident, to GHIHQVHRIWKHRI¿FHUWRTXHVWLRQVDERXWZK\ZLWQHVVHV² school staff and students—did not intervene. Eventually, EDFNJURXQGUHVHDUFKRQWKHRI¿FHUUHYHDOHGWKDWWKLVZDV QRWWKH¿UVWWLPH'HSXW\)LHOGVXVHGDJJUHVVLYHIRUFHZLWK VWXGHQWVKHZDVXQGHULQYHVWLJDWLRQIRUWDUJHWLQJ%ODFNDQG Latino students at schools in which he worked.1 Outraged students, parents, community members, and activists sounded off online and elsewhere in the media. :K\ ZDV VXFK IRUFH XVHG" &RXOG DQ\WKLQJ WKH VWXGHQW KDYHGRQHMXVWLI\'HSXW\)LHOGV¶VUHVSRQVH":K\ZDVWKH student’s “disruptive” behavior deemed a criminal act and QRW D VFKRRO GLVFLSOLQH LVVXH" :RXOG WKH RI¿FHU¶V DFWLRQ EHHQGLIIHUHQWLIWKHVWXGHQWZDV:KLWH":RXOGWKHRI¿FHU KDYHHYHQEHHQFDOOHG"$QGZKDWDUHWKHUDPL¿FDWLRQVRI KDYLQJUHVRXUFHRI¿FHUV 652V LQVFKRROVDWDOO"6FKRODUV and activists who focus on the school-to-prison pipeline broadly, and the criminalization of black women and girls VSHFL¿FDOO\ZHUHDORXGGLVVHQWLQJYRLFHDPLGWKHFKRUXV RI VXSSRUWHUV IRU 652V DQG WKHLU XVH RI IRUFH:H SODFH this incident in the context of the criminalization of Black women and girls with the aim to advocate for changes in Black girls’ schooling experiences. The Criminalization of Black Women and Girls From 1985 to 1997, Black girls were the fastest growing segment of the juvenile justice population. %\%ODFN JLUOV ZHUH SHUFHQW RI MXYHQLOH IHPDOHV LQ UHVLGHQWLDO placement. ,Q H[DPLQLQJ GDWD IURP WKH ± academic year, the Department of Education found that Black girls were six times more likely to be suspended than White girls.4 During that academic year, Black girls UHSUHVHQWHG DSSUR[LPDWHO\ SHUFHQW RI WKH VXVSHQVLRQV FRPSDUHGWRSHUFHQWIRU:KLWHJLUOV Using the lens of anti-Blackness, intellectuals Connie Wun and Michael Dumas have contributed rich critiques of schooling for Black children.5 They re-identify educational institutions as prisons, reliant on policing Black bodies and diminishing their sense of agency. Their studies have challenged the school-to-prison pipeline, pointing us to a deeper analysis of the ways schools operate as prisons and as site of trauma for Black students. Literature focusing on the imprisonment and surveillance of Black women helps us understand schools as an apparatus of prison systems. Kimberle Crenshaw’s intersectional analysis intervention provided a method to assess the nuances of oppression BLACK HISTORY BULLETIN VOL. 79, NO. 2 | 13 79 No.2 experienced by Black girls.7 Their work details the racism, sexism, and misogyny Black women and girls experience, and offers critiques with intent to dismantle these oppressive systems. Black Girls in School In recent years, more research that centers the strengths and assets of Black children has been generated, but it predominantly focuses on the plight of Black boys.An effect of this trend is that we see Black girls...

Parents can promote the sexual health of adolescents in a number of well-established ways, such as through sexual communication and parental monitoring. Another unexplored avenue through which parents might influence sexual decision-making among Black girls is gendered-racial socialization-the process through which parents send messages to their Black daughters about what it means to be a Black girl, in part, to improve their self-esteem. In a national, U.S.-based sample of 287 Black girls (Mage = 15.4) and their parents (87.8% female), we examine how two dimensions of gendered-racial socialization (gendered-racial pride socialization; gendered-racial oppression socialization): (a) are related to adolescents' intentions to have early sex and (b) moderate the association of parental communication and monitoring with adolescents' intentions to have early sex. We found Black girls who are exposed to more empowering messages about Black girls and women are less likely to intend to have early sex. Additionally, gendered-racial pride socialization moderated the relationship between parental monitoring and intentions to have sex, such that more monitoring was associated with lower intentions to have early sex among girls low in gendered-racial pride socialization. For girls high in gendered-racial pride socialization, there was no relationship between parental monitoring and sexual intentions. Gendered-racial pride socialization is an important asset in Black families, which can be leveraged to improve the sexual health of Black girls. Future studies are needed to examine the causal, temporal pathways between gendered-racial socialization and sexual health. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Preteen insulin levels interact with caloric intake to predict increases in obesity at ages 18 to 19 years: a 10-year prospective study of black and white girls

Hip Hop has been shown to influence the identities of Black youth (Love. 2012. Hip Hop’s Li’l Sistas Speak: Negotiating Hip Hop Identities and Politics in the New South. Peter Lang). However, for Black girls, Hip Hop has a complicated relationship as some representations of Black girls and women are objectified and hypersexualized while others reflect strength and empowerment (Richardson, 2016). The present study examines Hip Hop, Black girlhood, and identity by exploring how Hip Hop influences the gendered racial identity developmental processes of Black early adolescent girls. Further, this study explores how Black girls navigate environmental stressors such as racism, sexism, bullying, and stressful home environments using Hip Hop. Using a Black and Hip Hop feminist lens, this paper utilizes two semi-structured interviews from 6, twelve year old Black girls from the southern region of the United States and participants in a Hip Hop based after school program. Utilizing thematic analysis, the following themes were found: (1) acknowledging identities of strength, independence, and resilience in Hip Hop helps create meaning for gendered racial identities and (2) Hip Hop as a mechanism for healing and therapy against social and environmental stressors. This work follows notable Hip Hop feminist theories and praxis and provides an alternative framework for exploring intersectional identity development for Black adolescent girls.