Angry Black Woman Research Articles

Race and Reactions to Negative Feedback: Examining the Effects of the “Angry Black Woman"" Stereotype

The purpose of this study is to examine how angry reactions to negative performance feedback among women at work affect observer evaluations. Specifically, we argue that angry black women will rece...

Declined care and discrimination during the childbirth hospitalization

Many studies have documented poorer patient-provider interactions among people of color compared to Whites, including lower-quality patient-provider communication, less involvement in decision making, and higher chances of perceived discrimination in healthcare encounters. In maternity care, where overuse of medical interventions such as cesarean delivery is a concern, women may try to exert agency by declining procedures. However, declining procedures may brand these women as uncooperative or non-compliant patients. The potential consequences of this are likely worse for women of color, who already expend more effort to manage their image during healthcare encounters in order to avoid stereotypes (e.g. the “angry Black woman”). Using a national sample of women who gave birth in U.S. hospitals in 2011–2012, we examined the relationship between declining procedures and discrimination during the childbirth hospitalization. We found that women who reported having declined care for themselves or their infant during the childbirth hospitalization were more likely to report “poor treatment” based on race and ethnicity, insurance status or having a difference of opinion with a healthcare provider. Moreover, the increase in odds of perceived discrimination due to a difference of opinion with a healthcare provider was significantly larger in magnitude for Black women compared to White women. These results suggest that in the context of childbirth care, women pay a penalty for exhibiting behavior that may be perceived as uncooperative, and this penalty may be greater for Black women.

The “Angry Black Woman”: How Race, Gender, and American Politics Influenced User Discourse Surrounding the Jemele Hill Controversy

On September 11, 2017, ESPN’s Jemele Hill tweeted that United States President Donald Trump was a “white supremacist.” Online reaction was swift and divided. The purpose of this study was to analyze how people were discussing the incident on Facebook using the theoretical lens of framing. Results demonstrate that discussions devolved into stereotypical tropes and uncivil discourse. Ultimately, Hill’s race and gender became as much of a topic of contention as did her comments about Trump. This finding suggests that many Facebook users are willing and able to use an intersectional approach to discussing the incident.

Monsters in the Attic: Women’s Rage and the Gothic

Monsters in the Attic: Women’s Rage and the Gothic

Boucan! Loud moves against invisibility in postcolonial France

In the late 2000s, young French black people, practicing different African popular dance genres, use the term boucan (loud noise) to describe forms of bodily expressivity that are mostly inaudible. Boucan, to them, is predominantly visual and is produced through ingenuity, boldness and flamboyance in competitive performances relying on dance, appearance and conspicuous consumption, taking place in public spaces. This article looks at the ways in which both sonic and visual ‘noises’ are used to negotiate presence and circulation in urban spaces that are only virtually open to all. Examining a moral panic around Black female ‘gangs’ at the end of the 2000s, this paper focuses on the role of Black youth culture in articulating the ‘politics of appropriateness’ to which young French Black women are subjected in public space. It asks how these women make their presences felt, occupy space and claim a ‘place’, navigating between the trope of the (loud) ‘angry black woman’ and that of the (silent) ‘traditional’ woman. This discussion of boucan puts into perspective the rhetorical linkage, long established in scholarship on race and gender, of dominated and racialized groups with the body, danger and ‘noise’. It relates the aesthetics of loudness developed by danseurs/danseuses afros to the in/visibility of blackness in France.

MANIFESTASI HEGEMONI TANDINGAN MELALUI KISAH PERJALANAN PEREMPUAN AFRO-AMERIKA DALAM KARYA FILM NONFIKSI

<p>Both, in terms of media and cultural studies, some negative sterotypes of black people<br />along with its specific term of Angry Black Woman (ABW),has clearly shown that Afro-<br />American people and their actionsare being subjectively considered as the forms of<br />social deviance. „What Happened, Miss Simone?‟, a biographical documentary fllm,<br />depicts a nonfictionalstory about a word-class jazz musician, Nina Simone, who was<br />also an Afro-American woman and one of the most impactful activists in the era of Civil<br />Rights Movement from 1954 to 1968. This research focuses on the counter-hegemony</p><p>manifestation of Nina Simone‟s role and her journey stories through the nonfiction film.<br />By using twelve stages of Christopher Vogler‟s narrative analysis method: i.e. Ordinary<br />World; Call to Adventure (Inciting Incident); Refusal of the Call; Meeting with the<br />Mentor; Crossing the Threshold; Test, Allies, Enemies; Approach to the Inmost Cave;<br />Central Ordeal (Midpoint, Death, and Rebirth); Reward; The Road Back; The<br />Resurrection (Climax); and Return with the Elixir (Denouement), this research has<br />proved that an Afro-American woman on the nonfiction film can be successfully<br />represented as an organic intellectual alongside with its war of position in order to<br />oppose the hegemonic power of the invisibility and neutrality of white people on the film<br />industry, which is always being accepted as a fairness doctrine.However, the<br />ambivalence and the ambiguity of Nina‟s nonfictional role and story simultaneously<br />demonstrate its binary opposition of black people and its inadequacy to defy a<br />hegemonic power of white supremacy through the visual masterpiece.<br /><strong>Keywords: Afro-America, documentary film, counter-hegemony, narrative, stereotype</strong></p>

Vacation

Vacation Caroline Crew (bio) Vacation, all I ever wanted. Vacation, had to get away. Vacation, meant to be spent alone. The Go-Go's, "Vacation" (1) This refrain leaks over and over the candy-coloured synchronized watering skiing dream puff of the Go-Go's 1982 video for their single "Vacation." Tiaras and pearls and tutus and giggling. The splashing is palpable. A 1950s teenage dream of kitsch that Katy Perry is still singing. From the opening shot, Belinda Carlisle guides the pile of white women, sullen in their magazine flipping, to the promised land: vacation. Not saved by a white knight but instead given the freedom of their own tomorrow: Tomorrow's a day of mine that you won't be in. Perhaps you were not alive in 1982. Perhaps you wrote off the Go-Go's as a girl band, "ugly punklings turned America's sweetheart" in one contemporaneous reviewer's eyes. Perhaps you have lived a life that never brought you near Belinda Carlisle's voice. But perhaps you'd still recognize the song: it plays in the background of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 as George W. Bush golfs prior to the 9/11 attacks. It soundtracks car commercials, it is montage music for countless sitcoms, it is covered in Glee: whenever you need the carefree sense of summer's good clean fun, there it is. Vacation, all I ever wanted. Vacation, had to get away. Vacation, meant to be spent alone. [End Page 180] (2) The personal is political. To vacate: freedom from obligations, leisure, release. The personal is political, unless, for a time, we have the leisure of vacating from our person. I do. I can vacate whenever I want. (3) We are in Minneapolis, at the Walker Art Center. A welcome, if brief, vacation. I sit in front of Joan Mitchell's Hemlock (1954) for fifteen minutes. I get up, leave the white room and mistake myself. I come back. This occurs three times. Later, outside, the steel skies draw me back to Joan Mitchell's exploding deep green and white. Hemlock (1954) is clearly not one of Mitchell's more famous canvases—and later proves impossible to find in facsimile, all Googling showing the painting to be overtaken by Hemlock (1956). But this earlier Hemlock is, for a few minutes, mine. I know that another person's recollection of a painting is almost as boring as listening to a friend recall a dream from last night, but hear me out. I can't tell you to Google it. Centered in a vast white block, what looks like a black hood unbillowing reveals after repeated looking to be greens emerging with darkness from the canvas. Some blue emerges, a breath of grey. The ochre emerges most slowly. As the colour moves like smoke up out of the canvas, I exhale deeply. I forget the academic struggles awaiting my return. I forget the twenty-four people killed in a bus accident in Bangladesh, the three people shot and murdered in a Milan courtroom. I exhale so deeply my shoulders drop. I forget. (4) What I forget is what I have vacated. In graduate school, my closest friend, Rana, is the only black woman in a program of sixty-six people. Our supposedly liberal faculty of fiction writers and poets repeatedly ignored her experiences of racism, labeling her an angry black woman that "hated white people" and "hated men." Perversely, a white female professor tells us the voice of Rodney King is speaking through her and that complaints must be deescalated. Read: quiet down. When hundreds of students (predominantly white) signed a letter of [End Page 181] solidarity with Rana, note was taken. The terms libel and slander were sent by the head of the department to explain Rana's description of her experiences. Those people who offered solidarity with Rana, who shared her story and their eye-witness accounts of these events, were told their actions, the act of speaking out, was "cyberbullying" against the white man as well as the tenured faculty whose behavior was in question. Repeated legal threats were made, and all for questioning the behavior of an institution that...

Trapped between justified anger and being the strong Black woman: Black college women coping with racial battle fatigue at historically and predominantly White institutions

Using the unique form of a composite counterstory culled from the experiences of 13 Black women at historically and predominantly White colleges and universities in a Western U.S. state, this paper explores the psychological tensions and silencing Black college women face as they navigate social constructions of their selfhood under a White gaze. This study centers these Black women’s voices through a tradition of storytelling and examines the ways they try to carve their own place by often engaging liberating, yet repressive, historically constructed STRONGBLACKWOMAN imagery to counteract equally silencing Angry Black Woman imagery. The historically and predominantly White institutional spaces within which these women study, live, and play exacerbate this tension, propelling them to model and rely upon stereotypically ‘positive’ representations of Black womanhood to deal with the pain of microaggressions. Altogether, these factors create instances of enhanced racial battle fatigue.

Michelle Obama: Exploring the Narrative

ABSTRACTWhen Michelle Obama was first introduced to the American public in 2008, she was depicted in the media as an unpatriotic, stereotypical, angry Black woman. Today, she is more popular than the president. This study examines the narrative about Michelle Obama created by the first lady and the White House through YouTube videos uploaded in an attempt to redefine her in ways that are more acceptable to the public. The authors examine that narrative in videos posted by the White House, mainstream news and entertainment outlets, and allied organizations, with a focus on the intersectionality of gender, race and class in her story. The findings indicate that Obama's story reflects a neoliberal narrative framed by two themes: (a) the American Dream is achievable through education, hard work, and perseverance; and (b) motherhood and family are primary. Within this neoliberal narrative, racism and poverty are obstacles to be overcome through making the right choices, and gender is viewed through the narrow lens of motherhood rather than gendered inequalities. This narrative is both shaped and constrained by Obama's race, class background, and gender, as well as the goal of creating a more acceptable public persona.

“Ain’t I a Woman?”

This study explored the experience of gendered racial microaggressions (i.e., subtle and everyday verbal, behavioral, and environmental expressions of oppression based on the intersection of one’s race and gender) among Black women at a predominantly White university. A total of 17 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students participated in one of two semistructured focus group discussions. Using dimensional analysis, three core gendered racial microaggression themes were uncovered, each with two subthemes: Projected Stereotypes (expectation of the Jezebel, expectation of the Angry Black Woman), Silenced and Marginalized (struggle for respect, invisibility), and Assumptions About Style and Beauty (assumptions about communication styles, assumptions about aesthetics). Results indicated that Black women experience microaggressions based on the stereotypes that exist about their gendered racial group. Findings support and extend the literature by developing a taxonomy of gendered racial microaggressions, which highlights intersecting forms of subtle oppression. Implications for research and practice in counseling psychology are discussed.

Until the Animals Get Their Own Story Teller, the Hunter Remains the Hero of All Tales

I keep quiet, even though every fiber of me feels like screaming. An outburst from me would only reinforce notions of the angry Black woman. Jan, Madeline, and Vanessa carry on without missing a be...

A double-take on reality television: Laverne Cox’s political and pedagogical gestural humor

Although Laverne Cox has become best known as a serious actress, advocate, and activist, her career was propelled forward by an appearance on reality television. While her participation in the reality television show I Want to Work for Diddy is usually only addressed within the context of representational politics, this article contends that her performance on the show demands additional attention, specifically her use of politically charged gestural humor. Through close-analysis of Cox’s double-take, I argue that Cox uses gestural humor to resist reality television’s demand for emotional authenticity and stereotyped performances, particularly the stereotype of the angry black woman. Moreover, I demonstrate that Cox uses the double-take to position herself as an audience surrogate, using humor pedagogically to teach the audience how to respond to transphobia critically.

Construction and initial validation of the Gendered Racial Microaggressions Scale for Black women.

The purpose of this study was to develop a measure of gendered racial microaggressions (i.e., subtle and everyday verbal, behavioral, and environmental expressions of oppression based on the intersection of one's race and gender) experienced by Black women by applying an intersectionality framework to Essed's (1991) theory of gendered racism and Sue, Capodilupo, et al.'s (2007) model of racial microaggressions. The Gendered Racial Microaggressions Scale (GRMS), was developed to assess both frequency and stress appraisal of microaggressions, in 2 separate studies. After the initial pool of GRMS items was developed, we received input from a community-based focus group of Black women and an expert panel. In Study 1, an exploratory factor analysis using a sample of 259 Black women resulted in a multidimensional scale with 4 factors as follows: (a) Assumptions of Beauty and Sexual Objectification, (b) Silenced and Marginalized, (c) Strong Black Woman Stereotype, and (d) Angry Black Woman Stereotype. In Study 2, results of confirmatory factor analyses using an independent sample of 210 Black women suggested that the 4-factor model was a good fit of the data for both the frequency and stress appraisal scales. Supporting construct validity, the GRMS was positively related to the Racial and Ethnic Microaggressions Scale (Nadal, 2011) and the Schedule of Sexist Events (Klonoff & Landrine, 1995). In addition, the GRMS was significantly related to psychological distress, such that greater perceived gendered racial microaggressions were related to greater levels of reported psychological distress. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.

Linda Burnes Bolton, DrPH, RN, FAAN

Dr. Linda Burnes Bolton is an extraordinary nurse leader: visionary, purposeful, committed to mentoring and sponsoring nurses in multiple roles and locations, including advanced practice nurses. An accomplished author, speaker and educator, Linda truly exemplifies "servant leadership." A long-tenured senior nurse executive at Cedars-Sinai Health System, Linda balances local community leadership with her national and international nursing leadership activities. A special view into Linda's success begins with following her "true north" or guiding light, centered on human caring.

The Angry Black Woman: The Impact of Pejorative Stereotypes on Psychotherapy with Black Women

In the aftermath of slavery and the resulting social, economic, and political effects, Black women have become the victims of negative stereotyping in mainstream American culture. Such stereotypes include the myth of the angry Black woman that characterizes these women as aggressive, ill tempered, illogical, overbearing, hostile, and ignorant without provocation. Symptoms presented by Black women during mental health treatment may reinforce this myth. However, many of the negative characteristics of the angry Black woman developed in response to external stressors and historical factors. Black women also have a unique experience with and expressions of anger that shape the presenting symptoms interpreted by the mental health clinician. This myth and corresponding negative stereotypes significantly affect Black women intrapsychically, interpersonally, and are likely to influence the efficacy of mental health treatment. Understanding and treatment of Black women in a mental health context should be influenced by the cultural norms and sociopolitical dynamics affecting these clients. Successful mental health treatment requires cultural competence and clinicians who are well prepared to navigate the inherent complexities of culture with clients. Awareness of the angry Black woman mythology, including its genesis, manifestations, and the unique experiences of Black women, may raise the standards of cultural competence for clinicians and provide more successful treatment outcomes in working with this population. A case example illustrates the assiduity essential to practicing in a culturally competent manner. A client is presented from a traditional psychotherapeutic perspective and then viewed through a lens that integrates psychotherapeutic practice with conscious awareness of the mythology and stereotypes impacting Black women. Implications for culturally relevant practice are discussed.

African American Stereotypes in Reality Television

In the early 1990s, reality television was a fledging type of voyeuristic television programming that was catching the attention of American viewers. Twenty years later, reality television is the format of choice for many traditional and cable networks. This study analyzes ten reality television shows airing in 2005 and 2008 to investigate whether producers cast participants who fit into traditional and new African American stereotypes. The analysis determined all ten shows had at least one participant who fit into stereotypical characters, including the angry black woman, hoochie, hood rat, homo thug, sambo, and coon.

Debunking the Myth of the "Angry Black Woman": An Exploration of Anger in Young African American Women

Research on anger in African American females is lacking yet extremely important. The stereotype of the "angry black woman" has dominated society's view of African American females; however, empirical evidence supporting the stereotype is nonexistent. In an effort to empirically test the misperception of African American women as overly angry or aggressive, this project explored the experience of anger in seventy-six African American women and compared it to a reference group (i.e., the normative sample of the measure used). Participants completed the State Trait Anger Expression Inventory-2 (STAXI-2). On most of the scales of anger of the STAXI-2, there were no significant differences between the current sample and the normative sample. Notably contrary to the widespread image, African American women in both age groups reported significantly less frequent angry feelings in situations where they may receive criticism, perceived disrespect, and negative evaluations (i.e., angry reaction). Furthermore, younger women reported a greater tendency to experience and suppress intense angry feelings rather than expressing them either physically or verbally. Summarily, results of the current study provide initial empirical evidence disconfirming the stereotype of the "angry black woman."

She Ain't Oprah, Angela, or Your Baby Mama

Recently, interviewer Larry King tried his best to get a rise out of Michelle Obama. Her responses remained cool, collected, and focused. She defied the angry black woman stereotype. She was forthright, intelligent, impeccably stylish, and obviously happy. With these characteristics, Michelle creates discomfort in many because she raises fundamental questions about society's fixation with categories and how we understand our place within the pecking order of things. Black exceptionalism is accepted and even expected in certain areas. Michelle is not the billionairess Oprahan advocate of self-actualization, who is often on the mendwhose predominantly white female audience keeps her within certain bounds. Oprah's endorsement of Obama was met with a ratings backlash. Michelle seems to have arrived and to be at peace with herself. Although she produced the thesis Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community, and may or may not have used the term whitey, Michelle is certainly not the gun-toting, Angela/Assata-fro-wearing, militant depicted in the missed-irony New Yorker cover. She abandoned a big law firm and found creative ways to work within the system as a public servant. And she

CAN WE IGNORE THE PERSPECTIVE OF BLACK WOMEN ON THEIR OWN EXPERIENCE? A Response to Jeffries, with Reference to Takara

“Looking Behind the Stereotypes of the ‘Angry Black Woman’: An Exploration of Black Women's Responses to Interracial Relationships,” published in Gender and Society in August 2005, was an effort to bring those voices routinely marginalized or ignored into the debate on contemporary interracial relationships. In 2004, I was writing Navigating Interracial Borders: Black-White Couples and Their Social Worlds (2005), the culmination of years of qualitative research on societal responses to interracial relationships and the opposition that still exists toward Black-White relationships in White and Black communities. In my research, as well as previous research on interracial relationships, couples consisting of Black men and White women would recount stories of “angry Black women” who harassed them, “rolled their eyes” at them, and were constructed as a “problem.” These stories are the ones most often heard because most studies of Black-White couples consisted of more Black-man/White-woman couplings, given that they are more common than are Black-women/White-man couplings. Similarly, numerous quantitative studies posit Black women as the least accepting of interracial unions. For my work, I was also analyzing media and film images of interracial unions using films such as Waiting to Exhale (1995) and Jungle Fever (1991), which depict scenes of a group of Black women lamenting the loss of Black men to interracial dating, among other things. From all of these various academic and popular culture sources, the message was clear that Black women are generally opposed to interracial relationships, but very rarely are their own voices actually heard. Instead, at best, their stories have been retold.

RIGHT TO BE HOSTILE?: A Critique of Erica Chito Childs's “Looking Behind the Stereotypes of the ‘Angry Black Woman’”

Erica Chito Childs's article “Looking Behind the Stereotypes of the ‘Angry Black Woman’,” published in Gender and Society in 2005, represents an important empirical contribution to studies of interracial intimacy. Black women's voices are routinely marginalized during analyses of interracial dating, and, worse, their real-life experiences and first-person interpretations are replaced by demeaning, racist stereotypes of angry Black womanhood. Childs recognizes this tradition and acts to interrupt the cycle of Black female marginalization and insult through situating Black women in context and presenting their narratives with little interruption and interpretation.