Stereotypes of a Black Woman

 Stereotypes of a Black Woman

A study done by Simone Ispa-Landa at Northwestern shows that black girls are seen as “ghetto” or “loud” for behavior that would be accepted from male counterparts. Black girls are seen as “aggressive” and “undesirable” from white and black boys. Many black women feel that the media portrays black females in a negative manner.

An article on theroot.com, presents even more stereotypes in a list. “Gold diggers, baby mamas, uneducated sister, ratchet women, angry black women, mean, and unhealthy. These are the stereotypes that show up in the media commonly and are sometimes very subtle. Negative imagery of black women is seen twice as often as positive imagery.

Looking into the grand skeem of things, this is detrimental in multiple ways. Walking around as a person who is “undesirable” based on physical appearance does not encourage a high level of confidence. This low confidence translates into school, work, and other environments. And ultimately, this contributes to where you live, your annual income, and more.

We watched a film called, Dark Girls in Race Reels last year that discussed this issue a great deal. It’s really heartbreaking to see how much self hate these women generated from outside influences. What I’m curious about is when and why did black women start getting labelled with these offensive titles.It’s surprisingly hard to search around on, but I’m going to keep looking around. Being a minority and the “inferior” sex, puts a black female in the worst position on the rankings of societies social hierarchy. Nanny in Their Eyes Were Watching God puts it well, “So de white man throw down de load and tell de nigger man tuh pick it up. He pick it up because he have to, but he don’t tote it. He hand it to his womenfolks. De nigger woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see."