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Race and gender intersectionality and education.

Venus E. Evans-Winters Venus E. Evans-Winters Illinois State University
https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.1345
Published online: 23 February 2021

When recognizing the cultural political agency of Black women and girls from diverse racial and ethnic, gender, sexual, and socioeconomic backgrounds and geographical locations, it is argued that intersectionality is a contributing factor in the mitigation of educational inequality. Intersectionality as an analytical framework helps education researchers, policymakers, and practitioners better understand how race and gender intersect to derive varying amounts of penalty and privilege. Race, class, and gender are emblematic of the three systems of oppression that most profoundly shape Black girls at the personal, community, and social structural levels of institutions. These three systems interlock to penalize some students in schools while privileging other students. The intent of theoretically framing and analyzing educational problems and issues from an intersectional perspective is to better comprehend how race and gender overlap to shape (a) educational policy and discourse, (b) relationships in schools, and (c) students’ identities and experiences in educational contexts. With Black girls at the center of analysis, educational theorists and activists may be able to better understand how politics of domination are organized along other axes such as ethnicity, language, sexuality, age, citizenship status, and religion within and across school sites. Intersectionality as a theoretical framework is informed by a variety of standpoint theories and emancipatory projects, including Afrocentrism, Black feminism and womanism, critical race theory, queer theory, radical Marxism, critical pedagogy, and grassroots’ organizing efforts led by Black, Indigenous, and other women of color throughout US history and across the diaspora.

intersectionality
Black girls
girls of color
Black feminism

Intersectionality as a Mitigating Framework and Analytical Tool

The complexity exists; interpreting it remains the unfulfilled challenge for Black women intellectuals. — Patricia Hill Collins ( 1990 , p. 229)

Intersectionality is a theoretical framework and mode of analysis used to understand the multifarious ways race, class, gender, and other social categories overlap and intersect with one another to shape individuals’ and groups’ perspectives and collective experiences. In this article, Black girls are centered in the discussion on the possibilities of intersectionality for educational policy and discourse. Kimberlé Crenshaw ( 1989 ) first coined the term intersectionality to accentuate how racism in employment excluded Black women in ways that diverged from that of Black men, and at the same time, sex discrimination in employment manifested in the lives of Black women’s differently than it did for White women. Similarly, Black girls’ experiences in schools are simultaneously similar yet different from the experiences of Black boys; and Black girls’ schooling experiences unfold differently from that of White girls.

Although ideologically the concept of intersectionality has been a part of Black women’s onto-epistemology (see Barad, 1999 , for discussion on onto-epistemology and agential realism) for centuries, in the post-civil rights era, scholars have been considering the role and implications of intersectionality in theories, methodologies, and approaches to praxis in K-12 education. Suffice it enough to say here, Black feminists and other feminists of color in social science disciplines have a tradition of grappling with race and gender in academia (Perkins, 1993 ; Mirza, 2014 ; Evans-Winters, 2015 ). For this discussion, the usefulness of intersectionality and other related paradigms proffered by women of color will be considered with Black girls in mind.

The intent of theoretically framing and analyzing educational problems and issues from an intersectional perspective is to better comprehend how race and gender overlap to shape (a) educational policy and discourse, (b) relationships in schools, and (c) students’ identities and experiences in educational contexts. First, by placing Black girls’ at the center of analysis, it becomes obvious who is erased from so-called progressive education reforms. Second, situating Black girls at the center of the analysis seeks to combat both historical amnesia of the role of Black women’s thought in theorizings of intersectionality and begin to (re)locate Black girl students in educational theory and discourse. One of the biggest challenges critical theorists face in education is the assumption that educational policy, discourse, and concepts are neutral, and therefore, germane to all students. Another challenge is the erasure of Black women’s contribution to social theory and Black girls’ agency in the face of politics of domination. Following a brief historical contextualization of intersectionality, throughout the discussion an overview of intersectionality is put forth to illuminate the significance of race and gender in educational policy and discourse.

Intersectionality is a term that is becoming more widely used in education scholarship and discourse. Because of the wide use of intersectionality in academic parlance, more people are claiming to be “intersectional” or assume that there is a shared understanding of what intersectionality means and what it entails. First, people are not intersectional; instead theoretical perspectives and interpretations of the social world are intersectional. Second, like with most standpoint theories, without a critical examination of the socio-political aims of the theory (i.e., intersectionality), those who embrace intersectionality for its criticality or as a tool of resistance will fail to meaningfully serve and protect the exact groups from which the critical framework and praxis derived.

For the purposes of this discussion, an explication of intersectionality is offered with Black girls at the center of the analysis. Public education in a democracy is arguably a mitigating factor in social inequity. When recognizing the cultural political authority of Black women and girls from diverse racial and ethnic, gender, sexual, and socioeconomic backgrounds and geographical locations, it is argued that intersectionality is a contributing factor in the mitigation of educational inequality. Intersectionality as an analytical framework helps education researchers to better understand how race and gender intersect to “derive varying amounts of penalty and privilege” (Collins, 1990 , p. 226). Race, class, and gender are emblematic of the three systems of oppression that most profoundly shape Black girls at the personal, community, and social structural levels of institutions (e.g., schools, religion, judicial, workplace, and so on). These three systems interlock to penalize some students in schools while privileging others.

With Black girls at the center of analysis, educational theorists and activists may be able to better understand how “politics of domination” (hooks, 1989 , p. 19) are organized along other axes like ethnicity, language, sexuality, age, citizenship status, and religion within and across school sites. Intersectionality as a theoretical framework is informed by a variety of standpoint theories and emancipatory projects, including Afrocentrism, Black feminism and womanism, critical race theory, queer theory, radical Marxism, critical pedagogy, and grassroots’ organizing efforts led by Black, Indigenous, and other women of color throughout US history and across the diaspora.

An example of Black women’s early protestations against subjugation in all of its forms is when in 1863 Sojourner Truth ( 1851 ) proclaimed, “Ain’t I a Woman” at the Women’s Convention in Akron, Ohio. At the convention, Sojourner Truth illustrated the ways in which African women were rendered invisible in debates about both Black citizenship and deliberations on women’s suffrage. Speaking as both an African and a woman, Sojourner Truth openly professed how she bared the harsh physical labors enforced on all enslaved people, regardless of gender; and expectantly performed the gender roles assigned to women without being accorded the privileges and sanctity of White womanhood, including the privilege of being able to protect, rear, and care for her own children. The interlocking oppressions of racism and sexism rendered her to a subordinated position in both the private and public spheres, and simultaneously, as a Black woman at once vulnerable and scrupulously formidable.

Enslaved African girls endured the harsh realities of physical labor, beatings, rape, racial terror, and having their offspring stolen away from them. Girls of African ancestry, undoubtedly, learned early on in US history their quandary as Black people and as girls under White supremacy patriarchal rule. Throughout abolitionism and the women’s suffrage movement, Black women actively participated in political campaigns against chattel slavery, White racial terrorism, and the political disenfranchisement of Black people; and Black women simultaneously created their own or collaborated with women suffragists’ organizations (Davis, 1981 ; hooks, 1981 ). Like Sojourner Truth, Black women understood that their freedom was grounded in both Black people’s full citizenship rights and women’s enfranchisement.

Throughout the times of the transatlantic slave trade, chattel slavery, and slave revolts, and the Jim Crow Lynching period, Black women conscientiously chose to struggle alongside Black men to protect themselves, Black men, and children. Notwithstanding, during the suffrage era, Black women did not take for granted the importance of the vote for all women and gender equality under the law. Their plight was fundamentally tied to that of both Black men and White women. Socially located at the nexus of race and gender politics of domination, Black women’s modalities of political activism as a matter of course had to be intersectional. Intersectionality as a mode of analysis synchronously represents Black women’s multiple consciousness as raced and gendered subjects as well as Black women’s conscious strategies for navigating socio-political forces.

How can intersectionality help education activists unveil the multiple realities of Black girls while drawing upon Black girls’ ways of knowing to solve education problems? Pertinently, how does either/or theoretical constructs complicate the struggles of Black girls in their schools? “Either you fight on the side of racial justice or you fight on the side of gender justice,” is a common retort young Black women social justice advocates in education hear. Intersectionality calls for a “both/and conceptual lens of the simultaneity of race, class, and gender oppression and of the need for a humanist vision of community” (Collins, 1990 , p. 221). A humanist vision of community will include (re)imagining school communities as spaces that contribute to human freedom and progress for all students.

Moreover, keeping in mind historical and contemporary forms of Black women’s political activism, intersectionality is also a useful framework for better understanding the ways in which Black girls cope with and resist race and gender domination inside and outside schools, and how they come to develop a collective consciousness. As Evans-Winters ( 2011 ) illustrated, Black girls attended school in a district that systematically underserved Black students and students from poor families for generations. Further, it was reported that at school Black girls were perceived as less attractive, less intelligent, and more aggressive than White middle-class girls.

However, Black girls in the study and the women in their lives recognized the need to view girls from working-class neighborhoods as members of the Black community and as girls with distinct cultural and education needs. From their perspective, Black girls required education prevention and intervention programs that were gender and culturally responsive. School resilience was fostered among Black girls who received support simultaneously from Black women caregivers, Black women role models at school and in their communities.

Simultaneously, the adult social actors in the students’ lives understood the significance of race and gender in the formulation of a positive student identity and achieving self-actualization. The study mentioned utilized Black feminist theory to attempt to grasp how race, class, and gender intersected to impede on the schooling experiences of Black girls. As evidenced in the cited study, Evans-Winters ( 2011 ), an intersectional analysis recognizes and advocates for processes and relationships that foster resilience, culturally responsive resistance to structural inequality, and collective action to change inequitable school structures.

Collective Responsibility and Intersectionality

Attenuated concentration on individual responsibility and motivation in the face of adversity is endemic of Eurocentric western philosophies of individualism and liberal feminism’s focus on personal autonomy which is diametrically opposed to Black feminism’s ethos of care and community (Lane, 2018 ). Intersectional conversations on vulnerability and resilience studied within a socio-cultural context are important epistemological shifts in education research that regularly ignores the racialized and gendered experiences of Black girls in schools, pathologizes the Black community, and generally deems Black students somehow culturally deficient or intellectually inferior to their White counterparts. Meanwhile, the theorization of Black girls’ schooling experiences is lost in the shuffle as race scholars push for anti-racist policies and feminists advocate for gender-based school policies.

In these dichotomous approaches to school reform policy, all the girls are White, and all the Blacks are boys . For example, President Barack Obama gave unprecedented attention to the educational neglect of Black boys during his tenure as the first Black commander-in-chief of one of the world’s most powerful nations, and a nation that has been besmirched morally for its history of racial injustice. To address the opportunity gap faced by boys and young men of color, the president implemented the “My Brother’s Keepers” initiative, which focused on a wide range of topics such as mentoring, workforce development, and early literacy programs.

Without a doubt, Black boys and other boys of color who experience relentless structural barriers certainly need policy agendas that serve to protect and advocate for their developmental needs. Nonetheless, some saw this initiative as a missed opportunity for the first Black president, who with this initiative was clearly forefronting a racial agenda, to also address the egregious education opportunity gaps that girls and young women of color face. For example, compared to their White female peers, Black and Latina girls were more likely to be suspended from school (Inniss-Thompson, 2018 ), Black and Native American girls received harsher discipline for minor offenses and typical childlike behaviors (Onyeka-Crawford, Patrick, & Chaudhry, 2017 ) and/or endured surveillance and harassment for being Black girls (Evans-Winters & GGENY, 2017 ), and disproportionality come in contact more with police after a referral from school authority (Morris, 2016 ).

In the case of private and public initiatives like “My Brother’s Keeper,” the assumption is that if boys and men of color were okay, then girls would benefit from the trickle-down effect of boys’ increased education and career opportunities (Crenshaw, 2014 ). Most policy interventions myopically focus on unilateral variables (e.g., race + intervention = an outcome) as opposed to intersecting , multiplicative , and fluctuating variables (race x gender x class x (y) + intervention = outcomes) in students’ lives. Without attention to the multiplicative (Wing, 1997 ) nature of Black girls’ identities, the dynamism of Black girls’ schooling experiences go under-theorized and unexplored.

The purpose of intersectionality, among others, is to facilitate a multidimensional non-binary policy analysis that contemporaneously frame vulnerability and oppression alongside agency and resistance in approaches to educational interventions. First, although many Black girls and women have a commonly shared experience due to the nature of race, class, and gender oppression (and colonial education), it goes without saying that Black girls are not one monolithic or homogenous group. Second, girls of African ancestry represent a multitude of personal and cultural experiences, identities, and social realities. It is from these multiple and co-existing realities that Black girls’ and women’s intersectional praxis emerges.

The Combahee River Collective (CRC, 1983 ) statement written by a group of Black feminists and lesbians gathered in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1977 , captured the multivocality and intersectional framework of Black women’s politics and praxis. Pointedly, the collective called for struggles against racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class oppression and critiqued sexual oppression in the Black community and racism within the mainstream feminist movement.

In their articulation of the intersection of multiple oppressions (and admittance that tokenism accorded some Black women more privilege), CRC set the contemporary tone for Black women’s organizing efforts. Specifically, they asserted that racial politics and racism are pervasive factors in Black women’s lives, and sexual politics and patriarchy are as pervasive as class and race. They also collectively rejected the stance of lesbian separatism and biological determinism. And like Black women activists before them, they called for political work in coalition with other progressive movements and organizations with similar interests to dismantle White supremacy, patriarchy, imperialism, and capitalism. Further, they openly proclaimed to be “concerned with any situation that impinges on the lives of women, Third World and working people” (CRC, 1983 , p. 3). Finally, women activists believed that with democratic and non-hierarchal relationships, they could look to their collective knowledge and power to combat the social issues confronting Black women and similarly situated people.

In the contemplation of intersectionality as a tool of analysis, what can be learned from the CRC statement to address educational disparity in the lives of Black girls? The CRC statement calls to mind that Black girls’ realities are constructed by multiple historically intersecting oppressed identities such as race and ethnicity, social class, gender, sexual orientation or gender identity, religion, immigrant status, age, geographical location, language, mental health, (dis)ability, and other social characteristics. How do these same politics play out in the lives of Black school girls who are multiply marginalized? To begin with, data from the Educational Policy Institute recently suggests that Black girls are more likely than their White peers to attend schools highly segregated by race and ethnicity and to attend high poverty economically segregated schools, which places them at greater risk of school underperformance (García, 2020 ).

Furthermore, using data from the Office of Civil Rights, the National Women’s Justice Institute discovered that although White girls were more likely to be bullied or harassed on the basis of sex, Black girls were more likely to report being bullied or harassed on the basis of race (Inniss-Thompson, 2018 ). Ironically, more girls were disciplined for bullying based on sex than they were for bullying based on race (Inniss-Thompson, 2018 ). Once again, Black girls’ needs for protection were not considered. If the plight of Black girls in schools is analyzed from an intersectional perspective, the intricacies (as called out in the CRC statement) of Black girls’ identities begin to reveal themselves.

For example, in 2013–2014 , nearly 10% of Black girls were subjected to out-of-school suspension, compared to only 2% of White female students, according to most recently reported data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES, 2017 ). In that same school year, Black and Native American girls were more likely than any other group of girls to receive corporal punishment at school, to receive one or more suspension or expulsion from school, and/or to be referred to law enforcement. Black girls were also more likely to be involved with a school-related arrest (NCES, 2017 ). And Black girls with a disability were multiply jeopardized by their disability status; in many cases, following their Black boy peers, these girls had higher rates of one or more in-school and out-of-school suspensions than boys and girls of other races and ethnicities and ability groups (NCES, 2017 ). Being poor, Black, and a girl with a disability unveils how interlocking systems of oppression impedes on Black girls’ educational opportunities and treatment in schools. Girls of color with a disability are an invisible minority overlooked and rendered as non-citizens with no consideration for self-determination (Erevelles & Minear, 2010 ).

Heterosexism also plays a role in harsh school punishment. In fact, evidence suggests that Black girls are punished in schools for non-conformity to gender role stereotypes, which are grounded in White middle-class heteronormative notions of femininity (see Crenshaw, Ocen, & Nanda, 2015 ; Morris, 2012 ). For instance, in 2020 , a GLSEN and the National Black Justice Coalition (NBJC) report found that nearly half of Black LGBTQ students (44.7%) experienced some form of school discipline, such as detention, out-of-school suspension, or expulsion; over half of Black LGBTQ students (51.6%) felt unsafe at school because of their sexual orientation, 40.2% because of their gender expression, and 30.6% because of their race or ethnicity; and many Black LGBTQ students experienced harassment or assault at school based on personal characteristics, including sexual orientation (65.1%), gender expression (57.2%), and race and ethnicity (51.9%) (Truong, Zongrone, & Kosciw, 2020 ).

Societal perceptions of Black people and women undoubtedly affect the treatment of Black girls in schools, but anti-discrimination policies neglect to devise reforms that explicitly address the unique discrimination that Black girls endure at the juncture of race and gender. For example, anti-discrimination policies, such as efforts to reform school-based discipline policies fail to account for students who are members of multiple social categories. Most education policy, including the 2015 reauthorized Every Student Succeed Act (ESSA), fails to not only recognize students’ multiple intersecting social identities, but also acknowledge how the intersection of multiple interlocking identities at the micro level (e.g., interpersonal relationships, classrooms, or districts) reflect multiple and interlocking structural (macro) inequality at the larger societal level.

Although the policy called for the protection of racial minorities students, students with a disability, or lower-income students for example, it did not require administrators to put special protocols in place to protect Black girls specifically from unfair discipline policies that disproportionately affect Black students (e.g., longer out-of-school suspensions) and those that disproportionately affect girls (e.g., dress code violations). Consequentially, these same anti-discrimination policies do not offer an accountability and transparency process for documenting the unique discrimination that Black schoolgirls encounter.

Intersectionality of Race and Gender in Education: For the Some of Us Who Are Brave

Racism, sexism, and classism at the societal level permeates throughout all levels of the education system, and conversely, schooling processes reproduce social inequality. Even though federal and state education policy serve to protect students from racial discrimination and gender discrimination, anti-discrimination policies fail to understand how Black girls’ multiple identities crisscross to leave them susceptible to the racism and sexism and other forms of oppression. Society’s deeply entrenched stereotypes and controlling images of Black women, Black children, and Black people all together along with societal expectations of girls and women in general transverse to shape school actors’ perceptions of Black girls.

Historically, for instance, young Black women were valued as producers of future labor (as an enslaved woman giving birth to future “profits”), domestic workers or “the help” (e.g., nanny, housecleaner, or cook), and objects of desire (e.g., singer, dancer, or sex worker). Infiltrating social institutions (e.g., education, law, or science) and propaganda (i.e., print, visual, and social media), dominating culture engrains into the psyche of society images and narratives of the oppressed that serve to continue to promote and sustain the dominating culture’s ideals, perceptions, and norms to maintain its power. Accepting the notion that White supremacy and eugenics science established its roots into all levels of education, intersectionality unveils how contemporary forms of racial violence play out in educational settings to uniquely impact Black girls who exist at the intersection of race, class, and gender oppression.

An intersectional framework allows educators to better comprehend the complex and multilayered ways schools reflect and reproduce societal inequality as well as conceptualize, critically analyze, and generate policies that are more inclusive. Intersectionality as an analytical framework recognizes that identities are mutually interlocking as well as relational (Berger & Guidroz, 2009 ). In educational policy and discourse with Black girls in mind, intersectionality is ideal for capturing how multiple identities intersect and interact to (a) inevitably and distinctly shape Black girls’ experiences in schools, (b) their relationships with school authority, (c) academic achievement, (d) beliefs about schooling, and (e) their student identity.

The core ideas of intersectionality are social inequality, power, relationality, social context, complexity, and social justice (Collins & Bilge, 2016 ). Collins and Bilge ( 2016 ) explained that “Intersectionality is a way of understanding and analyzing the complexity in the world, in people, and in human experiences,” and they further asserted, “Intersectionality as an analytic tool gives people better access to the complexity of the world and of themselves” (p. 2). Drawing upon these core ideas of intersectionality and placing Black girls at the center of an intersectional analysis, education scholars are easily able to recognize how social factors, such as de facto school segregation, housing inequality, pay inequity, mass policing in poor and Black neighborhoods, sexual violence, racial terrorism, and inequity in the healthcare system, collude to distinctly shape Black girls’ personally and as a social group.

Existing at the nexus of Black and girl, and possibly multiple other social categories (e.g., poor, queer, immigrant, and so on), Black girls experience multiple realities across social contexts. How can scholars and social justice advocates adopt intersectionality as a framework and analytical tool to mitigate and interrupt dehumanizing school practices, deculturalization, and the perpetuation of social inequality? In the case of Black girls, an intersectional analysis unveils (a) some taken-for-granted assumptions (and politics) about singular social categories, (b) the presumed symbiotic nature of human relationships in schooling and education, and (c) how power and domination permeates all aspects of society, including education.

Once the education problem can be located within its socio-cultural context(s), the education problem can be solved more justly. Traditional conceptualizations of racial and gender identity theorized individuals’ and social groups’ identities as additive and ordinal, with one primary identity influencing access and opportunities. Consequently, even critical theories of education that grappled with cultural hegemony and dehumanization processes imagined social identities to be additive or ordinal as opposed to interlocking, dynamic, and complex. Black schoolgirls social identities fall along a continuum, and simultaneously in multiple locations, in systemic stratification.

Intersectionality provides more comprehensive insight into how multiply situated identities positions students’ proximity to power and authority differently. Intersectionality is an ethical intercession for meditating asymmetrical relationships in educational settings and to promote more equitable relationships and inclusive learning spaces.

Furthermore, intersectionality in its contemporary form was proliferated via critical race feminism as a legal theory (Wing, 1997 ). Critical race feminism entailed contending with race, gender, and justice, and concurrently imaginings of racial liberation, gender equity, and cultural emancipation(s). With a focus on justice, intersectionality as theory and praxis requires an examination of how Black women, Indigenous women, and other people of color navigate social systems, interpret the social world, and resist oppression. There is a tradition of devaluation and erasure of Black women’s and other women of color’s intellectual labor and cultural productions in seemingly liberal institutions, including K-12 schools, higher education, and even in women-serving organizations.

The so-called “browning of America” has not equated to the browning or decolonization of curriculum, pedagogy, or policy. Intersectionality advances critical race feminists’ attempts to identify, acknowledge, and center the long tradition of women of color’s cultural knowledge and intuition in pursuits of educational equity. Education scholars, too, have a responsibility to examine how Black girls not only persist in schools, but also draw upon their own cultural knowledge and intuition to form a unique student identity and collective consciousness as a form of resistance in the face of hegemony.

Although intersectionality centers the experiences of the marginalized, it also prompts critical self-reflection for all involved in the educational process, including Black girls, researchers interested in the lives of Black girls, and policymakers. How does race, class, and gender influence how education scholars perceive educational problems, which education issues are worth exploring, and who, according to scholars, should be protected in schools? To seek and think more intersectionally, there is a need for collaborative research with Black girls and other girls of color that studies education from their perspective.

In these collaborative relationships, raising youth’s and people’s own collective consciousness while also participating in self-reflexivity throughout interactions with Black girls is sought. From an intersectional approach, the purpose of collaborative research projects is to: (a) create opportunities for coalition building; (b) facilitate more symmetrical relationships with student participants; and (b) contemplate ways to mediate or combat oppressive schooling. These social justice pursuits must draw upon girls’ and Black women’s multiple ways of knowing the social world and performing culture (Brown, 2013 ) with the intent to collaborate with girls and young women to generate more socially just educational policy and programs.

Future Implications of Intersectionality in Education

Reflecting on the critical stance of intersectionality and the tenets of Black feminism, racism and sexism are normal and deeply entrenched in education policy and discourse. Racism and sexism affect relationships and practices inside and outside schools; and both are recycled and re-consumed in school practices and beliefs, co-constructing new generations of racialized and gendered subjects. Born out of Black feminism, intersectionality as a theoretical framework and analytical tool is critical to the continual development of Black women’s and other women of color’s socio-political thought as well as critical theory in general. Knowledge is constructed through collective meaningful contemplation, and in the case of Black women, in the face of marginalization and systematic oppression.

In agreement with critical race feminist Crenshaw ( 1995 ), “Because women of color experience racism in ways not always the same as experienced by men of color and sexism in ways not always paralleled to experiences of white women, antiracism and feminism are limited, even on their own terms” (p. 360). For Black girls, intersectionality is a way of life, a way of seeing the world, and a way of navigating the social world. Born out of oppositional knowledge and standpoint theory, intersectionality concerns itself with power and privilege as much as it does with the ways in which women of color resist various forms of oppression. As a theoretical framework, intersectionality takes on an interdisciplinary approach that draws upon historical knowledge (from the vantage point of the marginalized and oppressed), psychology, cultural studies, gender and ethnic studies, the humanities, economics, and legal theory (e.g., critical race theory and feminism). Finally, after placing Black girls’ school experiences at the center of the analysis, the usefulness of intersectionality for grappling with race and gender in education is summarized as follows:

Intersectionality as a theoretical lens and tool of analysis reveals that Black girls’, Indigenous girls, and other girls of color’s schooling experiences are distinct from that of boys of color and White girls;

Intersectionality born out of Black women’s and other women of color’s praxis centers the lived experiences of girls of color who are confronted by multiple forms of oppression, due to the mutually interlocking identities of race and ethnicity, gender, social class, age, and other social factors within an education system that privileges and sustains White supremacy patriarchy capitalism;

Intersectionality recognizes the multiple identities, collective, and personal knowledge, and cultural intuition that Black girls possess and rely on in their daily lives; this knowledge informs efforts to confront gender and racial domination.

Intersectionality is multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary in knowledge pursuits;

Intersectionality as a theoretical framework privileges girls’ and women of color’s histories and narratives to contextualize the dynamics and resourcefulness of gender and racial domination in the lives of women and girls of color;

Intersectionality as an analytical framework synchronously excogitate upon racial and gender oppression alongside women’s and girls’ strategies of resistance against all forms of oppression.

The student population in the United States is becoming increasingly more diverse and yet many educational practices and policies remain the same. In 2017 , the percentage of US school-age children who identified as Black or African American was at 15% (a 2% decrease). Meanwhile, between 2000 and 2017 , the percentage of school-age children from other racial and ethnic groups increased. Specifically, Latinx children increased from 16 to 27%; Asian children increased from 5 to 7%; and children of two or more racial identities increased from 4 to 6%. In that same period, the percentage of White children decreased from 61 to 48%. The percentage of school-age American Indians and Alaska Natives remained at 1%, and the percentage of Pacific Islanders remained at less than 1%% during this time (NCES, 2019 ). As US student population becomes more racially and ethnically diverse, the teaching force is becoming whiter (DOE, 2016 ). With Black girls making up nearly 16% of the student population, the lack of teacher diversity puts Black girls at greater risk of race and gender discrimination. With the noted demographic shifts, as well as the current waves of health pandemic and national protest, in mind, intersectionality as an analytical framework, born out of Black women’s, Indigenous women, and other women of color’s onto-epistemology, is an entry point for radically reimagining how educational research, policies, and pedagogies can reflect the multiple realities of Black girls, and thus, protect them.

Intersectionality: how gender interacts with other social identities to shape bias

Ph.D. Candidate in Psychology, Northwestern University

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David Miller receives funding from National Science Foundation.

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Actress Patricia Arquette’s comments at the 2015 Oscars award night drew criticism for implicitly framing gender equality as an issue for straight white women. She insisted that, “It’s time for all the women in America and all the men that love women and all the gay people and all the people of color that we’ve all fought for to fight for us now.”

Among other concerns, critics argued she overlooked the unique challenges faced by queer women, women of color and other women at the intersection of multiple minority groups. This sentiment reflects a growing movement within feminist circles to understand how people simultaneously face bias along multiple identity dimensions such as gender, race, and sexual orientation – an idea called intersectionality.

Social psychologists have recently joined in this movement, but have also reframed the discussion. The politics on intersectionality can “resemble a score-keeping contest between battle-weary warriors,” argued social psychologists Valerie Purdie-Vaughns and Richard Eibach in an influential 2008 review article . “The warriors display ever deeper and more gruesome battle scars in a game of one-upmanship.”

Setting aside these “oppression Olympics,” intersectionality is a fertile area for scientific research, argued Rutgers University psychologist Diana Sanchez at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology ( SPSP ) conference last week. At this academic gathering, intersectionality was a major topic at a daylong session about gender .

Here are three lines of research illustrating how gender interacts with other social identities to shape bias in often surprising ways. People of multiple minority groups face both distinct advantages and disadvantages. Biases based on gender and race do not always simply pile up to create double disadvantages, for instance.

When stereotypes can both help and hurt black women leaders

Women are often viewed negatively for exhibiting traditionally masculine behavior . Assertive female leaders are disliked , while assertive male leaders gain respect , for instance. However, could this distaste for assertive female leaders vary by race?

Unlike white women, black women are often stereotyped as being assertive, confident and not feminine. These masculine traits are not only expected for black women but also allowed , at least in leadership roles, according to research presented at the SPSP conference.

Robert Livingston , lecturer of public policy at Harvard University, presented an experiment about how 84 nonblack participants responded to a corporate executive described as either “tough, determined” or “caring, committed.” The race and gender of the fictitious leader were also varied across conditions.

Both white female and black male leaders were rated more negatively when described as tough rather than caring. In contrast, black women faced no such penalty for behaving assertively and were instead rated similarly to white men. Livingston concluded black women “were able to show dominance, assertiveness, agency without the same penalty that either white women or black men suffered.”

He suggested that white women get knocked for being “tough, determined” because they are expected to be warm and caring. Black men are penalized because they are feared by others and activate other stereotypes such as being dangerous. In contrast, black women are expected to be assertive and confident, unlike white women, and they’re not feared in the same way as black men, Livingston suggested.

Livingston, however, emphasized that these evaluations are complex and likely depend on context. In a follow-up experiment led by Duke University associate professor of management and organizations Ashleigh Rosette , black female leaders were evaluated especially harshly if their corporation had performed poorly during the past five months. Under those conditions, black women were rated more negatively than white women or black men for the exact same business scenario.

If you are a black woman, you can be an assertive leader as long as you don’t make any mistakes, Livingston argued. “But the first time you make a mistake, your competence is called into question well before the white woman or the black man.”

When multiple minority identities render groups invisible

Individuals of multiple minority groups may be overlooked and marginalized for not being prototypical of their respective groups, argued Rebecca Mohr , doctoral psychology student at Columbia University. For instance, white women are seen as prototypical of “women.” Black men are seen as prototypical of “black people.” But black women are seen as neither prototypical of “black people” nor “women,” Mohr argued based on prior research .

Racial minority women can therefore be rendered metaphorically invisible. Along with Columbia Associate Professor of Psychology Valerie Purdie-Vaughns , Mohr tested whether racial minority women are featured in mass media less frequently than more prototypical others.

In a currently unpublished study, the researchers analyzed covers of Time magazine published from 1980 to 2008. They chose Time because it’s one of the longest-running U.S. publications and is published weekly, offering a large archive of covers. It’s also a general interest magazine, meaning that people on the covers should presumably “appeal to a wide swath of Americans,” Mohr pointed out.

The study found that racial minority women were underrepresented when racial minorities were on the cover of Time . For instance, women were only 20 percent of the covers that featured racial minorities. Conversely, when women were on the cover, racial minority women were underrepresented relative to their share of the U.S. population.

Mohr suggested that these results reflect the broader invisibility of racial minority women in American society. For instance, even though three black queer women started the Black Lives Matter movement , most media attention has focused on black men killed by police. In contrast, black women killed by police such as Meagan Hockaday, Tanisha Anderson and Rekia Boyd are invisible, critics argue .

How gender gaps in STEM participation vary by race

Gender gaps in pursing natural science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields surprisingly sometimes vary by race, noted Laurie O’Brien , associate professor of psychology at Tulane University. Women of color in STEM may sometimes face “ double jeopardy ” because of both racial bias and gender bias in some contexts such as gaining influence over others in academic departments.

However, “double jeopardy” is not the full story, O’Brien argued in her SPSP talk. For instance, when entering college, black women are more likely than white women to intend to major in STEM. Her research shows that black women hold weaker gender-STEM stereotypes than white women, helping explain that difference.

O’Brien also pointed to research by psychologists Monica Biernat and Amanda Sesko about bias favoring male computer engineers . This bias was found only when undergraduates evaluated fictitious white, but not black, employees. Black women were instead evaluated similarly compared to white men.

In one large nationally representative experiment, gender bias in STEM even reversed by race and ethnicity. STEM faculty responded less often to emails from white female than white male prospective graduate students. However, STEM faculty consistently responded more often to Hispanic women than Hispanic men.

O’Brien emphasized these data are complex. For instance, even though black women start out in college more interested in STEM than white women, black women may face unique barriers such as race-based stereotypes to completing college with a STEM degree. In her current research, O’Brien studies how the effects of interventions to bring girls into STEM may vary by race.

Thinking beyond ‘double jeopardy’

This research on intersectionality challenges the simple narrative that prejudices such as sexism and racism always combine to create “double jeopardy.” For instance, racial minority women can be rendered “invisible.” But this invisibility may also protect them in some cases by making them less prototypical targets of common forms of bias.

This research is still in its early stages. For instance, more studies are needed to test how evaluations of black female leaders found in small laboratory experiments generalize to real world settings. Attendees at the SPSP conference also emphasized the need to develop theoretical frameworks that can help explain the nuanced results. The emerging data show that gender can interact with other social identities to shape perceptions and evaluations in complex and often surprising ways.

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Published: 13 August 2020

An intimate dialog between race and gender at Women’s Suffrage Centennial

Mimi Yang 1

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume 7 , Article number: 65 ( 2020 ) Cite this article

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Cultural and media studies

Women’s Suffrage Centennial has arrived in a culturally divisive time in the United States as well as in a high-stakes presidential election year. All this is accompanied with the emergence of Black Lives Matter movement on a global-scale in the wake of the African American man George Floyd’s death under the knees of white police officers. In an “I cannot breathe” America at a new cultural awakening moment, is the Centennial a divider or unifier for American women in 2020? This article aims to answer the question by revisiting the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution and iconic figures like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois, and Mary Church Terrell. In an interdisciplinary approach anchored in both historical and cultural studies, the article scrutinizes the split between the two visceral elements pertinent to cultural identity—gender and race—in Women’s Suffrage Movement, draws a pattern of their intersection, and maps out a “double consciousness” (to borrow W.E.B. DuBois’ term). The article argues that the women’s suffrage movement was indeed a gigantic step towards the American ideal of gender equality but it fell short of racial equality. There is a mixed legacy to embrace and to reevaluate at the same time. Therefore, Women’s Suffrage Centennial should not and cannot be a single-issue gender celebration, nor a one-size-fits-all symphony, but a landmark occasion for an intimate and nuanced dialog between gender and race. The article suggests that the Centennial should not only celebrate white American suffragists, but should be an opportunity to make a historic step to cross the color line that has cutoff African American women, as well as women of color from other races, ethnicities, and heritages from the power center.

The East-West dialogue: methodical diversity and frailties of feminist accounts

Back to marx: reflections on the feminist crisis at the crossroads of neoliberalism and neoconservatism, kashmiri women in conflict: a feminist perspective, introduction.

The right to vote defines constitutional citizenship. A century ago, the long-and-hard-fought victory of women’s right to vote culminated with the passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution on August 18, 1920, thus completing a full circle of citizenship for woman. She could now vote like her (white) male counterparts as an equal and full citizen. On the surface, this is an indisputable narrative, and in fact, has found its way into textbooks and seeped through the nation’s imagination for a century. However, if the constitutional right to vote is a basic definition of a citizen, women of color were still not able to exercise their full citizenship in 1920 but until 45 years later in the era of the Civil Rights Movement, with the Voting Rights Act of 1965 signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson. As one of the most far-reaching pieces of civil right legislation, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 addressed manmade obstacles that had prevented African Americans and women of color in general from participating in nation’s political life. The 1965 Act eventually removed literacy tests, poll taxes, and requirement of property ownership among other “tactically” designed obstacles at state level, which had effectively stripped away African Americans and other minority individuals’ rightful right to vote. Granted in the 15th Amendment in 1870, voting rights of a citizen of color had not got exercised until 1965. History seems to have given birth to two Americas—the white one at the center, entitled of a “standard” narrative; the non-white one at the periphery, “unfit” to be counted on equal terms. Then, whose centennial of the women’s suffrage movement is this in 2020? Which America is relevant to the landmark event?

Elizabeth J. Clapp summarizes the characteristics of anniversaries of the women’ suffrage movement:

Traditionally, historians viewed the suffrage struggle as part of the history of democracy in the United States, an effort to widen the franchise to all Americans. They wrote organizational histories of the women’s rights movement, centering on the campaign for the vote, and biographers included suffragists among their projects. These pioneering histories paid attention to exceptional women who operated in the male world. They characterized them as white, middle class, and mostly living on the East Coast, which…reflected little of the diversity and regional variation… ( 2007 , p. 238).

It has indeed been a long-standing tradition and a well-accepted standard to celebrate women’s suffrage based on a single-issue of gender, with a group of iconic suffragists—white, middle class, and from the East Coast. The tradition has institutionalized a widespread cultural perception that the women’s suffrage movement is white or WASP (White-Anglo-Saxon-Protestant); a “standard” celebration as such has “reflected little the diversity and regional variation”. So observed Clapp more than a decade ago. In 2020, however, a one-size-fits-all “white” celebration proves to be evidently inadequate, given the twenty-first century demographics, distinctively transformed as opposed to the one a century ago. The centennial of women’s suffrage movement presents a much needed platform to examine these transformations and their impact on the way in which we frame and celebrate each anniversary and now the centennial.

In reviewing Ellen Carol DuBois’ 2020 book Suffrage: Women’s Long Battle for the Vote , Donna Seaman states, “The story of suffrage in the United States is dramatic, infuriating, paradoxical, and saturated with sexism and racism” (Seaman, 2020 , p. 18). It is not a black or white story but a gray one in different shades at different times. DuBois’ book explores in depth the links of the woman suffrage movement to the abolition of slavery and the complex make-up of “foremothers” of the suffrage movement Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and Sojourner Truth. DuBois points out, “The women suffrage movement had incredible range. It was sustained and transformed through massive political, social and economic changes in American life and carried forward at least by three generations of American women” (DuBois, 2020 , p. 2). The meaning of the suffrage for American women has thus never been set in stone; it morphs and alters as “hopes and fears for American democracy rise and fall” (p. 1). From the mid-nineteenth century to the Civil War, the Reconstruction, the Progressive Era, the Civil Rights Movement, the threshold of the global age, the post-colonial/post-industrial time, and the digital/informational universe, what means to be an American woman changes, evolves, and transforms. The word “woman” no longer signifies a white archetypal female who represents all female individuals. Because of demographic changes, sociopolitical transformations, and economic reconfigurations, women’s suffrage victory has never unfolded as a straightforward line, but we are taught to grasp it as a single-issue binary of women-defeating-men or feminism-defeating-sexism. Far from being “neat” and “fit” with our mental frames, women suffrage was a victory of feminism tainted by racism, of a gender-equality accomplishment that rejected racial equality.

Presently, we live in a racially susceptible, culturally divisive, and politically contentious time. 2020 not only marks Women’s Suffrage Centennial but also the year of a high-stakes presidential election, in the thick of an unprecedented Black-Lives-Matter movement. Gender and race are lined up to configure the current sociopolitical landscape; competing voices collide in hatred, bigotry and at times, in violence. Then the question is, are we equipped and ready for a race/gender dialog in the face of disconnect, distrust, and diatribe in 2020?

The answer is, not quite and not yet.

This article digs into historic and cultural depth for a root-cause examination of “why not yet” in 2020. As an interdisciplinary article, its narratives, analysis, arguments, and conclusions in the following sections are anchored in historical studies but for cultural studies engagement and outcome. Historicity, with facts and evidences, lays a tangible foundation for the weaving of cultural narratives and the extrapolating of cultural patterns. Footnote 1 An intimate dialog between gender and race occurs when we recognize familiar fear and bigotry from the past, and trace out similar divisive patterns in the current historical moment and the present sociopolitical landscape. Thus, as methodology, the article engages in research-based interpretations and analysis of context and text. Historicity delineates historical and sociopolitical contexts that have produced iconic figures, landmark events, and influential writings/texts. Conversely, documentations and written works left behind by those who made history provide textual evidence of the contexts that they lived, created, and shaped. In a symbiotic interplay, contexts and texts mirror one another to configure a cultural history that speaks to us today. At the conjuncture of history and culture and society, an intimate dialog between gender and race celebrates the centennial of women’s suffrage and dissects the racial injustice of the present day, as evidenced by George Floyd’s tragic death in May 2020. These events shape and configure American culture for the years to come.

Part 1—the missing link between gender and race in 2020: the binary and the color line

In the present time of political divisiveness and racial injustice, the link between gender and race is missing, let alone the dialog. In fact, it was severed a century ago by the collision between the power center and its periphery, the standard and the diverse, in American culture. Both sides were tripped over the impassable and perennial “color line”, to use W.E.B. DuBois’ term, which divides the nation in two since its inception. As a building block of American culture, the women’s suffrage movement was a gigantic sociopolitical and cultural step for women moving from the gender periphery to the patriarchal power center. However, this gigantic step is ironically not immune to forming an intersectional center/periphery binary within the women’s suffrage movement, with white women at the power center and African-American, as well as all other women of color at the periphery.

In 1848, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott organized the Seneca Falls Convention to launch the movement for women’s rights in the United States. Subsequently, women around the country protested, picketed, and were imprisoned to secure their constitutional right to vote. That was a historic moment when women took on a patriarchal power structure that had been in place against them in the United States. While all men are born equal in this great country, American women of all races have had to fight for the right to vote in order to be a full citizen and an equal human being. The patriarchal oppression takes countless forms across cultures and for millennia along human history. The basic and universal form is however the binary and gender hierarchy of male/female. It takes courage and ingenuity to write history with a female hand. American women did precisely that in 1848 and set the nation on the path to gender equality. After 72 years, on June 4, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was passed by the Congress and granted women the right to vote for the first time in the U.S. history. Many trailblazers of the movement did not live to see the landmark fruit of their enduring struggle and prolonged fight. “Only two women who participated in the Seneca Falls convention were still alive when the Nineteenth Amendment went into effect” (Mintz, 2007 , p. 47). At the centennial, nationwide, museums, libraries, schools, and institutions celebrate the passing of the 19th Amendment with forums, exhibitions, seminars, lectures, and parties. Needless to say, this is the occasion of national gender celebration that moves American women in unison to honor the suffragists’ legacy. Everyone is expected to remember or learn what textbook teaches. There is a “standard” and “centralized” version of what happened a century ago and who were the protagonists. Individuals across political spectrums, genders, races, and age groups are brought together to admire the courageous, visionary, and resilient suffragists. The occasion is largely treated as a single-issue victory of gender equality and as a binary engagement of how feminism defeated sexism.

The long-held “mainstream” and “standard” celebration implies a one-size-fits-all assumption. WASP women are assumed to represent all women across races and heritages, embody the gender of the American female, and speak for all women in one voice of gender equality. The WASP uniformity and universality has been established by dismissing diversity and racial inequality within the realm of gender. Not all women were created equal in the U.S. history; the struggle for racial equality is encapsulated and often eclipsed in the struggle of gender equality. Keeping women of color in the periphery, in a support role or in irrelevance to white women’s suffrage, or simply discarding their existence are some of the mechanisms of the racial divide. It is not surprising that there is a canon that regards the WASP women as unquestionably perfect and flawless heroes, leaders, and saviors for all American women. This is the standard narrative rarely questioned and reevaluated in the suffrage history. However, after a century’s immigration and demographic shifting, in 2020, the terms “women” or “American women” expand to previously uncharted territories, while revolving around two reminiscent forces at play to define these terms: the one at the center that universalizes the terms in a vertical direction, and the one at the periphery that diversifies the term in a horizontal direction.

First, let us focus on the universalizing and vertical force. Upon the suffrage centennial, the term “American women” is still largely used in reference to the WASP women as in history. We have rarely pondered its cultural underpinnings. It is a widely accepted or acquiesced in cultural imagination that WASP women are the face and voice of all American women across races and heritages, of the women’s suffrage movement and of the centennial. Statues and monuments of Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Amelia Mott and Lucy Stone grace national parks, cities and historical sites, institutionalizing the narrative that the women suffrage is “white”. Sojourner Truth was later included in one of the representations as a response to the criticism of exclusion of black suffragists. The universalizing force has much to do with the cultural “blueprint” that the WASPs set up at the birth of our nation. The “blueprint” has never been altered, in spite of the challenges of new cultural DNA pooled from the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement in particular. The men and women, programed in the initial WASP cultural design, inherit these cultural genes from generation to generation:

The central elements of that culture [American] can be defined in a variety of ways but include the Christian religion, Protestant values and moralism, a work ethic, the English language, British traditions of law, justice, and the limits of government power, and a legacy of European art, literature, philosophy and music (Huntington, 2004 , p. 40).

From a long Anglo-Saxon dominated culture and tradition in the United States, these element have been held as essential and fundamental; they are the “American Creed”. WASP women had been victimized by WASP men for centuries; WASP women stood up in the women’s suffrage movement and became a beacon for all oppressed women around the world to look up to. Nonetheless, to what extent do the WASP women share or reject Huntington’s monocutluralist view? Not clear. What is clear is that Huntington’s view has the WASPs’ cultural DNA as the standard, the norm, and the authority to shape and define American culture. In a paradoxical way, the WASP culture DNA left its undeletable print, through the suffragists themselves, in the women’s suffrage movement. Quite a few suffragist leaders themselves were abolitionist but turned to be racially vitriolic in fighting for (white) women’s rights. This paradox has helped with the WASP exclusive ownership of women’s suffrage history, as well as women’s fight for gender equality in general. The sense of exclusivity rejects groups of non-WASP heritages and divides citizens/women into the mainstream and the marginalized. Thus, pivoted on the WASP blueprint, within women rights movement, a culture wall is erected by the WASP elites for exclusion and a power binary of the center/the periphery—WASP women/African American women—is created.

Second, let us shift our focus to the diversifying and horizontal force. After a century of continuous, massive, and non-Anglo/Nordic immigration, which unavoidably sparked social and culture transformations, the year 2020 witnesses a “browner” and “flatter” America. As of the present day, there has been a significant increase of women of color; they now represent roughly 40% of U.S. women. Footnote 2 When American women come together on the occasion of the Suffrage Centennial, the togetherness is far from being the sameness, despite shared interest for gender equality. Throughout suffrage history, women of color were never much of a presence at best and they were discriminated and prevented from exercising their voting rights at worst. Then, what is Women’s Suffrage Centennial to a woman of color? Footnote 3 In the “browner” and “flatter” America of the present day, not only do white women continue their fight for gender equality in their professional and personal lives, but also a much broadened range of marginalized entities, defined by gender, as well as race, find themselves in day-to-day struggle for inclusion, equality, citizenship, and humanity. These include women and men of color, immigrants, LGBTQ Footnote 4 citizens, individuals from a non-Christian faith, and members of special needs. An unprecedentedly diverse and all-encompassing population, just like white women a century ago, is fighting to cross the power binary of the center/the periphery separated by the color line. However, their binary is different from the one that their WASP sisters faced; it is a double binary with a double center and a double periphery—racial and gender. A double divide prevents women of color from being a full citizen, as well as a full woman as their rights are alienable on both fronts. If the celebration of the centennial highlights white women’s leadership, contribution and achievements in universal terms, defined by vertical WASP values, then, many contemporary American women of color would certainly find themselves as “unfit” with the narrative of women suffrage; they would remain left out the nation’s history.

The confrontation of the universalizing force from the center and the diversifying force from the periphery not only drives the women suffrage centennial to the crossroads of gender and race, but also reveals a deeper split between the two in our present social milieu. A woman of color in 2020 is no longer in the image of a freedom-deprived slave working in a cotton field in the antebellum South. She can well be a highly-educated individual, a lawyer, an executive, an artist, or a medical doctor. By the Constitution, as white women, a woman of color has equal and “unalienable rights” of education, citizenship, and the pursuit of happiness. She may be from a long line of ancestors who witnessed the inception of this nation or may be a first or second generation immigrant. Either falls into at least one of these categories: Native-African-Asian-Hispanic-Muslim-LGBTQ Americans. These “non-white” and non-WASP identities, after 100 years of the struggle for gender equality, nonetheless, still have not yet crossed “the color line” to be accepted as inherently American. When an African-American woman speaks up, she would invite the perception of “an angry woman”. When a Hispanic-American woman is in charge, how “American” she is to deserve that position would be an unuttered question. When an Asian-American woman acts with self-confidence, she would be labeled as a “banana”—yellow outside and white inside. The notion that being a white is American or more American than a person of color is still prevalent.

Racism and color line in 2020 are not as raw and crude as the ones that characterized the society a century ago. They are well absorbed into institutional systems and continue to dehumanize people of color in the name of law, conventions, patriotism, and American values. Deep in the fabric of the society and in the core of the culture, the center continues to exercise its dominance; the wounds of the periphery reopen and continue to bleed, internally or externally, in the presence of an external trigger. As the latest in a long line of Black victims of systemic racism, George Floyd’s death has sparked racial hemorrhage not only in the US but globally. In a more subtle and covert fashion, the institutional racism has left its undeletable stain not only on women’s suffrage movement but on its anniversary celebrations. “Standard” women’s suffrage anniversaries have always been the celebration of iconic figures like Stanton, Mott, Anthony, and Stone, among others. Indeed, the vision, leadership, spirit, and accomplishment of these remarkable WASP women have transformed our society and reshaped American culture. In many significant ways in the struggle for gender equality, American women across races, ethnicities, religions and heritages are indebted to the history that the WASP women have made. Nonetheless, all this glory does not alter a racialized past and does not heal the internal wounds sustained over a century. The togetherness of American women no longer means gender homogeneity but gender diversity. That not all women are created equal still remains a reality in 2020. Not only the nation but also American feminism is still divided by the color line. The question “what is Women’s Suffrage Centennial to a ‘browner’ and ‘flatter’ America” confronts the “center” and the “standard”, reevaluates the “periphery” and the diverse, and redefines the term of “American women”. A historical examination how racial equality interacts with gender equality becomes indispensable in recasting the centennial celebrations.

Part 2—a blocked dialog between gender and race in history

A dialog takes at least two parties to exchange information and ideas, debate differences or teach/learn from one another in an interactive and generative back-and-forth process. In women’s suffrage, gender and race intersected as the two dialogic parties; instead of moving forward, they blocked each other, thus unsettling the dialogic binary that impacted cultural configuration. Over a century since women’s suffrage, various ideologies on race and gender have been dislodged. In a multicultural and multiracial society, the alignment or the derailment of an ideology never follows a straight line but winding and intertwining. There are always minefields and contingent contexts to be considered and cautioned, so much so that we often have to perform a still-walk, fossilized by fear, distrust, bigotry, and sometimes hate and violence. Intriguingly, as the two building blocks of American culture, gender and race reject or recognize one another other as two competitors in given political circumstances. Often, they are the elephant in the room, never in a comfortable position to acknowledge and articulate each other’s nature, significance, and above all, potential connections between them. They would rather avoid issues and themes associated with the other. Not unlike rivalry twins, race and gender, from the same parentage, compete for social attention, cultural representation, and legal voices at any given moment. While a landmark stride has been made towards equality and social justice, the Women’s Suffrage Movement and the Civil Rights Movement have never been culturally congruent and ideologically harmonious. As much as the ideological tracks associated with gender and race intend or are orchestrated to steer clear from one another, their trajectories in pursuing social justice become paralleled in the same direction sometimes and intersected in collision other times.

Then, what exactly has severed the link between gender and race and blocked the dialog? The question puts us in a soul-search process with historical reflections and self-examination. To search for the root cause, let us be galvanized by the ratifications of 14 th and the 15th Amendments to the Constitution that paralleled the trajectory of the women’s suffrage movement. The twists and turns of the movement split, as well as tangled gender and race. Let the long overdue dialog start from where the split occurred.

The Civil War (1861–65) brought two economic systems—the agrarian/plantation in the South and the industrial/urbanization in the North—into a life-and-death confrontation. Slavery institutions were not only the foundation of the southern economy but also a visible-to-the-naked-eye divide of two conflictive mindsets: freedom/equality to all human beings vs. freedom/equality to certain groups. Whether in the North or in the South, the two mindsets waged a cultural war because of the Civil War. The North won the war in the battlefield but left historic wounds unhealed, continuing to bleed for a long time after the war. The Reconstruction era (1865–1877), to the best definition of the word “reconstruction”, saw unprecedented efforts to heal racial wounds inflicted upon African American citizens and bridge cultural gaps created by economic disparity and social inequality. A number of racially egalitarian policies and laws put in place. The 14th and the 15th Amendments stood out as they tackle the issues central to Reconstruction head-on: restoring slaves’ fundamental human dignity, protecting their citizens’ rights, advancing racial equality, and pursuing economic justice in a bitterly heterogeneous society. These are monumental constitutional transformations, designed to evoke and embody the American ideal of freedom and equality. However, as constitutional laws, understandably, these governing documents did not sink into cultural and psychological depth as to provide an effective platform for a national dialog between gender and race. Unfortunately, the link between the two major building blocks of American culture is thus missed.

Let us examine the split between race and gender in the 14th Amendment. It states in Section 1:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Footnote 5

The 14th amendment was ratified in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War on July 9, 1868; it was a direct echo of the gunfire in the battlefield for the emancipation of slavery in this land. After almost a century, the language of “all persons” resonates unmistakably with “all men are created equal” in the Declaration of Independence, signed in 1776 at Pennsylvania State House. The 14th Amendment granted citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside”. Footnote 6 Recently freed former slaves were the main intended audience and included in “all persons”. In addition, the Amendment oversees and forbids states from denying any person’s “life, liberty or property, without due process of law” or to “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”. Footnote 7 Once again, “life and liberty” coincides with “the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independence. Laudably, the Amendment granted the civil rights to African Americans and recognized them as equal citizens in the Constitution. In spite of the local states’ political maneuvering to defer African Americans’ constitutional rights, the 14th Amendment stands as the legal harbinger that foreshadowed the Civil Rights Movement a century later. According to legal experts, the Amendment is “the most commonly used—and frequently litigated—phrase in the amendment is ‘equal protection of the law’, which figures prominently in a wide variety of landmark cases”. Footnote 8 This is one of the most cited Amendment to enforce civil rights associated with race, gender, reproductive rights, affirmative actions. Not only African-Americans but all marginalized and dehumanized individuals have a chance to defend themselves thanks to the law of equal protection in the 14th Amendment. It sends a clear and loud message of racial equality.

While Section 1 in the 14th Amendment advocates and experiments interracial democracy by acknowledging African American rights with the clause “all persons born or naturalized in the United States”, it does not mention gender inclusion and equality. Are women not part of “all persons?” Section 2 of the Amendment, by particularly securing the male political representation and male citizens’ voting right, explicitly excludes women:

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, […] But when the right to vote at any election […] is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, […] the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state. Footnote 9

It limits the right to vote to “the male inhabitants of such State, being 21 years of age, and citizens of the United States”. “Male inhabitants” implies the inclusion of African-American males during the period of national healing. Semantically, the document places African American men above (white) women in the suffrage movement. If black men are above black women, it would probably be just “fine” and “logic”. Now they are perceived above white women; white women were the universal representation of the gender at that time. Section 1 and Section 2 in the 14th Amendment together set the stage where the racial equality collides with gender equality. As a result, women suffrage becomes contentious between race and gender. Garth Pauley quoted the argument of the Stanton-Anthony wing in the suffrage movement:

…the cause of human freedom would be set back by an amendment that made it easier for the black man to vote while, by inserting the word male in the Constitution for the first time, it made it harder than before for women to get the ballot (cited in Pauley, 2000 , p. 386). Footnote 10

“The 14th Amendment strained the relationship between White women and Blacks” (Pauley, 2000 , p. 386). The male-vs.-female gender binary finds itself intersected with the racial binary of black-vs.-white. When African-American women stood in total absence, there was not such a gender equation as white women vs. black women, but a “chiasm” of white women vs. black men, in which two binaries on two different tracks crisscrossed: the gender and the race. This requires a gender/race joint approach to understanding both white female suffragists as well as black male suffragists, as they are situated in a chiasm crossing two different categories.

It is worth noting the invisibility of African-American women during the second half of the nineteenth century. Their absence was largely due to the double hurdle—gender and race—that they always had to encounter in order to enter into an equation and be counted in. They cross both gender and race categories, but neither gender nor race alone can represent a full identity of African-American women or any women of color for that matter. Only when gender and race are in dialog and intersect, can they be defined as a full citizen and a full woman. A simple one-on-one binary in gender or in race reduces their representational complexity and subjugates them to either sexism or racism. Therefore, they were/are the most vulnerable group in identity dismissal, when the dialog between gender and race is blocked. At the intersection of race and gender, the 14th Amendment, in pursuit of racial equality, split race from gender and missed the link between the two.

The split between gender and race become more evident when the 15th Amendment was ratified on February 3, 1870. 2020 marks its 150th anniversary, coinciding with women’s suffrage centennial. The text of the 15th Amendment reads: Footnote 11

Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

More explicit than ever, the Amendment stresses an inclusive voting right that includes African-Americans, as well as all citizens of color in broad stroke. However, like the 14th, the 15th Amendment has no mention and no acknowledgement of women, which was perceived by the suffragists as dismissive and discriminatory. Subsequently, the 15th Amendment created a rock-paper-scissors situation that compelled suffragists to choose a position between gender or race, so that they could work towards their political conviction and personal priority, as fit and feasible. This sowed the seeds for the division of the women’s suffrage movement and of the polarization between gender and race in American culture. Some white citizens and politicians who made peace with their conscience and supported black suffrage. “This is the negro’s hour” was a rallying cry of the period and “became the universal response to the women’s appeal”. Footnote 12 Anthony and Stanton were deeply embittered by the “Negro’s hour”; as they strongly believed that a white educated woman was superior, far more qualified to vote than an African American man. As staunch fighters for women’s rights, they refused to support the amendment and founded the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA). On the other hand, Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell, who were more inclined to universal suffrage, supported the amendment and founded the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA). The emergence of the two suffrage organizations symbolically and ideologically dichotomized race and gender.

The split between the NWSA and the AWSA brought to light the underlying divide—the color line—in the nation’s psyche: (white) women’s suffrage vs. Black (men’s) suffrage. Which one is the priority of emancipation, gender or race? The omission of gender in the 15th Amendment helped already widespread sexism; this outraged white female suffragist leaders. To fight back sexism, “instead of arguing for suffrage in terms of equal rights” (Mintz, 2007 , p. 47), the representatives of the NWSA, and, later, of the National American Women Suffrage Association, resorted to the ugly racism and xenophobia. By giving vote to (white) women, the leaders of these associations argued that “white, native born voters would” be guaranteed and “outnumbered immigrant and non-white voters” (Mintz, 2007 , p. 47). On a chiasm that crosses gender and race, neither sexism nor racism/xenophobia can carry out any dialog but harbor bigotry and mutual exclusion, thus blocking the dialog between gender and race.

The notion that the 15th Amendment was regarded to put African Americans’ voting rights before women’s indicated nineteenth-century men’s, black or white, representational power. White men represented all white individuals; in the same way, black men represented the entire black community. Conversely, white women were omitted as non-entities in the same way that black women were erased. These were shared sexist “syndromes” across black and white races. Prior to the 14th and the 15th Amendments, in spite of deeply rooted sexism and racism, black men and white women had made some strategic alliance to win the vote. Garth Pauley made a point of an unprincipled but convenient relation between white female suffragists and black men with a quote from black feminist bell hooks: Footnote 13

Prior to white male support of suffrage for black men, white women activists had believed it would further their cause o ally themselves with black political activists, but when it seemed that black men might get the vote while they remained disfranchised, political solidarity with black people was forgotten and they urged white men to allow racial solidarity to overshadow their plans to support black male suffrage. (Hooks, 1984 , p. 3, cited in Pauley, 2000 , p. 385)

The 14th and 15th Amendments made it “clear that the franchise would be granted only to African American men, many white suffragists spoke out against the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments” (Pauley, 2000 , p. 385). At this intersection, a one-to-one binary, whether white-vs.-black or men-vs.-women, does not hold; it blurs racial divide and deconstructs gender “logic”. If a white female suffragist holds onto racial solidarity, how would she combat her marginalized position by white males who had been the authority, the norm, and the standard to dehumanize her? If she embraces gender solidarity, how would she accept a black woman as her equal? Should she side with white men or black women to win her fight for the vote?

The one-to-one binary becomes destabilized and fluid in the intersection; it is no longer one-to-one but one-to-multiple or multiple-to-one or multiple-to-multiple. The fluidity of the multiplicity could have opened a purposeful dialog, but it did not happen. Prioritizing race over gender by the two Amendments fragments the coalition between white women and black men. Anthony and Stanton took a stand. In 1868, they met with members of American Equal Rights Association (AERA), including the first mayor of Boston Wendell Philips. When Philips expressed his support for black suffrage and explained why he believed the two Amendments offered what could prove to be the only chance for African-Americans, “Anthony objected vehemently” (Pauley, 2000 , p. 386). She raised up her right arm and proclaimed: “Look at this, all of you. And hear me swear that I will cutoff this right arm of mine before I will ever work for or demand the ballot for the negro and not the woman”. Footnote 14 Clearly, in Anthony’s vocabulary, “women” means white women only, and “the negro” signifies black men only. Thus, her way of splitting gender and race straightforwardly hierarchizes gender above the race. Anthony’s statement at the 1869 AERA convention vividly reflects the racism of her time, to which she was certainly not immune:

The old anti-slavery school say women must stand back and wait until the negroes shall be recognized. But we say, if you will not give the whole loaf of suffrage to the entire people give it to the most intelligent first. If intelligence, justice, and morality are to have precedence in the Government, let the question of woman be brought up first and that of the negro last. Footnote 15

Evidently, the universal noun “women” is reduced only to mean white women in Anthony and her contemporaries, who were more intelligent, judicious and moral than “negroes”. In the late nineteenth century U.S., white race was widely considered superior to any other races, and therefore, (white) “women” are naturally superior to the “negroes”. The fight for the voting right turned out to be a competition between gender and race. The NWSA not only turned away from Black suffrage, but also regarded African-Americans taking away the chance for white women to win their vote. Although many believed that both women suffrage and black suffrage were just and necessary, the Constitution would only allow one social transformation at a time. Groups that fall into both race and gender categories had no amendments nor social frames to define them and protect their rights. Women of color who cross gender and race boundaries would struggle to figure out if they should fight for women’s voting rights or racial equality? African-American women and women of color in general have been historically boxed into race or gender, but never both. The simple binary boxing mirrors the sociological, cultural, and political “split” of gender and race, institutionalized by the 14th and the 15th Amendments. At the end of the Reconstruction Era, the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and the reversal wave of interracial democracy wiped out the already faintly visible trace of African American women and women of color altogether from history. In the meantime, the (white) women’s suffrage movement was getting up steam and earning support nationwide. The 19th Amendment, ratified on August 18, 1920, finally granted American women the right to vote, ending almost a century of protest since 1848’s Seneca Falls Convention. The 19th Amendment, effective immediately in the same year as its ratification, is a landmark of the historic victory for (white) women. It defeated voting sexism and shook the U.S. culture at its core, but the core was not shaken hard enough to erase the color line and but continued to keep it intact.

The 14th and 15th Amendments heralded interracial democracy, granted citizens of color the defining and all-important right to vote, and assured them the constitutional protection. As much as the two documents intended to build racial equality, their scope and depth were severely limited as they were not designed to address the visceral color divide in the nation’s psyche. They left room for a retroactive surge of white supremacy in the late nineteenth century to undo the progressive ideal to heal and integrate the nation in the aftermath of the Civil War. Ironically, what blocked the dialog between gender and race is the very effort by the two Amendments to cross the color line, but the effort was limited to a simple racial binary, dismissing a pluralistic chiasm across both race and gender. Further, the cultural meaning of women or gender in the nineteenth century was white-centric. Women of color found themselves in a no-man’s land, regarded as irrelevant to the landmark social transformation, whereas they should have been the catalyst of the dialog between gender and race.

Part 3—at the intersection: Frederick Douglass’ dialog between gender and race

After having identified what blocked the dialog between gender and race, then, how should one engage in the dialog? Four million slaves were freed with the Union victory in the Civil War in 1865. Despite the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, the social and legal status of slaves stayed unchanged in day-to-day life and the slavery institution remained in full operation. Integrating former slaves into the nation’s political and cultural life and bringing the former rebel Southern states back with the Union sparked the need for an urgent sociopolitical and cultural dialog, at a national level, with former slaves, as well as with former slave owners.

As indicated previously, the Reconstruction era (1865–1877) generated a set of new laws and policies towards national healing and interracial equality. The 14th and the 15th Amendments paved the way for former slaves to participate in southern political life, as legal and equal citizens. For the first time the nation experimented an effort at federal level to attain a “black-and-white” interracial democracy. In that particular historic moment, the color line was eclipsed by the desire to reconstruct and reunify; the white world intersected with the black one, not as master-slave but as constitutional equals. However, the intersection was highly unstable and fragile to be pushed around when the KKK and the force of white supremacy reversed the course that the 14th and 15th Amendments were headed to. In less than a decade since the passage of the 15th Amendment, the color line violently cut back to dichotomize the white and the black. Racism continued to take root in both South and North. Neither the Civil War nor the Reconstruction was able to stitch the wound that the color line had cut. Under these complex and fluid circumstances, it was not surprising that Stanton and Anthony responded to the implied sexism in the 15th Amendment with racist outrage. Their prioritizing white women over black men in women’s suffrage movement not only alienated African Americans but also reflected the volatile race relations in the post-Civil War era. In the midst of the racism vented by the white suffragists that he admired, Frederick Douglass (1818–1891) took a different position; in doing so, he personified a dialog rather a diatribe at the intersection between race and gender.

From a mixed racial heritage, Frederick Douglass was an intercultural insider—a staunch supporter for women’s suffrage, as well as for black suffrage. As a former slave, an abolitionist, and editor of the Rochester North Star , he was one of the few men present, together with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, at the Seneca Falls convention in July 1848. It was a convention to champion women’s rights; the 300 women present saw it as a public declaration to fight for women’s constitutional right to vote as full U.S. citizens. Stanton drafted and presented “Declaration of Sentiments”, modeled on the Declaration of Independence; it described women’s grievances and demands. To parallel the struggles of the Founding Fathers, the “Declaration of Sentiments” summarized 11 resolutions on women’s rights, including women’s suffrage. All were resolved but women’s suffrage. Footnote 16 In a patriarchal society like the nineteenth century U.S., a woman could not own property or make financial and reproductive decisions for themselves, and had no equal divorce, education and employment opportunities. The idea for them to vote was met with ridicule and hostility. It sounded abnormal and heretic, hardly appealing to the predominantly Quake audience whose male attendees were dismissive of such an “unreasonable” demand. However, the African-American man, Douglass, was standing by Stanton’s side and defended women’s intellect, skills, and abilities to speak for herself and to stand up for herself. He described Stanton’s document as “the grand movement for attaining the civil, social, political, and religious rights of women”. Footnote 17 Stanton declares women’s rights by asserting gender equality:

We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Footnote 18

Women were part of a patriarchal society, oppressed and suppressed; they were stripped of gender-equal rights and therefore they were never full citizens in a democracy. This was a problem and a bitter irony of democracy. The declaration forcefully argues that women be respected by the Constitution as full citizens of the United States and be granted the same rights and privileges granted to her male fellow citizens. Stanton’s declaration marked the beginning of the women’s rights movement in the country, laid groundwork for the suffrage movement, and galvanized American culture on an untrodden path to the passage of the 19th Amendment.

Although Douglass did not live to see the 19th Amendment in place, he deeply understood the magnitude and the impact of the women’s suffrage movement, perhaps more than any man in his time. At the Seneca Falls convention, when the resolution of women’s suffrage was just about to be defeated, Douglass asked for the floor and delivered a passionate and eloquent plea on behalf of women’s right to the elective franchise (Foner, 1976 , p. 14). His compelling words and persuasive power swayed the body into agreeing and adopting the resolution by a small margin. Stanton found an unexpected supporter in a black man.

To come to grips with Douglass’ intersection of race and gender, let’s hear his own voice in the speech “The Women’s Suffrage Movement”. given in April 1888 before the International Council of Women, in Washington D.C. In that speech, after 40 years of the Seneca Falls convention, he reflected upon his role in women’s suffrage movement, “I come to this platform with unusual diffidence”. Footnote 19 What is this “unusual” about? What enabled him to position women as men’s equals was not his “superior” male gender but his “inferior” African-American race. A mixed blood, an escaped slave, and a self-taught cultural thinker and writer, Douglass has firsthand experience of humiliation and dehumanization, and understands the existential need to be accepted and acknowledged as a dignified human being. He finds himself inside the mindsets of both the black and the white, the male and the female. Uniquely capable of relating African-American’s marginalization to the gender marginalization of white woman, he sees clearly that along the course of the suffrage movement, race and gender, two seemingly separate identifiers, have to march on paralleled tracks, together. In between the entwined steps, there has to be a shared dialog on inclusion, equality, citizenship, and humanity. From his black’s vintage point, a mutually recognizable and relatable position is possible. In other words, he identifies his racial struggle with white women’s gender struggle, both equally deprived of the right to be a full citizen and a full human being. Crossing a double boundary of race and gender, he stood up and defended white women in the same way in which he would defend himself and African-American citizens. “I say of her, as I say of the colored people, Give her fair play, and hands off’” (Douglass, 1888 ; Foner (ed) 1976 , p. 110), as such he carried on the fight on both racial and gender fronts.

Douglass’ position exemplifies an intersected dialog between gender and race. Fully aware that he belongs to a different gender and a different race, from a doubled otherness, he becomes “a women’s rights man”, to be precise, a white women’s rights man. He declares in the same speech in 1888, “this is an International Council, not of men, but of women, and woman should have all the say in it. This is her day in court” (Foner (ed) 1976 , p. 110). Douglass dismantles the gender binary of men vs. women and sided himself with women. At the same time, he also correlates the oppressed black race with the oppressed gender of the white race, thus demolishing the black-and-white racial binary. He sees a shared humanity undefinable by neither gender nor race, as it transcends beyond both. He asks men (white men) to relate to women by being quiet and listening to their voices as equals,

I believe no man, however gifted with thought and speech, can voice the wrongs and present the demands of women with the skill and effect, with the power and authority of woman herself. … Woman knows and feels her wrongs as man cannot know and feel them, and she also knows as well as he can know, what measures are needed to redress them. I grant all the claims at this point. She is her own best representative (Douglass, 1888 ; Foner (ed) 1976 , p. 108).

When Douglass claims “Her right to be and to do is as full, complete and perfect as the right of any man on earth” (Douglass, 1888; Foner, 1976 , p. 110), he touches the quintessential American ideal of true equality. To him, women’s suffrage is not about a women vs. men but a gender-equality vs. gender-inequality movement; black suffrage is not about black vs. white, but a racial equality vs. racial inequality struggle. Douglass has distilled these intersected paradigms from his own African-American and mixed racial combined experience, which had exposed him to many aspects of racial and social injustice as well as to the possibility to live in between the black and the white without having to be boxed in. His paradigm suggests mobility and fluidity, and explains his “unusual” position of race-gender crossover to support white women’s suffrage. In Douglass’ world, gender and race are not mutually exclusive but organically related. He correlates gender and race:

…it was a great thing for humane people to organize in opposition to slavery; but it was a much greater thing, in view of all the circumstances, for woman to organize herself in opposition to her exclusion from participation in government (Douglass, 1888 ; Foner (ed) 1976 , p. 112)

In contrast with Stanton and Anthony’s vitriolic racist rhetoric for the fear that black men would take away white women’s voting right, Douglass presents a relational posture and a visionary engagement. The simple binary deepens the split between gender and race and blocks the dialog; the crossover “chiasm” connects gender and race and opens the dialog. Douglass is gifted with a keen awareness of a shared framework by sexism and racism. He understands that the framework only allows the eye see the tangible and graspable reality in broad strokes and on the surface, not the intangible and nuanced inner world. The mental construct that perpetuates racism pivots on the skin color, not so much “the content of character” (in Martin Luther King’s term); the mental construct of sexism operates with a similar surface perception—the physical appearance and the biological make-up, devoid of intangible qualities. Douglass’ ability to link race and gender comes from an insider’s view of an “inferior” racial, as well as a “superior” gender background. He cautions men the difference between open evils and hidden miseries of women’s oppression:

The reason is obvious. War, intemperance and slavery are open, undisguised, palpable evils. The best feelings of human nature revolt at them. We could easily make men see the misery, the debasement, the terrible suffering caused by intemperance; we could easily make men see the desolation wrought by war and the hell-black horrors of chattel slavery; but the case was different in the movement for woman suffrage (Douglass, 1888 ; Foner (ed) 1976 , p. 112)

Women’s rights movement in the United States did not start like a Napoleonic war nor from a Satanic event. On the contrary, it emerged from domestic “loveliness” and peacefulness (Foner (ed) 1976 , p. 112), where

…everything in her condition was supposed to be lovely, just as it should be. She has no rights denied, no wrongs to redress. She herself along on the tide of life as her mother and grandmother had done before her (p. 112)

Because of veiled evil and disguised dehumanization, women’s suffering became silent, virtuous, and ideal. Many men in Douglass’ time failed to recognize the why of women’s suffrage movement. By pointing out the different nature of evil and misery, Douglass intends to create an “intersected” awareness of the intimacy between gender and race. He openly expressed his admiration for Stanton: “Mrs. Stanton, with an earnestness that I shall never forget, unfolded her view on this woman question precisely as she had in this Council” (Foner (ed) 1976 , p. 113). From a male and African-American perspective, Douglass’ intimate understanding of Stanton’s cause and mind defies any simple binary that dichotomizes:

She [Stanton] knew the ridicule, the rivalry, the criticism and the bitter aspersions which she and her co-laborers would have to meet and to endure. But she saw more clearly than most of us that the vital point to be made prominent, and the one that included all others, was the ballot, and she bravely said the word. It was not only necessary to break the silence of woman and make her voice heard, but she must have a clear, palpable and comprehensive measure set before her, one worthy of her highest ambition and her best exertions, and hence the ballot was brought to the front (p. 113).

Stanton’s suffering, humiliation, rivalry and criticism are relatable to what Douglass has experienced in his fight for racial equality; her focus and courage echoes his; her ambition to transform culture mirrors his own. Instead of being defined by gender or race, Douglass chooses something bigger than these identifiers:

When I ran away form slavery, it was for myself; when I advocated emancipation, it was for my people; but when I stood up for the rights of woman, self was out of the question, and I found a little nobility in the act (p. 113).

What he stands for is a pure human and humanistic spirit devoid of colors and shapes, outside the bounds of gender and race. With a clear consciousness that he represents something much larger that his own life, Douglass is convinced that the cause that Stanton and Anthony fight for is also much larger than any individual’s life and more enduring than the historic moment. Galvanized by spirituality, Douglass’ dialog between gender and race takes place.

However, the dialog is blocked again due to race tensions. There is a bitter color line between Douglass and Stanton. Stanton prioritizes (white) women’s “wealth, education, and refinement”, and ridicules black and immigrants’ “pauperism, ignorance, and degradation” (Griffith, 1985 , p. 124), they are “’Sambo’ walk[ing] into the kingdom” of the right to vote (Kern, 2001 , p. 111). She suggests that non-WASP voters would negatively affect the political system and erode American values (Griffith, 1985 , p. 124). Therefore, she calls for “an educated suffrage” (Baker, 2005 , pp. 122), which helps justify literacy test in later years to exclude African American voters. Stanton’s racism is clearly intended to cut a bleeding wound between race and gender, so that gender (white women) can be placed over race (black men). Douglass publicly disagreed with Stanton and Anthony’s priority of “whiteness” in the name of gender equality. This leads critics to depict Doulgass as an African-American man who “naturally” weighs race over gender, thus the exact opposite of Stanton and Anthony. Such an approach to Douglass may be “neat” and “fit” in a racial dichotomy, but falls out what Douglass represents—a human spirit, not meant to be defined by black or white, gender or race. He is in dialog with both:

…[Women] is the victim of abuse, to be sure, but it cannot be pretended I think that her cause is as urgent as ours (black suffrage). …The principal is: that no Negro shall be enfranchised while woman is not. Now in considering that white men have been enfranchised always, and colored men not, the conduct of these white women, whose husbands, fathers, and brothers are voters, does not seem generous (Douglass, Foner (ed) 1975 , pp. 212–213)

What differentiates Douglass from Stanton and Anthony is the ability to go beyond a simple binary and engage crossover chiasms. At various intersections, Douglass integrates black and white, gender and race; trapped by a single one-to-one binary, Stanton and Anthony wage anti-sexist campaign with racist rhetoric. While all three shared the same cause to attain the American ideal of freedom and equality, they are separated by the color line. One side of the line is stuck with the surface differences between race and gender and regards them as mutually exclusive. The other side discerns the underlying similarities and consistencies between race and gender, and connects and intersects them organically. Stanton and Anthony’s vitriolic intolerance towards black suffrage contrasts with Douglass’ unwavering support for women’s rights and suffrage.

Fast forwarding to the suffrage centennial, no one wants to “tarnish” iconic figures like Stanton and Anthony. However, what makes them great is not their perfection but their humanity. When they broke with their abolitionist backgrounds after the Civil War to oppose the 14th and 15th Amendments, they showed fear, anger, territorial nature, prejudice, a shifting sense of white superiority, and vulnerability. They pioneered abolition movement but blocked the dialog between gender and race that Douglass intended. They were full of self-contradictions, humanly and understandably. By acknowledging Stanton and Anthony’s extraordinariness while allowing them to be human with flaws and self-contradictions, many individuals across genders and races can have a human face to relate to. By celebrating an African American man, Douglass, at the centennial, we open a new modality of race as part of gender celebration. This dialog between gender and race needs to take place in 2020.

Part 4—the legacy of the gender/race dialog: the double consciousness

Women’s Suffrage Centennial is an occasion to examine how Douglass’ intersected dialog between race and gender has evolved to become cultural consciousness. It also presents a historic moment for an in-depth look at how the double consciousness has sustained women and men of color in their survival and coexistence in a multicultural and multiracial society during and beyond the suffrage movement. When gender diversity merges with racial diversity, an individual of color finds oneself in a landscape made for a pluralistic identity and “camouflage” skills. S/he is prone to develop a set of instinctive skills to “camouflage” for self-preservation and self-protection in a terrain where his/her skin color stands out, exposed to danger. “Camouflaging” blends one in the background and is capable of multiplicity and simultaneity. Equipped with the ability to “camouflage” culturally, Douglass, while crossing his race and gender, blended himself with white female suffragists, empathized with women’s suffrage and defended it as his own cause.

At the dawn of the twentieth century, the cultural camouflaging was theorized with the publication of The Souls of the Black Folk in 1903 by W.E.B. DuBois (1868–1963). Like Douglass, DuBois is also from mixed blood and heritages, leading a personal, intellectual, and cultural life in between different worlds. Throughout the book, the term “double consciousness” is recurrently coined to describe the existential nature and culture of African Americans. To be fit and accepted in the white society, they must develop two mindsets, two fields of vision, two languages, two perceptive modes, and two ways of living, that is, self-knowledge and the knowledge of being perceived. DuBois uses the metaphor of a transparent veil that allows a double perception from both sides so the viewer is viewed at the same time:

After the Egyptians and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world,—a world with yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of the others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn sunder (DuBois, [1903] 1964 , pp. 16–17).

Douglass’ intersected dialog of race and gender would have not been possible without DuBois’ “doubleness”. A black and a white at once, a feminist and an antiracist at once, he dreamed an American Dream of a just and democratic society for women and black folks. Douglass had already exemplified the double consciousness half a century ago before the term was coined by DuBois. Unlike a fixed and centralized cultural position held by racism or sexism, individuals like Douglass and DuBois leap back and forth in multiple spaces of race and gender, with mobility and malleability enabled by the double consciousness. Their cultural indeterminacy sets them on constant move and constant search for a home in the American narrative. Neither Douglass nor DuBois represents or falls into one single definition; they are self-willed and self-invented, caught between being and becoming.

When it comes to male support for women’s suffrage movement, Valethia Watkins accurately points out:

Douglass “was arguably the highest profile man of any race consistently involved in the suffrage movement, and he was unwavering in his advocacy of voting rights for women from the inception of the organized movement in the United States in 1848 until his death in 1895 (Watkins, 2016 , p. 4)

DuBois was also “a woman’s rights man” in the tradition of Frederick Douglass“ (Watkins, 2016 , p. 4). Footnote 20 Almost a mirror image of Douglass, DuBois continues the intersected dialog between race and gender with the same cultural agility and the same spirit that set him free from the “curse” of “the color line”, another term repeatedly used in his The Souls of the Blake Folk . He assimilates invisibility and vulnerability in both black people and white women and declares in Douglassian manner:

I am resolved to be ready at all times and in all places to bear witness with pen, voice, money and deed against… the wrong disenfranchisement for race or sex… (Wilson, 1970 , pp. 105–106, cited in Watkins, 2016 , p. 4)

The dialog between gender and race embodies the double consciousness and crosses the color line “through the revelation of the other world” (DuBois, 1990 , p. 8). It is not defined by our biological make-up but our mental horizon. In the dialog, the observer is observed in action. The Douglass/DuBois double consciousness sinks into not only the souls of the black folk but all citizens, men and women, of color.

Sigma Delta Theta—the only organization that black women took part in—carried the dialog of gender and race in women’s suffrage movement on a national stage in 1913’s Women’s Suffrage Parade. Suffrage (white) leader Alice Paul organized 5000 women marching along the Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C. on Monday, March 3, 1913, one day before the 28th President Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration. At the heart of the U.S. government, the women were campaigning for the 19th Amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote (ratified in 1920). The brave women did it in the face of police’s brutality; many of them were insulted, spat upon and physically injured. What made the event extraordinary was not only white women’s courage and bravery, but also black women’s participation together with their white sisters. Nonetheless, the white-and-black togetherness a la Douglass in no way was a natural come-together but a hard-fought one.

In her Washington Post article “Despite the tremendous risk, African American women marched for suffrage, too”, Michelle Bernard ( 2013 ) detailed the participation of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority:

Marching against the status quo was not easy for white women, but it was even more difficult for African American women because of the racist sentiment of the day, as well as white suffragists who did not favor suffrage for black women. Footnote 21

With a double consciousness, the African-American women had to fight for racial equality before gender equality in order to be part of the procession. The racist backlash as a reaction towards the 15th Amendment lingered on in the Women Suffrage Parade. Alice Paul did not like a mixed black-and-white women parade; she preferred an only white parade. She confided her fears to a sympathetic editor: “As far as I can see, we must have a white procession, or a Negro procession, or no procession at all”. Footnote 22 Other white suffragists could not either accept black women, side by side, as equals in their fight for women’s rights. The white suffragists’ feminism was vitiated by racism in a reversed double consciousness. Black women’s right to vote was not considered on an equal footing with white women’s; black women did not belong to the cause of justice championed by white women, who would not comprise their racial superiority for gender equality. Paul’s “negro-exclusion” deepened the split between race and gender. She insisted “that the disenfranchisement of black woman was a race, not sex, matter” (DuBois, 2020 , p. 289), and was “uninterested in a racially inclusive women’s enfranchisement” (p. 289). The women’s suffrage movement thus drew again the color line: white vs. black. With white women as gender and black women as race, the dialog between the two was again stagnated. White sisters’ racism proved without failing that not all women were born equal in the early twentieth century America. Nonetheless, black suffragists marched on for both gender and racial equality. Bernard goes on to describe:

So, despite the fact that the right to vote was no less important to black women than it was to black men and white women, African American women were told to march at the back of the parade with a black procession.

Despite all of this, the 22 founders of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority marched. It was the only African American women’s organization to participate. Footnote 23

From the back of the parade—a visual testament to racism, black suffragists led by Mary Church Terrell marched on and sent a message of racial equality to the front, in the same struggle for gender equality. Delta Sigma Theta’s presence showed, although in a compromised way, gender unity could overweigh racism and defeat sexism, not otherwise as preferred by some of their white sisters. In spite of all, women, black and white, although separately, traveled across the country anyway to make their voices heard and showed what is to be an American woman to win gender equality. In action, the dialog between gender and race was carried out by Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. It heightened the awareness that they were “the only group in this country that has two such huge obstacles to surmount… sex and race”, Footnote 24 because of the color of their skin. A race-gender double consciousness in the line of Douglass and DuBois thus lived on.

In black women’s suffrage, Mary Church Terrell (1863–1954) emerged as a pivotal dialog participant on gender and race. Like Douglass and DuBois, Terrell is from a mixed ancestry. A daughter of former slaves, then becoming a well-to-do family, she has financial means, coupled with a well-educated background. In the suffragist circles of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA)—the integration of NWSA and AWSA, Terrell’s path crosses with Susan B. Anthony’s. They developed a “delightful, helpful friendship” (Adams and Keene, 2008 , p. 98), which lasted until Anthony’s death in 1906. As discussed in Part 2, early suffragists had hoped to link gender equality and racial justice because of the abolitionist background of leaders like Stanton and Anthony. However, the 14th and the 15th Amendments created a split between race and gender, and forced a rift/competition between women’s rights and blacks’ rights. Towards the later years of Anthony’s life, her goal of women’s suffrage “was eclipsed by a near-universal racism in the United States” (Wheeler, 1995 , p. 147). The racism within the NAWSA did not allow black women to create their own chapter with the organization. This propelled Terrell to found an independent organization in 1896 for black women to fight for both gender and race—the National Association of Colored Women. For the first time in history, African-American women found an institutional space for their voice and fight. Terrell served as its first national president. African-American women’s disenfranchisement was a main issue for the Association to tackle. As one of the few women of color in the (white) women’s suffrage circle, Terrell acted as de facto African-American women’s representative and an outside trailblazer in the white world. Well versed and trained, Terrell, like Douglass and DuBois, gave numerous speeches and did numerous writings. Among them, “The Progress of Colored Women”, “What it Means to be Colored in the Capital of the U.S.”, “In Union There is Strength”, and “A Colored Woman in a White World” caught public attention and got her invited back to the ANWSA. Thus, she set a renewed stage for a continued dialog between gender and race. In this dialog, she confessed her racial and cultural ambiguity, personal struggles as an African-American woman, and her way to link both worlds by using her white-passing “camouflaging” skills. In activism and writing, Terrell is a female version of Douglass’ intersection and DuBois’ double consciousness in gender and race.

The 14th and 15th Amendments granted African American men the right to vote but not women, and unwittingly created tension between gender and race. The 19th Amendment granted women’s voting right but with long deferred implementation for women of color. These landmark constitutional measures have indeed reshuffled the deck but have never erased the visceral and indestructible color line in our culture. The Civil War, Reconstruction, the large-scale capitalism and the unstoppable industrialism haven shaken our universe and shattered the ground of sexism and racism. In the present global age and during this particular moment of the Trump era and the Black Lives Matter movement, the color line finds an internalized and systemic space, and perpetuates the division from within and opens the wounds wrapped with the “Make America Great Again” banner. In a “browner” and “flatter” America in 2020, a compartmentalized view on the suffrage centennial and a one-sided approach to its iconic heroes and protagonists further dislink gender and race. As of now, the celebration of the Centennial of Women’s Suffrage bears relevance still largely to a specific group—the WASP and proud women. Then, should women of color, men of color, and all historically underrepresented groups be celebrating the Centennial with the same pride and the same sense of achievement? The split between gender and race remains an open-ended topic for dialog if 2020 promises to be a more integrated society and a more inclusive culture.

Pivoting on the double consciousness, Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois, Mary Church Terrell have construed and sustained an intersected dialog between race and gender. If there is a contemporary carrier of the double consciousness, Simon Gikandi directs our attention to President Barack Obama. “In this regard, Obama is probably the quintessential subject of what W.E.B. Du Bois famously described as ‘double consciousness’” (Gikandi, 2012 , p. 211). President Obama, our nation’s first African-American commander in chief also comes from a mixed racial background and multicultural upbringing. Unlike any other white president, he had to endure cultural distrust and racial humiliation targeted by the “Birthers”, because he is on the other side of the color line and thus his citizenship was questioned. “It is ironic that in an age that celebrates cosmopolitanism and rootlessness, Obama is vulnerable simply because he can claim to belong to different worlds, cultures, and traditions” (Gikandi, 2012 , p. 213). Between the highest office in the land and his historically discriminated race, Obama has to rely on the double consciousness to negotiate his location and dispel his dislocation in the American narrative. Like Douglass, DuBois, and Terrell, Obama is an insider of both black and white culture circles and operates with a double mindset. Then, the first African American First Lady Michelle Obama faces a similar double consciousness in her dialog of gender and race to deal with vitriolic racism towards her persona and sexism towards her professional identity.

In our postmodern era, the double consciousness does not only pertain to politicians and presidents, but it also has been making inroads to the still-defining field of Cultural Studies. Kimberlé Crenshaw is one of the earliest theoreticians on race/gender intersectionality. She questioned the convenient binaries of black/white, male/female, and theorized the “multidimensionality of Black women’s experience” (Crenshaw, p. 139) in her 1989 paper, written for The University of Chicago Legal Forum , “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics”. Her entire scholarship consistently argues about a modern-day double consciousness—that the experience of being a black woman cannot be understood in terms of being black and of being a woman considered independently, but must include the interactions between the two, as they “diverge from the standard” and “present some sort of hybrid claim” (p.145). Lawmakers are not quite equipped with such cultural sophistication and nuances yet, in Crenshaw’s view.

Back to the “browner” and “flatter” America in 2020, the position of African American women opens a broader question: does Women’s Suffrage Centennial belong to women of color in other racial groups? Is it another reminder of the double oppression of sexism and racism? Chinese-American women had never been considered citizens on equal terms with white women either; they just started their fight for racial justice with the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1943, when they were allowed to become citizens to enjoy the voting right. Women’s suffrage had been one of the remotest topics for their citizenship and constitutional rights. The Chinese exclusion act, implemented in 1882, spurred later the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924 to effectively ban all immigrants from Asia. Japanese, Hindu and East Indians, Middle Easterners were deemed to be exotic and unfit groups for a WASP dominated nation and heresies for American culture. Today, do Asian-American women own Women Suffrage Centennial? Do they have a comparable victory to celebrate like WASP women? Then, Native American women are another group of ambiguity. The 15th Amendment, passed in 1870, granted all U.S. citizens the right to vote regardless of race, but Native Americans were prevented from participating in elections because the Constitution left it up to the states to decide who has the right to vote. Native American men and women had endured brutality, segregation, and discrimination not unlike African-Americans. After the passage of the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act, it would still take over 40 years for all 50 states to allow Native Americans to vote. Native American women had long been denied citizenship prior to 1920 when white women became equal citizens like their male counterparts. Women from these racial groups had been systematically denied the citizenship that grants the right to vote; they had to fight against racism first before they could fight against sexism. Mexican/Hispanic-American women had to go through a triple struggle in order to be franchised—racial, gender, and linguistic barriers. The linguistic barrier for Hispanic voters did resonate with the literacy test that African Americans and underprivileged white citizens had had to take in order to be eligible to vote. For women of color, being franchised was more than a basic civil right; it meant an acknowledgement of her gender and race as a full human being. The African-American men and women’s fight culminated in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, which led to landmark legislation that transformed American voting rights. Together with African-Americans, other groups and individuals of color gradually gained their full citizenship by participating in elections. In the long journey of women’s suffrage, while working in tandem, African Americans set up a cultural model for other minority groups, men and women of color, to emulate in their struggles for racial and gender equality.

In a “browner” and “flatter” America in 2020, when racial and gender diversity collides with sexist and racist establishments, the “whiter” and “vertical” America still reckons with perpetual division and exclusion, so much so that white nationalism, nativism, and right-wing populism have reemerged in an attempt to pull the country back to the antebellum era, so that they can “make America great again”. It has become increasingly difficult to ignore the attempt to restore a WASP centered America, to “purify” American values, and to guard racial homogeneity. The attempt stokes fear, widens division, and fuels hatred and intolerance. George Floyd’s death is the latest of a long line of racial injustice. During Women’s Suffrage Centennial, a cultural war has ensued while a new awakening to the American ideal of equality is on the horizon. In a context like this, singing a centennial celebratory symphony highlights the heroic and extraordinary side of the story and makes it “standardized” and “perfect”. This approach runs the risk of creating a female version of Anglo-centrism and WASP-centrism within twenty-first century feminism. A one-sided celebration also reduces suffragists’ humanity to a single-dimensional abstraction and denies their flesh-and-blood complexities. At the intersection of gender and race, the double consciousness however gives fluid and relatable meanings to the words “women” and “American women”, and resonates with women across races and cultures. Nowadays in the nation’s political life, female mayors, Cabinet secretaries, members of Congress and governors—black, white, Latina, Asian, American Indian, and of all religions—are a fact of life. All of the changes and transformation occurred because of the brave women, black, brown and white, who have fought for their constitutional citizenship before and after the passage of the 19th Amendment. Let them be at the centennial table for a dialog.

While writing this article, Katy Morris, research coordinator at the Massachusetts Historical Society (MHS) invited me to visit the exhibition “Can She Do It”- Massachusetts Debates a Woman’s Right to Vote at the MHS (April 26–Sept 21, 2019). I also had conversations with Dr. Kanisorn Wongsrichanalai, Director of Research at the MHS on the subject. These firsthand exposures had validating effect on the article’s approaches and arguments.

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Research Article

Understanding the Influence of Race/Ethnicity, Gender, and Class on Inequalities in Academic and Non-Academic Outcomes among Eighth-Grade Students: Findings from an Intersectionality Approach

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliation Centre on Dynamics of Ethnicity, Department of Social Statistics, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom

Affiliation Australian National University, Acton, Australia

Laia Bécares,
Naomi Priest

Published: October 27, 2015
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0141363
Reader Comments

Socioeconomic, racial/ethnic, and gender inequalities in academic achievement have been widely reported in the US, but how these three axes of inequality intersect to determine academic and non-academic outcomes among school-aged children is not well understood. Using data from the US Early Childhood Longitudinal Study—Kindergarten (ECLS-K; N = 10,115), we apply an intersectionality approach to examine inequalities across eighth-grade outcomes at the intersection of six racial/ethnic and gender groups (Latino girls and boys, Black girls and boys, and White girls and boys) and four classes of socioeconomic advantage/disadvantage. Results of mixture models show large inequalities in socioemotional outcomes (internalizing behavior, locus of control, and self-concept) across classes of advantage/disadvantage. Within classes of advantage/disadvantage, racial/ethnic and gender inequalities are predominantly found in the most advantaged class, where Black boys and girls, and Latina girls, underperform White boys in academic assessments, but not in socioemotional outcomes. In these latter outcomes, Black boys and girls perform better than White boys. Latino boys show small differences as compared to White boys, mainly in science assessments. The contrasting outcomes between racial/ethnic and gender minorities in self-assessment and socioemotional outcomes, as compared to standardized assessments, highlight the detrimental effect that intersecting racial/ethnic and gender discrimination have in patterning academic outcomes that predict success in adult life. Interventions to eliminate achievement gaps cannot fully succeed as long as social stratification caused by gender and racial discrimination is not addressed.

Citation: Bécares L, Priest N (2015) Understanding the Influence of Race/Ethnicity, Gender, and Class on Inequalities in Academic and Non-Academic Outcomes among Eighth-Grade Students: Findings from an Intersectionality Approach. PLoS ONE 10(10): e0141363. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0141363

Editor: Emmanuel Manalo, Kyoto University, JAPAN

Received: June 10, 2015; Accepted: October 6, 2015; Published: October 27, 2015

Copyright: © 2015 Bécares, Priest. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Data Availability: All ECLS-K Kindergarten-Eighth Grade Public-use File are available from the National Center for Education Statistics website ( https://nces.ed.gov/ecls/dataproducts.asp#K-8 ).

Funding: This work was funded by an ESRC grant (ES/K001582/1) and a Hallsworth Research Fellowship to LB.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

The US racial/ethnic academic achievement gap is a well-documented social inequality [ 1 ]. National assessments for science, mathematics, and reading show that White students score higher on average than all other racial/ethnic groups, particularly when compared to Black and Hispanic students [ 2 , 3 ]. Explanations for these gaps tend to focus on the influence of socioeconomic resources, neighborhood and school characteristics, and family composition in patterning socioeconomic inequalities, and on the racialized nature of socioeconomic inequalities as key drivers of racial/ethnic academic achievement gaps [ 4 – 10 ]. Substantial evidence documents that indicators of socioeconomic status, such as free or reduced-price school lunch, are highly predictive of academic outcomes [ 2 , 3 ]. However, the relative contribution of family, neighborhood and school level socioeconomic inequalities to racial/ethnic academic inequalities continues to be debated, with evidence suggesting none of these factors fully explain racial/ethnic academic achievement gaps, particularly as students move through elementary school [ 11 ]. Attitudinal outcomes have been proposed by some as one explanatory factor for racial/ethnic inequalities in academic achievement [ 12 ], but differences in educational attitudes and aspirations across groups do not fully reflect inequalities in academic assessment. For example, while students of poorer socioeconomic status have lower educational aspirations than more advantaged students [ 13 ], racial/ethnic minority students report higher educational aspirations than White students, particularly after accounting for socioeconomic characteristics [ 14 – 16 ]. Similarly, while socio-emotional development is considered highly predictive of academic achievement in school students, some racial/ethnic minority children report better socio-emotional outcomes than their White peers on some indicators, although findings are inconsistent [ 17 – 22 ].

In addition to inequalities in academic achievement, racial/ethnic and socioeconomic inequalities also exist across measures of socio-emotional development [ 23 – 26 ]. And as with academic achievement, although socioeconomic factors are highly predictive of socio-emotional outcomes, they do not completely explain racial/ethnic inequalities in school-related outcomes not focused on standardized assessments [ 11 ].

Further complexity in understanding how academic and non-academic outcomes are patterned by socioeconomic factors, and how this contributes to racial/ethnic inequalities, is added by the multi-dimensional nature of socioeconomic status. Socioeconomic status is widely recognized as comprising diverse factors that operate across different levels (e.g. individual, household, neighborhood), and influence outcomes through different causal pathways [ 27 ]. The lack of interchangeability between measures of socioeconomic status within and between levels (e.g. income, education, occupation, wealth, neighborhood socioeconomic characteristics, or past socioeconomic circumstances) is also well established, as is the non-equivalence of measures between racial/ethnic groups [ 27 ]. For example, large inequalities have been reported across racial/ethnic groups within the same educational level, and inequalities in wealth have been shown across racial/ethnic that have similar income. It is therefore imperative that studies consider these multiple dimensions of socioeconomic status so that critical social gradients across the entire socioeconomic spectrum are not missed [ 27 ], and racial/ethnic inequalities within levels of socioeconomic status are adequately documented. It is also important that differences in school outcomes are considered across levels of socioeconomic status within and between racial/ethnic groups, so that the influence of specific socioeconomic factors on outcomes within specific racial/ethnic groups can be studied [ 28 ]. However, while these analytic approaches have been identified as research priorities in order to enhance our understanding of the complex ways in which socioeconomic status and race/ethnicity intersect to influence school outcomes, research that operationalizes these recommendations across academic and non-academic outcomes of school children is scant.

In addition to the complexity that arises from race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and intersections between them, different patterns in academic and non-academic outcomes by gender have also received longstanding attention. Comparisons across gender show that, on average, boys have higher scores in mathematics and science, whereas girls have higher scores in reading [ 2 , 3 , 29 ]. In contrast to explanations for socioeconomic inequalities, gender differences have been mainly attributed to social conditioning and stereotyping within families, schools, communities, and the wider society [ 30 – 35 ]. These socialization and stereotyping processes are also highly relevant determining factors in explaining racial/ethnic academic and non-academic inequalities [ 35 , 36 ], as are processes of racial discrimination and stigmatization [ 37 , 38 ]. Gender differences in academic outcomes have been documented as differently patterned across racial/ethnic groups and across levels of socioeconomic status. For example, gender inequalities in math and science are largest among White and Latino students, and smallest among Asian American and African American students [ 39 – 43 ], while gender gaps in test scores are more pronounced among socioeconomically disadvantaged children [ 44 , 45 ]. In terms of attitudes towards math and sciences, gender differences in attitudes towards math are largest among Latino students, but gender differences in attitudes towards science are largest among White students [ 39 , 40 ]. Gender differences in socio-developmental outcomes and in non-cognitive academic outcomes, across race/ethnicity and socio-economic status, have received far less attention; studies that consider multiple academic and non-academic outcomes among school aged children across race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status and gender are limited in the US and internationally.

Understanding how different academic and non-academic outcomes are differently patterned by race/ethnicity, socio-economic status, and gender, including within and between group differences, is an important research area that may assist in understanding the potential causal pathways and explanations for observed inequalities, and in identifying key population groups and points at which interventions should be targeted to address inequalities in particular outcomes [ 28 , 46 ]. Not only is such knowledge critical for population level policy and/or local level action within affected communities, but failing to detect potential factors for interventions and potential solutions is argued as reinforcing perceptions of the unmodifiable nature of inequality and injustice [ 46 ].

Notwithstanding the importance of documenting patterns of inequality in relation to a particular social identity (e.g. race/ethnicity, gender, class), there is increasing acknowledgement within both theoretical and empirical research of the need to move beyond analyzing single categories to consider simultaneous interactions between different aspects of social identity, and the impact of systems and processes of oppression and domination (e.g., racism, classism, sexism) that operate at the micro and macro level [ 47 , 48 ]. Such intersectional approaches challenge practices that isolate and prioritize a single social position, and emphasize the potential of varied inter-relationships of social identities and interacting social processes in the production of inequities [ 49 – 51 ]. To date, exploration of how social identities interact in an intersectional way to influence outcomes has largely been theoretical and qualitative in nature. Explanations offered for interactions between privileged and marginalized identities, and associated outcomes, include family and teacher socialization of gender performance (e.g. math and science as male domains, verbal and emotional skills as female), as well as racialized stereotypes and expectations from teachers and wider society regarding racial/ethnic minorities that are also gendered (e.g. Black males as violent prone and aggressive, Asian females as submissive) [ 52 – 57 ]. That is, social processes that socialize and pattern opportunities and outcomes are both racialized and gendered, with racism and sexism operating in intersecting ways to influence the development and achievements of children and youth [ 58 – 60 ]. Socioeconomic status adds a third important dimension to these processes, with individuals of the same race/ethnicity and gender having access to vastly different resources and opportunities across levels of socioeconomic status. Moreover, access to resources as well as socialization experiences and expectations differ considerably by race and gender within the same level of socio-economic status. Thus, neither gender nor race nor socio-economic status alone can fully explain the interacting social processes influencing outcomes for youth [ 27 , 28 ]. Disentangling such interactions is therefore an important research priority in order to inform intervention to address inequalities at a population level and within local communities.

In the realm of quantitative approaches to the study of inequality, studies often examine separate social identities independently to assess which of these axes of stratification is most prominent, and for the most part do not consider claims that the varied dimensions of social stratification are often juxtaposed [ 56 , 61 ]. A pressing need remains for quantitative research to consider how multiple forms of social stratification are interrelated, and how they combine interactively, not just additively, to influence outcomes [ 46 ]. Doing so enables analyses that consider in greater detail the representation of the embodied positions of individuals, particularly issues of multiple marginalization as well as the co-occurrence of some form of privilege with marginalization [ 46 ]. It is important to note that the languages of statistical interaction and of intersectionality need to be carefully distinguished (e.g. intersectional additivity or additive assumptions, versus additive scale and cross-product interaction terms) to avoid misinterpretation of findings, and to ensure appropriate application of statistical interaction to enable the description of outcome measures for groups of individuals at each cross-stratified intersection [ 46 ]. Ultimately this will provide more nuanced and realistic understandings of the determinants of inequality in order to inform intervention strategies.

This study fills these gaps in the literature by examining inequalities across several eighth grade academic and non-academic outcomes at the intersection of race/ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status. It aims to do this by: identifying classes of socioeconomic advantage/disadvantage from kindergarten to eighth grade; then ascertaining whether membership into classes of socioeconomic advantage/disadvantage differ for racial/ethnic and gender groups; and finally, by contrasting academic and non-academic outcomes at the intersection of race/ethnicity, gender and socioeconomic advantage/disadvantage. Intersecting identities of race/ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic characteristics are compared to the reference group of White boys in the most advantaged socioeconomic category, as these are the three identities (male, White, socioeconomically privileged) that experience the least marginalization when compared to racial/ethnic and gender minority groups in disadvantaged socioeconomic positions.

This study used data on singleton children from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study—Kindergarten (ECLS-K). The ECLS-K employed a multistage probability sample design to select a nationally representative sample of children attending kindergarten in 1998–99. In the base year the primary sampling units (PSUs) were geographic areas consisting of counties or groups of counties. The second-stage units were schools within sampled PSUs. The third- and final-stage units were children within schools [ 62 ]. Analyses were conducted on data collected from direct child assessments, as well as information provided by parents and school administrators.

Ethics Statement

This article is based on the secondary analysis of anonymized and de-identified Public-Use Data Files available to researchers via the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR). Human participants were not directly involved in the research reported in this article; therefore, no institutional review board approval was sought.

Outcome Variables.

Eight outcome variables, all assessed in eighth grade, were selected to examine the study aims: two measures relating to non-cognitive academic skills (perceived interest/competence in reading, and in math); three measures capturing socioemotional development (internalizing behavior, locus of control, self-concept); and three measures of cognitive skills (math, reading and science assessment scores).

For the eighth-grade data collection, children completed the 16-item Self Description Questionnaire (SDQ) II [ 63 ], where they provided self-assessments of their academic skills by rating their perceived competence and interest in English and mathematics. The SDQ also asked children to report on problem behaviors with which they might struggle. Three subscales were produced from the SDQ items: The SDQ Perceived Interest/Competence in Reading, including four items on grades in English and the child’s interest in and enjoyment of reading. The SDQ Perceived Interest/Competence in Math, including four items on mathematics grades and the child’s interest in and enjoyment of mathematics. And the SDQ Internalizing Behavior subscale, which includes eight items on internalizing problem behaviors such as feeling sad, lonely, ashamed of mistakes, frustrated, and worrying about school and friendships [ 62 ].

The Self-Concept and Locus of Control scales ask children about their self-perceptions and the amount of control they have over their own lives. These scales, adopted from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, asked children to indicate the degree to which they agreed with 13 statements (seven items in the Self-Concept scale, and six items in the Locus of Control Scale) about themselves, including “I feel good about myself,” “I don’t have enough control over the direction my life is taking,” and “At times I think I am no good at all.” Responses ranged from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree.” Some items were reversed coded so that higher scores indicate more positive self-concept and a greater perception of control over one’s own life. The seven items in the Self-Concept scale, and the six items in the Locus of Control were standardized separately to a mean of zero and a standard deviation of 1. The scores of each scale are an average of the standardized scores [ 62 ].

Academic achievement in reading, mathematics and science was measured with the eighth-grade direct cognitive assessment battery [ 62 ].

Children were given separate routing assessment forms to determine the level (high/low) of their reading, mathematics, and science assessments. The two-stage cognitive assessment approach was used to maximize the accuracy of measurement and reduce administration time by using the child’s responses from a brief first-stage routing form to select the appropriate second-stage level form. First, children read items in a booklet and recorded their responses on an answer form. These answer forms were then scored by the test administrator. Based on the score of the respective routing forms, the test administrator then assigned a high or low second-stage level form of the reading and mathematics assessments. For the second-stage level tests, children read items in the assessment booklet and recorded their responses in the same assessment booklet. The routing tests and the second-stage tests were timed for 80 minutes [ 62 ]. The present analyses use the standardized scores (T-scores), allowing relative comparisons of children against their peers.

Individual and Contextual Disadvantage Variables.

Latent Class Analysis, described in greater detail below, was used to classify students into classes of individual and contextual advantage or disadvantage. Nine constructs, measuring characteristics at the individual-, school-, and neighborhood-level, were captured using 42 dichotomous variables measured across the different waves of the ECLS-K.

Individual-level variables captured household composition, material disadvantage, and parental expectations of the children’s success. Measures included whether the child lived in a single-parent household at kindergarten, first, third, fifth and eighth grades; whether the household was below the poverty threshold level at kindergarten, fifth and eighth grades; food insecurity at kindergarten, first, second and third grades; and parental expectations of the child’s academic achievement (categorized as up to high school and more than high school) at kindergarten, first, third, fifth and eighth grades. An indicator of whether parents had moved since the previous interview (measured at kindergarten, first, third, fifth and eighth grades) was included to capture stability in the children’s life. A household-level composite index of socioeconomic status, derived by the National Center for Education Statistics, was also included at kindergarten, first, third, fifth and eighth grades. This measure captured the father/male guardian’s education and occupation, the mother/female guardian’s education and occupation, and the household income. Higher scores reflect higher levels of educational attainment, occupational prestige, and income. In the present analyses, the socioeconomic composite index was categorized into quintiles and further divided into the lowest first and second quintiles, versus the third, fourth and fifth quintiles.

Two variables measured the school-level environment: percentage of students eligible for free school meals, and percentage of students from a racial/ethnic background other than White non-Hispanic. These two variables were dichotomized as more than or equal to 50% of students belonging to each category. Both variables were measured in the kindergarten, first, third, fifth and eighth grade data collections.

To capture the neighborhood environment, a variable was included which measured the level of safety of the neighborhood in kindergarten, first, third, fifth and eighth grades. Parents were asked “How safe is it for children to play outside during the day in your neighborhood?” with responses ranging from 1, not at all safe, to 3, very safe. For the present analyses, response categories were recoded into 1 “not at all and somewhat safe,” and 0 “very safe.”

Predictor Variables.

The race/ethnicity and gender of the children were assessed during the parent interview. In order to empirically measure the intersection between race/ethnicity and gender in the classes of disadvantage, a set of six dummy variables were created that combined racial/ethnic and gender categories into White boys, White girls, Black boys, Black girls, Latino boys, and Latina girls.

Statistical Analyses

This study used the manual 3-step approach in mixture modeling with auxiliary variables [ 64 , 65 ] to independently evaluate the relationship between the predictor auxiliary variables (the combined race/ethnicity and gender groups), the latent class variable of advantage/disadvantage, and the outcome (non-cognitive skills, socioemotional development, cognitive assessments). This is a data-driven, mixture modelling technique which uses indicator variables (in this case the variables described under Individual and Contextual Disadvantage Variables section) to identify a number of latent classes. It also includes auxiliary information in the form of covariates (the race/ethnicity and gender combinations described under Predictor Variables) and distal outcomes (the eight outcome variables), to better explore the relationships between the characteristics that make up the latent classes, the predictors of class membership, and the associated consequences of membership into each class.

The first step in the 3-step procedure is to estimate the measurement part of the joint model (i.e., the latent class model) by creating the latent classes without adding covariates. Latent class analyses first evaluated the fit of a 2-class model, and systematically increased the number of classes in subsequent models until the addition of latent classes did not further improve model fit. For each model, replication of the best log-likelihood was verified to avoid local maxima. To determine the optimal number of classes, models were compared across several model fit criteria. First, the sample-size adjusted Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) [ 66 ] was evaluated; lower relative BIC values indicate improved model fit. Given that the BIC criterion tends to favor models with fewer latent classes [ 67 ], the Lo, Mendell, and Rubin likelihood ratio test (LMR-LRT) statistic [ 68 ] was also considered. The LMR-LRT can be used in mixture modeling to compare the fit of the specified class solution ( k -class model) to a model with fewer classes ( k -1 class model). A non-significant chi-square value suggests that a model with one fewer class is preferred. Entropy statistics, which measure the separation of the classes based on the posterior class membership probabilities, were also examined; entropy values approaching 1 indicate clear separation between classes [ 69 ].

After determining the latent class model in step 1, the second step of the analyses used the latent class posterior distribution to generate a nominal variable N , which represented the most likely class [ 64 ]. During the third step, the measurement error for N was accounted for while the model was estimated with the outcomes and predictor auxiliary variables [ 64 ]. The last step of the analysis examined whether race/ethnic and gender categories predict class membership, and whether class membership predicts the outcomes of interest.

All analyses were conducted using MPlus v. 7.11 [ 70 ], and used longitudinal weights to account for differential probabilities of selection at each sampling stage and to adjust for the effects of non-response. A robust standard error estimator was used in MPlus to account for the clustering of observations in the ECLS-K.

Four distinct classes of advantage/disadvantage were identified in the latent class analysis (see Table 1 ).

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0141363.t001

Class characteristics are shown in Table A in S1 File . Trajectories of advantage and disadvantage were stable across ECLS-K waves, so that none of the classes identified changed in individual and contextual characteristics across time. The largest proportion of the sample (47%; Class 3: Individually and Contextually Wealthy) lived in individual and contextual privilege, with very low proportions of children in socioeconomic deprived contexts. A class representing the opposite characteristics (children living in individually- and contextually-deprived circumstances) was also identified in the analyses (19%; Class 1: Individually and Contextually Disadvantaged). Class 1 had the highest proportion of children living in socioeconomic deprivation, attending schools with more than 50% racial/ethnic minority students, and living in unsafe neighborhoods, but did not have a high proportion of children with the lowest parental expectations. Class 4 (19%; Individually Disadvantaged, Contextually Wealthy) had the highest proportion of children with the lowest parental expectations (parents reporting across waves that they expected children to achieve up to a high school education). Class 4 (Individually Disadvantaged, Contextually Wealthy) also had high proportions of children living in individual-level socioeconomic deprivation, but had low proportions of children attending a school with over 50% of children eligible for free school meals. It also had relatively low proportions of children living in unsafe neighborhoods and low proportions of children attending diverse schools, forming a class with a mixture of individual-level deprivation, and contextual-level advantage. The last class was composed of children who lived in individually-wealthy environments, but who also lived in unsafe neighborhoods and attended diverse schools where more than 50% of pupils were eligible for free school meals (13%; Class 2: Individually Wealthy, Contextually Disadvantaged; see Table A in S1 File ).

The combined intersecting racial/ethnic and gender characteristics yielded six groups consisting of White boys (n = 2998), White girls (n = 2899), Black boys (n = 553), Black girls (n = 560), Latino boys (n = 961), and Latina girls (n = 949). All pairs containing at least one minority status of either race/ethnicity or gender (e.g., Black boys, Black girls, Latino boys, Latina girls) were more likely than White boys to be assigned to the more disadvantaged classes, as compared to being assigned to Class 3, the least disadvantaged (see Table B in S1 File ).

Racial/Ethnic and Gender Differences in Eighth-Grade Academic Outcomes

Table 2 shows broad patterns of intersecting racial/ethnic and gender inequalities in academic outcomes, although interesting differences emerge across racial/ethnic and gender groups. Whereas Black boys achieved lower scores than White boys across all classes on the math, reading and science assessments, this was not the case for Latino boys, who only underperformed White boys on the science assessment within the most privileged class (Class 3: Individually and Contextually Wealthy). Latina girls, in contrast, outperformed White boys on reading scores within Class 4 (Individually Disadvantaged, Contextually Wealthy), but scored lower than White boys on science and math assessments, although only when in the two most privileged classes (Class 3 and 4). For Black girls the effect of class membership was not as pronounced, and they had lower science and math scores than White boys across all but one instance.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0141363.t002

In general, the largest inequalities in academic outcomes across racial/ethnic and gender groups appeared in the most privileged classes. For example, results show no differences in math scores across racial/ethnic and gender categories within Class 4, the most disadvantaged class, but in all other classes that contain an element of advantage, and particularly in Class 3 (Individually and Contextually Wealthy), there are large gaps in math scores across racial/ethnic and gender groups, when compared to White boys. These patterns of heightened inequality in the most advantaged classes are similar for reading and science scores (see Table 2 ).

Racial/Ethnic and Gender Differences in Eighth-Grade Non-Academic Outcomes

Interestingly, racialized and gendered patterns of inequality observed in academic outcomes were not as stark in non-cognitive academic outcomes (see Table 3 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0141363.t003

Racial/ethnic and gender differences were small across socioemotional outcomes, and in fact, White boys were outperformed on several outcomes. Black boys scored lower than White boys on internalizing behavior and higher on self-concept within Classes 2 (Individually Wealthy, Contextually Disadvantaged) and 4 (Individually Disadvantaged, Contextually Wealthy), and Black girls scored higher than White boys on self-concept within Classes 2 and 3 (Individually Wealthy, Contextually Disadvantaged, and Individually and Contextually Wealthy, respectively). White and Latina girls, but not Black girls, scored higher than White boys on internalizing behavior (within Classes 3 and 4 for White girls, and within Classes 1 and 3 for Latina girls; see Table 3 ).

As with academic outcomes, most racial/ethnic and gender differences also emerged within the most privileged classes, and particularly in Class 3 (Individually and Contextually Wealthy), although in the case of perceived interest/competence in reading, White and Latina girls performed better than White boys. White girls also reported higher perceived interest/competence in reading than White boys in Class 4: Individually Disadvantaged, Contextually Wealthy.

This study set out to examine inequalities across several eighth grade academic and non-academic outcomes at the intersection of race/ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status. It first identified four classes of longstanding individual- and contextual-level disadvantage; then determined membership to these classes depending on racial/ethnic and gender groups; and finally compared non-cognitive skills, academic assessment scores, and socioemotional outcomes across intersecting gender, racial/ethnic and socioeconomic social positions.

Results show the clear influence of race/ethnicity in determining membership to the most disadvantaged classes. Across gender dichotomies, Black students were more likely than White boys to be assigned to all classes of disadvantage as compared to the most advantaged class, and this was particularly strong for the most disadvantaged class, which included elements of both individual- and contextual-level disadvantage. Latino boys and girls were also more likely than White boys to be assigned to all the disadvantaged classes, but the strength of the association was much smaller than for Black students. Whereas membership into classes of disadvantage appears to be more a result of structural inequalities strongly driven by race/ethnicity, the salience of gender is apparent in the distribution of academic assessment outcomes within classes of disadvantage. Results show a gendered pattern of math, reading and science assessments, particularly in the most privileged class, where girls from all ethnic/racial groups (although mostly from Black and Latino racial/ethnic groups) underperform White boys in math and science, and where Black boys score lower, and White girls higher, than White boys in reading.

With the exception of educational assessments, gender and racial/ethnic inequalities within classes are either not very pronounced or in the opposite direction (e.g. racial/ethnic and gender minorities outperform White males), but differences in outcomes across classes are stark. The strength of the association between race/ethnicity and class membership, and the reduced racial/ethnic and gender inequalities within classes of advantage and disadvantage, attest to the importance of socioeconomic status and wealth in explaining racial/ethnic inequalities; should individual and contextual disadvantage be comparable across racial/ethnic groups, racial/ethnic inequalities would be substantially reduced. This being said, most within-class differences were observed in the most privileged classes, showing that benefits brought about by affluence and advantage are not equal across racial/ethnic and gender groups. The measures of advantage and disadvantage captured in this study relate to characteristics afforded by parental resources, implying an intergenerational transmission of disadvantage, regardless of the presence of absolute adversity in childhood. This pattern of differential returns of affluence has been shown in other studies, which report that White teenagers benefit more from the presence of affluent neighbors than do Black teenagers [ 71 ]. Among adult populations, studies show that across several health outcomes, highly educated Black adults fare worse than White adults with the lowest education [ 72 ]. Intersectional approaches such as the one applied in this study reveal how power within gendered and racialized institutional settings operates to undermine access to and use of resources that would otherwise be available to individuals of advantaged classes [ 72 ]. The present study further contributes to this literature by documenting how, in a key stage of the life course, similar levels of advantage, but not disadvantage, lead to different academic outcomes across racial/ethnic and gender groups. These findings suggest that, should socioeconomic inequalities be addressed, and levels of advantage were similar across racial/ethnic and gender groups, systems of oppression that pattern the racialization and socialization of children into racial/ethnic and gender roles in society would still ensure that inequalities in academic outcomes existed across racial/ethnic and gender categories. In other words, racism and sexism have a direct effect on academic and non-academic outcomes among 8 th graders, independent of the effect of socioeconomic disadvantage on these outcomes. An important limitation of the current study is that although it uses a comprehensive measure of advantage/disadvantage, including elements of deprivation and affluence at the family, school and neighborhood levels through time, it failed to capture these two key causal determinants of racial/ethnic and gender inequality: experiences of racial and gender discrimination.

Despite this limitation, it is important to note that socioeconomic inequalities in the US are driven by racial and gender bias and discrimination at structural and individual levels, with race and gender discrimination exerting a strong influence on academic and non-academic inequalities. Racial discrimination, prevalent in the US and in other industrialized nations [ 38 , 73 ] determines differential life opportunities and resources across racial/ethnic groups, and is a crucial determinant of racial/ethnic inequalities in health and development throughout life and across generations [ 37 , 38 ]. In the context of this study’s primary outcomes within school settings, racism and racial discrimination experienced by both the parents and the children are likely to contribute towards explaining observed racial/ethnic inequalities in outcomes within classes of disadvantage. Gender discrimination—another system of oppression—is apparent in this study in relation to academic subjects socially considered as typically male or female orientated. For example, results show no difference between Black girls and White boys from the most advantaged class in terms of perceived interest and competence in math but, in this same class, Black girls score much lower than White boys in the math assessment. This difference, not explained by intrinsic or socioeconomic differences, can be contextualized as a consequence of experienced intersecting racial and gender discrimination. The consequences of the intersection between two marginalized identities are found throughout the results of this study when comparing across broad categorizations of race/ethnicity and gender, and in more detailed conceptualizations of minority status. Growing up Black, Latino or White in the US is not the same for boys and girls, and growing up as a boy or a girl in America does not lead to the same outcomes and opportunities for Black, Latino and White children as they become adults. With this study’s approach of intersectionality one can observe the complexity of how gender and race/ethnicity intersect to create unique academic and non-academic outcomes. This includes the contrasting results found for Black and Latino boys, when compared to White boys, which show very few examples of poorer outcomes among Latino boys, but several instances among Black boys. Results also show different racialization for Black and Latina girls. Latina girls, but not Black girls, report higher internalizing behavior than White boys, whereas Black girls, but not Latina girls, report higher self-concept than White boys. Black boys also report higher self-concept and lower internalizing behavior than White boys, findings that mirror research on self-esteem among Black adolescents [ 74 , 75 ]. In cognitive assessments, intersecting racial/ethnic and gender differences emerge across classes of disadvantage. For example, Black girls in all four classes score lower on science scores than White boys, but only Latina girls in the most advantaged class score lower than White boys. Although one can observe differences in the racialization of Black and Latino boys and girls across classes of disadvantage, findings about broad differences across Latino children compared to Black and White children should be interpreted with caution. The Latino ethnic group is a large, heterogeneous group, representing 16.7% of the total US population [ 76 ]. The Latino population is composed of a variety of different sub-groups with diverse national origins and migration histories [ 77 ], which has led to differences in sociodemographic characteristics and lived experiences of ethnicity and minority status among the various groups. Differences across Latino sub-groups are widely documented, and pooled analyses such as those reported here are masking differences across Latino sub-groups, and providing biased comparisons between Latino children, and Black and White children.

Poorer performance of girls and racial/ethnic minority students in science and math assessments (but not in self-perceived competence and interest) might result from stereotype threat, whereby negative stereotypes of a group influence their member’s performance [ 78 ]. Stereotype threat posits that awareness of a social stereotype that reflects negatively on one's social group can negatively affect the performance of group members [ 35 ]. Reduced performance only occurs in a threatening situation (e.g., a test) where individuals are aware of the stereotype. Studies show that early adolescence is a time when youth become aware of and begin to endorse traditional gender and racial/ethnic stereotypes [ 79 ]. Findings among youth parallel findings among adult populations, which show that adult men are generally perceived to be more competent than women, but that these perceptions do not necessarily hold for Black men [ 80 ]. These stereotypes have strong implications for interpersonal interactions and for the wider structuring of systemic racial/ethnic and gender inequalities. An example of the consequences of negative racial/ethnic and gender stereotypes as children grow up is the well-documented racial/ethnic and gender pay gap: women earn less than men [ 81 ], and racial/ethnic minority women and men earn less than White men [ 82 ].

In addition to the focus on intersectionality, a strength of this study is its person-centered methodological approach, which incorporates measures of advantage and disadvantage across individual and contextual levels through nine years of children’s socialization. Children live within multiple contexts, with risk factors at the family, school, and neighborhood level contributing to their development and wellbeing. Individual risk factors seldom operate in isolation [ 83 ], and they are often strongly associated both within and across levels [ 84 ]. All risk factors captured in the latent class analyses have been independently associated with increased risk for academic problems [ 10 , 71 , 85 , 86 ], and given that combinations of risk factors that cut across multiple domains explain the association between early risk and later outcomes better than any isolated risk factor [ 83 , 84 ], the incorporation of person-centered and intersectionality approaches to the study of racial/ethnic, gender, and socioeconomic inequalities across school outcomes provides new insight into how children in marginalized social groups are socialized in the early life course.

Conclusions

The contrasting outcomes between racial/ethnic and gender minorities in self-assessment and socioemotional outcomes, as compared to standardized assessments, provide support for the detrimental effect that intersecting racial/ethnic and gender discrimination have in patterning academic outcomes that predict success in adult life. Interventions to eliminate achievement gaps cannot fully succeed as long as social stratification caused by gender and racial discrimination is not addressed [ 87 , 88 ].

Supporting Information

S1 file. supporting tables..

Table A: Class characteristics. Table B: Associations between race/ethnicity and gender groups and assigned class membership (membership to Classes 1, 2 or 4 as compared to Class 3: Individually and Contextually Wealthy).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0141363.s001

Acknowledgments

This work was funded by an ESRC grant (ES/K001582/1) and a Hallsworth Research Fellowship to LB. Most of this work was conducted while LB was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan. She would like to thank them for hosting her visit and for the support provided.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: LB. Performed the experiments: LB. Analyzed the data: LB. Wrote the paper: LB NP.

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5 Powerful Essays Advocating for Gender Equality

Gender equality – which becomes reality when all genders are treated fairly and allowed equal opportunities – is a complicated human rights issue for every country in the world. Recent statistics are sobering. According to the World Economic Forum, it will take 108 years to achieve gender parity . The biggest gaps are found in political empowerment and economics. Also, there are currently just six countries that give women and men equal legal work rights. Generally, women are only given ¾ of the rights given to men. To learn more about how gender equality is measured, how it affects both women and men, and what can be done, here are five essays making a fair point.

Take a free course on Gender Equality offered by top universities!

“Countries With Less Gender Equity Have More Women In STEM — Huh?” – Adam Mastroianni and Dakota McCoy

This essay from two Harvard PhD candidates (Mastroianni in psychology and McCoy in biology) takes a closer look at a recent study that showed that in countries with lower gender equity, more women are in STEM. The study’s researchers suggested that this is because women are actually especially interested in STEM fields, and because they are given more choice in Western countries, they go with different careers. Mastroianni and McCoy disagree.

They argue the research actually shows that cultural attitudes and discrimination are impacting women’s interests, and that bias and discrimination is present even in countries with better gender equality. The problem may lie in the Gender Gap Index (GGI), which tracks factors like wage disparity and government representation. To learn why there’s more women in STEM from countries with less gender equality, a more nuanced and complex approach is needed.

“Men’s health is better, too, in countries with more gender equality” – Liz Plank

When it comes to discussions about gender equality, it isn’t uncommon for someone in the room to say, “What about the men?” Achieving gender equality has been difficult because of the underlying belief that giving women more rights and freedom somehow takes rights away from men. The reality, however, is that gender equality is good for everyone. In Liz Plank’s essay, which is an adaption from her book For the Love of Men: A Vision for Mindful Masculinity, she explores how in Iceland, the #1 ranked country for gender equality, men live longer. Plank lays out the research for why this is, revealing that men who hold “traditional” ideas about masculinity are more likely to die by suicide and suffer worse health. Anxiety about being the only financial provider plays a big role in this, so in countries where women are allowed education and equal earning power, men don’t shoulder the burden alone.

Liz Plank is an author and award-winning journalist with Vox, where she works as a senior producer and political correspondent. In 2015, Forbes named her one of their “30 Under 30” in the Media category. She’s focused on feminist issues throughout her career.

“China’s #MeToo Moment” – Jiayang Fan

Some of the most visible examples of gender inequality and discrimination comes from “Me Too” stories. Women are coming forward in huge numbers relating how they’ve been harassed and abused by men who have power over them. Most of the time, established systems protect these men from accountability. In this article from Jiayang Fan, a New Yorker staff writer, we get a look at what’s happening in China.

The essay opens with a story from a PhD student inspired by the United States’ Me Too movement to open up about her experience with an academic adviser. Her story led to more accusations against the adviser, and he was eventually dismissed. This is a rare victory, because as Fan says, China employs a more rigid system of patriarchy and hierarchy. There aren’t clear definitions or laws surrounding sexual harassment. Activists are charting unfamiliar territory, which this essay explores.

“Men built this system. No wonder gender equality remains as far off as ever.” – Ellie Mae O’Hagan

Freelance journalist Ellie Mae O’Hagan (whose book The New Normal is scheduled for a May 2020 release) is discouraged that gender equality is so many years away. She argues that it’s because the global system of power at its core is broken. Even when women are in power, which is proportionally rare on a global scale, they deal with a system built by the patriarchy. O’Hagan’s essay lays out ideas for how to fix what’s fundamentally flawed, so gender equality can become a reality.

Ideas include investing in welfare; reducing gender-based violence (which is mostly men committing violence against women); and strengthening trade unions and improving work conditions. With a system that’s not designed to put women down, the world can finally achieve gender equality.

“Invisibility of Race in Gender Pay Gap Discussions” – Bonnie Chu

The gender pay gap has been a pressing issue for many years in the United States, but most discussions miss the factor of race. In this concise essay, Senior Contributor Bonnie Chu examines the reality, writing that within the gender pay gap, there’s other gaps when it comes to black, Native American, and Latina women. Asian-American women, on the other hand, are paid 85 cents for every dollar. This data is extremely important and should be present in discussions about the gender pay gap. It reminds us that when it comes to gender equality, there’s other factors at play, like racism.

Bonnie Chu is a gender equality advocate and a Forbes 30 Under 30 social entrepreneur. She’s the founder and CEO of Lensational, which empowers women through photography, and the Managing Director of The Social Investment Consultancy.

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About the author, emmaline soken-huberty.

Emmaline Soken-Huberty is a freelance writer based in Portland, Oregon. She started to become interested in human rights while attending college, eventually getting a concentration in human rights and humanitarianism. LGBTQ+ rights, women’s rights, and climate change are of special concern to her. In her spare time, she can be found reading or enjoying Oregon’s natural beauty with her husband and dog.

Women are advancing in the workplace, but women of color still lag behind

A little over 100 years ago, the U.S. Congress ratified the 19th amendment, which ruled that women could not be denied the right to vote because of their sex. This amendment was the result of hard-fought efforts from many women (and some men) who recognized that disenfranchisement then, as now, was a blight on the nation and hindered the U.S.’s potential to achieve its stated goals of becoming a functioning democracy. The 19th amendment was especially significant for Black women who, despite the 15th amendment’s promises of voting rights regardless of race, still could not vote because of their gender. The fact that it took two different constitutional amendments—passed a half century apart—to secure Black women’s right to vote underscores how both race and gender have always mattered in significant ways when it comes to women of color.

A century later, race and gender continue to create divergent and uneven outcomes for women of all races and for men of color. This is particularly evident in the underrepresentation and experiences of women employed in professional occupations. An oft-cited statistic, for instance, reveals that as a result of factors including, but not limited to, motherhood penalties, gender discrimination, and occupational segregation, women make 79 cents for every dollar men earn. But Black women earn only 64 cents on the dollar, and for Latinas it is a dismal 54 cents. As it was in the early 20th century, women of color continue to experience occupational and economic disadvantages that reflect the ways both race and gender affect their work experiences.

How do racism and sexism impact women of color in professional settings? Research indicates that both factors adversely affect women in a variety of occupations through stifled leadership opportunities, the ongoing persistence of specific forms of sexual harassment, and subtle but pervasive doubts about competence, intelligence, and skill that are unrelated to actual performance.

For instance, in today’s professional occupations, networks, mentors, and connections play important roles in advancement. Research indicates that Black women are more ambitious and more likely to say that they want to advance in their companies than their white women counterparts, but are less likely to find mentors who will aid their climb up the corporate ladder. As sociologist Tsedale Melaku points out , sometimes this is a function of white executives’ unfamiliarity and discomfort with Black women. As one attorney in Melaku’s study notes, executives who rarely, if ever, have Black people in their personal or professional circles may be uncertain or uncomfortable interacting with them as peers. Other times, this lack of mentoring is a consequence of intentional exclusion when leaders make it a point not to include Black women in teams, as mentees, or on important projects. But either way, these patterns thwart Black women’s mobility in organizations and their ability to realize ambitions and secure leadership roles. And Black women are left to struggle harder to access and advance in these professions, with occupational underrepresentation and wage disparities to show for it.

It is important to note that these issues are not limited to Black women. In a recent study, sociologist Margaret Chin finds that Asian American women experience racialized and gendered forms of sexual harassment that leads to isolation and results in exclusion from leadership opportunities. Latinas, too, find that coworkers may interact with them based on stereotypes that they are unintelligent or illegally in the country, depictions that then require extra work to disprove.

Women of color are usually underrepresented in professional, high status jobs in law, medicine, academia, and business. When they do make it to these rarified roles but are the only ones in an organizational setting, they are more likely to doubt the company’s commitment to inclusion and equity and thus are more likely to want to pursue opportunities elsewhere.

Yet we know that when companies put measures into place that focus on achieving more gender diversity, women of color often lose out unless there is an explicit focus on race as well as gender. Affirmative action policies put into place in the wake of the civil rights movement have disproportionately benefited white women, and this is certainly true in today’s workplaces. This is not to say that white women face an easy road, particularly in professions that are disproportionately dominated by men. But race and racism create specific, unique challenges for women of color that are too easily ignored with broad platitudes that seek to advance women’s representation without questioning which women are most likely to benefit.

My recent book, Flatlining: Race, Work, and Health Care in the New Economy , highlights how some of these intersections of race and gender impact health care professionals. Black women doctors in my study observed that both race and gender were key factors that shaped the challenges they face in the field. Despite being 7% of the U.S. population, Black women are a paltry 3% of medical doctors today, a disparity that has devastating consequences for health equity in a rapidly diversifying society. Working in a profession dominated by men, Black women doctors are very attuned to the ways that sexism impacts their lives. For instance, nearly every Black woman doctor with whom I spoke shared accounts of being mistaken for a nurse rather than a doctor, so much so that they argued that when it came to their everyday interactions, gender was a much more significant factor than race. As Ayana, a neonatologist, put it, “I see my coworkers that are males and the race doesn’t matter. If you’re male, they will call you a doctor. If you’re female, they will call you a nurse. But it’s regardless of your race. I see my white coworkers, even just because they’re female they still call them nurse.”

Race and racism create specific, unique challenges for women of color that are too easily ignored with broad platitudes that seek to advance women’s representation without questioning which women are most likely to benefit.

However, this unfortunately common microaggression—and the fact that, for women doctors, it transcends race—does not mean that Black women were oblivious to or shielded from racism in the medical profession. In fact, they astutely noted that structural factors also established a context that perpetuated racial disparities in the field. Bella, a geneticist, pointed out that she entered into her field with the intention of reducing racial health disparities. However, the extremely low numbers of Black doctors in her specialty area put her at a disadvantage when it came to finding mentors who could guide her in that goal, as most of her white senior colleagues did not share her focus on providing genetic services to Black populations who might otherwise be overlooked and ignored. Bella told me, “I find it difficult to identify mentors or people who are familiar with those populations, people who are also passionate about educating those populations about genetic services or resources. So I have not really had much luck identifying people who are working with those populations who can help me better address some of the needs or some of the disparities that I see.”

Black women in other health care professions faced different challenges. In fact, one of the most interesting findings from my study was how much Black workers’ experiences varied depending on the occupations in which they were employed. While Black women doctors encountered persistent, daily gender biases that occurred in the context of structural, racialized barriers—both of which made advancement in the profession difficult—Black women nurses reported few instances with gender biases and instead described routine, frequent, and explicitly racist encounters with colleagues. Nurses were not employed in a culturally masculinized space like Black doctors, but in the absence of overt gender bias, they dealt with racist interactions with white coworkers. Melinda, a nurse who primarily tended to new mothers in the postpartum unit of a hospital, recounted one such interaction with a colleague. While discussing an upcoming after-work gathering, a coworker informed Melinda that she would only be welcome in this colleague’s home if she was there to clean it. As Melinda shared, “[She] actually said to me, we were talking about after work getting together, hanging out, and said, ‘Oh, you can come to my house, but you’d have to be carrying a pail and wearing a rag on your head to come to my home.’”

And these experiences still varied from those of Black women technicians, who did not describe overt, explicitly gendered biases in their work. Rather, they described friction with (mostly white) women nurses who, stressed out by policies that encouraged overwork and emboldened by a lack of organizational restraint, assigned them extra work that was not delegated to white colleagues. Amber put it this way: “The nurses are always full throttle. When they answer the phone, I can guarantee you, there’s always an attitude.” Though Amber experienced tensions with nurses, these difficulties were not synonymous with what Black women nurses and doctors described. Thus, even in spaces where Black workers are underrepresented, it is critical not to assume that they all share common experiences.

These intersecting factors help highlight some of the common challenges Black women workers encounter, but they also underscore that policies designed to improve gender parity in workplaces will not be successful if they ignore the ways that the issues women face in the workplace are also shaped by race, as well as other factors—citizenship, occupational status, sexual identity, and more. This also applies to companies that profess their commitment to achieving racial equity and state their opposition to systemic racism, as many are now doing in the wake of national protests against racial inequality. It remains to be seen whether these companies will take the long-term, sustained, comprehensive actions that would be necessary to make the changes they now say they wish to see. But it’s also clear that without a comparable commitment to identifying and resolving the challenges women of all races face in the modern workplace, these efforts cannot succeed either.

The good news is that there is some research that documents ways that organizations—both in health care and in other industries—can become more equitable. Changing hiring practices so that organizations pair with institutions that are known for training workers of color is a first step. For instance, universities like Meharry Medical College and Xavier University in New Orleans produce a disproportionate number of Black students who go on to become physicians. Organizations can partner with places like these that are renowned for training skilled Black workers. Additionally, collecting data to understand what challenges and obstacles their employees are facing, particularly those from underrepresented groups, is important as well. Companies can also directly involve managers in developing solutions, rather than tinkering around the edges of existing policies. Organizations can also enact paid leave for all workers—or better yet, lobby for federal policies ensuring paid sick and parental leave policies, so that these policies are available to all workers regardless of their place of employment. And companies can change aspects of their culture that allow sexual harassment to flourish, since, as the #MeToo movement has shown us, this is a major problem for many vulnerable workers in virtually every industry.

Ultimately, race and gender continue to matter in complicated, intersecting ways for women workers today. While the U.S. has undoubtedly made some key social progressions since women finally achieved suffrage in 1920, we run the risk of hindering further gains if we fail to learn the lessons from that time. As we continue to develop various initiatives and policies to reflect a rapidly diversifying population, it’s important to not to repeat the mistakes of the past by again leaving women of color ignored and overlooked.

This piece is part of 19A: The Brookings Gender Equality Series. Learn more about the series and read published work »

About the Author

Adia harvey wingfield, professor of sociology – washington university in st. louis, more from the 19a series.

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Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Discrimination and Prejudice — Race and Gender

Essays on Race and Gender

Race and gender are important topics to discuss because they play a significant role in shaping individuals' experiences and opportunities in society. Writing an essay on race and gender allows for a deeper understanding of the complexities and nuances surrounding these issues, and it provides a platform for meaningful conversations and awareness.

When choosing a topic for an essay on race and gender, it's essential to consider current events, personal experiences, and societal impacts. Topics can range from examining the intersectionality of race and gender to analyzing historical and contemporary inequalities. It's crucial to select a topic that resonates with the writer and offers potential for critical analysis and discussion.

For an argumentative essay on race and gender, topics could include "The impact of racial and gender stereotypes on marginalized communities" or "The importance of intersectional feminism in addressing race and gender inequality." For a cause and effect essay, topics might include "The effects of systemic racism and sexism on marginalized individuals" or "The causes and consequences of gender-based violence." In an opinion essay, topics could be "The role of privilege in perpetuating race and gender disparities" or "The need for inclusive and diverse representation in media and leadership positions." Finally, for an informative essay, topics might include "The history of racial and gender discrimination in the United States" or "The key principles of intersectional feminism."

In an essay example on race and gender, a thesis statement could be "The intersectionality of race and gender is crucial in understanding and addressing systemic inequalities in society." An paragraph might delve into the historical context of race and gender oppression, present statistics or examples of current disparities, and outline the purpose and scope of the essay. A paragraph could summarize key points, provide recommendations for further action or reflection, and emphasize the importance of continuing conversations on race and gender.

Writing an essay on race and gender allows for critical analysis, meaningful discussions, and increased awareness of the complexities surrounding these important topics. By choosing a relevant and engaging topic, structuring the essay effectively, and providing compelling examples, writers can contribute to the ongoing dialogue on race and gender.

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1. Altonji, J. G., & Blank, R. M. (1999). Race and gender in the labor market. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1573446399300390 Handbook of labor economics, 3, 3143-3259. 2. Sacks, K. B. (1989). Toward a unified theory of class, race, and gender. American Ethnologist, 16(3), 534-550. (https://www.jstor.org/stable/645273) 3. Stepan, N. L. (1986). Race and gender: The role of analogy in science. Isis, 77(2), 261-277. (https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/354130) 4. Weber, L. (1998). A conceptual framework for understanding race, class, gender, and sexuality. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 22(1), 13-32. (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1471-6402.1998.tb00139.x) 5. McDermott, M. L. (1998). Race and gender cues in low-information elections. Political Research Quarterly, 51(4), 895-918. (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/106591299805100403?journalCode=prqb) 6. Pratto, F., Korchmaros, J. D., & Hegarty, P. (2007). When race and gender go without saying. Social Cognition, 25(2), 221-247. (https://guilfordjournals.com/doi/abs/10.1521/soco.2007.25.2.221) 7. Fiske, J., & Hancock, B. H. (2016). Media matters: Race & gender in US politics. Routledge. (https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781315713618/media-matters-john-fiske-black-hawk-hancock) 8. Krieger, N. (1990). Racial and gender discrimination: risk factors for high blood pressure?. Social science & medicine, 30(12), 1273-1281. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/027795369090307E) 9. Puhl, R. M., Andreyeva, T., & Brownell, K. D. (2008). Perceptions of weight discrimination: prevalence and comparison to race and gender discrimination in America. https://www.nature.com/articles/ijo200822 International journal of obesity, 32(6), 992-1000.

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Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Assessing Interactions Among Social, Behavioral, and Genetic Factors in Health; Hernandez LM, Blazer DG, editors. Genes, Behavior, and the Social Environment: Moving Beyond the Nature/Nurture Debate. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2006.

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5 Sex/Gender, Race/Ethnicity, and Health

In the search for a better understanding of genetic and environmental interactions as determinants of health, certain fundamental aspects of human identity pose both a challenge and an opportunity for clarification. Sex/gender and race/ethnicity are complex traits that are particularly useful and important because each includes the social dimensions necessary for understanding its impact on health and each has genetic underpinnings, to varying degrees.

Although there have been numerous genetic studies of sex and gender—and more recently race and ethnicity—over the past several decades, detailed information about the extent of our genetic similarities and differences did not reach the public’s attention until the completion of the Human Genome Project. With base pair comparisons possible across the individuals sequenced, the estimate that any two humans are 99.9 percent the same has raised our awareness that all humans are incredibly similar at the genetic level. Paradoxically, the evidence of vast numbers of DNA base pairs at which humans differ also became known at this time. It is estimated currently that any two people will differ at approximately 3 million positions along their genomes. Although there is some evidence that information about an individual’s sex or ancestry would provide information about the likelihood that he/she carries one allele versus another, it is typically a matter of probability—not a discrete or absolute determinant (even for the Y chromosome). While there is growing evidence of a number of significant differences between males and females in terms of health and health outcomes ( IOM, 2001 ), “considerable controversy remains about the existence and importance of racial differences in genetic effects, particularly for complex diseases” ( Ioannidis et al., 2004 ).

Previous chapters have discussed the contributions of the social environment, behavior, psychological factors, physiological mechanisms, and genetic variation to health. This chapter highlights the fact that the contributions of these variables are not monolithic and that fundamental individual traits, such as sex/gender and race/ethnicity, can change their meaning and health impact in different contexts. These complex traits are multifaceted, and the goal is to tease apart the facets at different levels of organization in order to identify which of them directly modulate health. This is a reciprocal process, because these various domains in turn inform our understanding of sex/gender and race/ethnicity. Failing to distinguish these different facets, both in the aggregate and within each level of analysis, will compromise the ability to obtain a more fine-grained understanding of how the different aspects of these fundamental individual traits interact to influence health.

Although the terms sex and gender are often used interchangeably, they, in fact, have distinct meanings. Sex is a classification based on biological differences—for example, differences between males and females rooted in their anatomy or physiology. By contrast, gender is a classification based on the social construction (and maintenance) of cultural distinctions between males and females. Gender refers to “a social construct regarding culture-bound conventions, roles, and behaviors for, as well as relations between and among, women and men, boys and girls” ( Krieger, 2003 ).

Differences in the health of males and females often reflect the simultaneous influence of both sex and gender. Not only can gender relations influence the expression of biological traits, but also sex-associated biological characteristics can contribute to amplify gender differentials in health ( Krieger, 2003 ). The relative contributions of gender relations and sex-linked biology to health differences between males and females depend on the specific health outcome under consideration. In some instances, sex-linked biology is the sole determinant of a health outcome—for example gonadal digenesis among women with Turner’s syndrome (due to X-monosomy). In other instances, gender relations account substantially for observed gender differentials for a given health outcome—for example the higher prevalence of needle-stick injuries among female compared to male health care workers, which is in turn attributed to the gender segregation of the health care workforce. The prevalence of HIV infection through needle-stick injury is higher among female health care workers because the majority of doctors are men, the majority of nurses and phlebotomists are women, and drawing blood is relegated to nurses and phlebotomists (who are mostly women) ( Ippolito et al., 1999 ).

In yet other instances, gender relations can act synergistically with sex-linked biology to produce a health outcome. For example, the risk of hypospadias is higher among male infants born to women exposed to potential endocrine-disrupting agents at work. In this example, maternal exposure to the endocrine-disrupting agent (e.g., phthalates) arises because of gender segregation in the labor market (e.g., exposure among hair-dressers who are mainly women). Once exposure occurs, the risk of the outcome is predicated on sex-linked biology and is different for women and men, as well as for female and male fetuses, because only women can be pregnant, and exposure can lead to the outcome (hypospadias) only among male fetuses (all examples cited in Krieger, 2003 ).

Finally, in some instances, sex-linked biology can be obscured by the influence of gender relations in producing health differentials between women and men. For example, women’s lower risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) prior to menopause often has been ascribed to the cardioprotective effects of endogenous estrogens (a sex difference), but at the same time, the male/ female differential in heart disease also may reflect a diagnostic artifact; that is, the underdetection of heart disease among women caused by an unconscious bias among physicians to ascribe the symptoms of a real heart attack among premenopausal women to some other disorder (a gender difference) ( McKinlay, 1996 ). Arber and colleagues (2006) demonstrated the presence of such bias in a randomized experimental study involving video-vignettes of a scripted consultation in which patients presented with standardized symptoms of CHD. The videotaped consultations were identical in terms of symptoms, but the patients’ gender, age (55 versus 75), class, and race varied. A probability sample of 256 primary care doctors from the United States and the United Kingdom viewed these video-vignettes and the results demonstrated that the diagnosis and patient management decisions were significantly affected by the patient’s gender. Women were asked fewer questions and received fewer diagnostic tests compared to men. The authors found evidence of “gendered ageism,” in which middle-aged women presenting with classic symptoms of CHD were asked the least amount of questions and prescribed the fewest CHD-related medications ( Arber et al., 2006 ).

Besides the behavior of health care providers, a number of other social processes are recognized as contributing to gender inequalities in health. At the macro (or societal) level, these include the gender segregation of the labor force (alluded to above) and gender discrimination. Gender segregation of the workforce and gender discrimination together contribute to the persistence of the gender wage gap—that is the fact that women earn less than men in paid employment ( Reskin and Padavic, 1994 ). The gender wage gap in turn contributes to the feminization of poverty. Women— particularly female heads of households—are over-represented among poor households in virtually every society. The adverse health effects of poverty (see Chapter 2 of this report) therefore fall disproportionately on women and their children. At the societal level, indicators of women’s economic autonomy or lack thereof (e.g., rates of poverty among women, the size of the gender wage gap, and the proportion of women in managerial and technical professions) have been shown to closely mirror women’s health status (mortality and rates of disability) ( Kawachi et al., 1999 ).

Within households, gender relations also are characterized by the unequal division of labor (e.g., care giving roles are more often assumed by women), as well as by the unequal exercise of authority and power. Women with paid work are more likely than men to engage in the “second shift” ( Hochschild, 1989 ), taking on responsibilities for childcare, housework, and care giving. The stresses associated with care giving, particularly providing care for ill spouses, have been linked to adverse health outcomes, such as cardiovascular disease ( Lee et al., 2003 ).

Men and women differ biologically because their primary reproductive hormones are different. Less well recognized are the sex differences in certain aspects of immune function that stem from the fact that women and men face different immune challenges. In women, but not in men, successful reproduction requires the support of “foreign bodies”—sperm and a developing fetus. Moreover, as is the case for many other mammalian species, other aspects of male and female biology also may differ because they have different roles in caring for offspring or function in different ecological niches, thus reducing parental competition. For example, a brief stressor mimicking a burrow collapse results in a more pronounced long-term innate inflammatory response in female rats than in male rats exposed to the same stressor ( Hermes et al., 2006 ). Given that females become aggressive during lactation and may likely suffer from wounding, selection would favor those who can mount an inflammatory response that is effective enough to enable them to survive at least long enough to wean their nursing pups. Given that males do not behave paternally in this species, a selection pressure at this juncture of the reproductive lifespan would not be as strong.

The central point is that sex differences in health and risk for disease are not simply minor correlates of differences in reproductive hormones. They also result from deeply embedded highly coordinated physiological systems that have evolved to serve sex-specific functions. For example, women must have sufficient energy reserves to sustain the huge metabolic demands of pregnancy and lactation. Thus, it is not surprising to see sex differences in energy metabolism. In men, insulin functions as a negative feedback signal in the regulation of fat metabolism, reducing body fat, but this does not occur in women, where it serves to conserve women’s fat stores ( Hallschmid et al., 2004 ). Sex hormones have both genomic and nongenomic effects on the accumulation, distribution, and metabolism of adipose tissue, including the regulation of leptin ( Mayes and Watson, 2004 ). Leptin has long-term effects on the regulation of body weight, mediated through appetite, energy expenditure and body temperature. Marked sex differences can be seen in levels of leptin, which in men (but not women) are associated with hypertension ( Sheu et al., 1999 ). Moreover, leptin stimulates cellular components of innate immunity, stimulating T-cells, macrophages, and neutrophils, as well as preventing the programmed cell death of neutrophils (apoptosis) ( Bruno et al., 2005 ). Indeed, leptin is increased during infections. Thus, fat metabolism and immune functions are differentially controlled in men and women, and the implications for disease risk and treatment are only now beginning to be explored.

In recent years, there has been an increased focus on understanding the differences and similarities between females and males at the societal level (i.e., behaviors, lifestyles, environment), at the level of the whole organism, and at the cellular and molecular levels ( IOM, 2001 ) (see Table 5-1 ). There is, of course, huge variation in the degree of overlap in the physical traits of men and women. Sexual dimorphism is typically reserved for traits for which the difference is relatively large, such as height (population overlap of one standard deviation—10 percent of men are smaller than the average woman), while smaller differences are typically termed as sexually differentiated, such as hand shape ( Williams et al., 2000 ).

The Independent Dimensions of Sex/Gender in Humans.

A significant number of studies have documented the differences between sexes across the lifespan. Genetic and physiological make up, in addition to an individual’s personal experiences and interactions with the environment, can play a large part in observed sex differences such as varying incidence and severity of disease. This may be the result of differences in exposure to the risk factors, the routes of exposure and processing of a foreign agent, and cellular responses to the body. Differences cannot simply be attributed to hormones. Sex affects behavior, perception, and health in multiple complex ways. Differences in the sex chromosomes are but one factor, although a significant one for a small number of diseases influenced by gene dosage (i.e., specific to the X chromosome), or for genes found only on the Y chromosome ( IOM, 2001 ).

In order to understand the impact of sex/gender on health, it will be necessary to deeply appreciate that it is not a simple categorical variable, ultimately definable by the presence or absence of the Y chromosome. Rather, it is a multifaceted variable, biologically, psychologically and socially, with each facet having different effects on health and risk for disease. Each facet is oriented along dimensions that typically covary so strongly that many assume that they are inseparable (see the typical phenotypes of sex/gender in Table 5-1 ). However, there can be variance, if not sex reversals, along a given dimen sion without comparable variation in the others. This disassociation clearly demonstrates their independence. Thus, future research on the impact of interactions among social, behavioral, and genetic factors on health must determine which of these facets and dimensions contribute directly to sex differences in health and which are merely correlates.

An example helps to illustrate human variation. There are XY individuals with a genetic variant of the androgen receptor who are unambiguously heterosexual women and who are engaged in feminine social roles ranging from actresses to Olympic athletes. They have testes and hormone levels higher than those of pubertal boys. But, because their androgen receptors do not bind androgen, their genitalia, secondary sex characteristics, and musculature are fully differentiated as women. Until the Olympic committee changed its definition of sex from genetic to hormonal sex, such women had to compete as men. These women share the health risk of gonadal cancer, and typically their testes—their source of estrogens—are removed. However, their social roles—as actresses or Olympic athletes, for example— are better predictors of cardiovascular health and risk for muscle injury.

Moreover, sex/gender differences in health represent another arena that demonstrates powerfully that taking only a statistical approach to the problem of gene-environment interactions, and simply dividing variance in health into main effects and interactions, blinds researchers to the multitude of inseparable gene-environment interactions that have co-evolved to enable survival and successful reproduction. An excellent model for conducting research on development in dynamic terms was put forth in the National Research Council/Institute of Medicine (NRC/IOM) report entitled From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood Development (2000).

The constructs of race and ethnicity, which have similar limitations and complexity as sex and gender, are explored in the following section.

RACE/ETHNICITY

Unlike sex, race is not firmly biologically based but rather is a “construct of human variability based on perceived differences in biology, physical appearance, and behavior” ( IOM, 1999 ). According to Shields and colleagues (2005) ,

with the exception of the health disparities context, in which self-identified race remains a socially important metric, race should be avoided or used with caution and clarification, as its meaning encompasses both ancestry … and ethnicity …

Both race and ethnicity can be potent predictors for disease risk; however, it is important to emphasize the distinction between correlation and causation and to explore interactions among factors, while rejecting a unidirectional model that moves from genotype to phenotype.

With the increased attention being given to racial disparities in health, the definition of race has come under increased scientific scrutiny. Race continues to be one of the most politically charged subjects in American life, because its associated sociocultural component often has led to categorizations that have been misleading and inappropriately used ( Kittles and Weiss, 2003 ). Definitions of race involve descriptions that are embedded in cultural as well as biological factors, and a careful distinction must be made between race as a statistical risk factor and as causal genetic variables ( Kittles and Weiss, 2003 ). Thus, genetics cannot provide a single all-purpose human classification scheme that will be adequate for addressing all of the multifaceted dimensions of health differentials. It may be found that some alleles associated with destructive or protective factors related to disease and health are created, modified, or triggered by cultural and contextual factors.

Race also is notoriously difficult to define and is inconsistently reported in the literature and in self-reports. Self-report has been the classic measure for race and is still reliable in some cases given certain caveats. The usefulness of the data derived from self-reports of race in health research, however, has been the subject of much debate ( Risch et al., 2002 ; Cooper et al., 2003 ; Burchard et al., 2003 ). In 2003, Burchard and colleagues wrote the following:

Excessive focus on racial or ethnic differences runs the risk of undervaluing the great diversity that exists among persons within groups. However, this risk needs to be weighed against the fact that in epidemiologic and clinical research, racial and ethnic categories are useful for generating and exploring hypotheses about environmental and genetic risk factors, as well as interactions between risk factors, for important medical outcomes. Erecting barriers to the collection of information such as race and ethnic background may provide protection against the aforementioned risks; however, it will simultaneously retard progress in biomedical research and limit the effectiveness of clinical decision-making.

Although there are requirements for reporting race in specific categories in federally sponsored research, the Office of Management and Budget directive that set out this requirement notes that these are not scientific categories. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has reiterated that researchers should collect any additional data that would be more useful or appropriate for their specific projects. Researchers would advance our understanding of race and ethnicity by addressing factors that are related to race such as geographic area of ancestry or by providing greater detail about ancestors. In the 2000 Census, less than 3 percent (6.8 million) of the total population reported being of mixed race, and 7 percent of these 6.8 million people reported a heritage that included 3 or more races ( Grieco and Cassidy, 2001 ). However, even those who report one race may have very complex backgrounds in terms of geography. For example, a black American could have origins in East Africa, West Africa, North Africa, or the Caribbean.

NIH has prescribed that all research projects will involve a good faith effort to include minorities when appropriate. By requiring funded research to make appropriate accommodations for minority subject recruitment, NIH has encouraged scientists to begin to consider issues of race, ethnicity, and culture in research as never before. Some of the emphasis on learning more about minority populations arises from the acknowledgement of the stark disparities in health when comparisons are made across racial groups.

Health Disparities and Race

Disadvantages in health exist for many groups such as Pacific Islanders, Hispanics, and Native Americans, when compared to Caucasians. Asians on many accounts are found to have more positive health profiles but are not without disadvantages in comparison with Caucasians ( Whitfield et al., 2002 ). Literature on health disparities has documented African American/ Caucasian differences in major causes of death such as hypertension, diabetes, fatal stroke, and heart disease. The gap in health seems to be greatest between the ages of 51 and 63 ( Hayward et al., 2000 ). Despite the 30-year trend toward convergence, the age-adjusted mortality rate from all causes of death for African Americans remains 1.3 times greater than that of Caucasians. This differential produces a life expectancy gap between African Americans and Caucasians of 5.3 years for men and 4.4 years for women ( Hoyert et al., 2006 ). Furthermore, it also appears that African Americans are less likely to survive to middle age, and if they do, they are more likely to have health problems ( Hayward et al., 2000 ).

Health disparities are a major public health concern and are a major emphasis of research across the country and across many disciplines. Genetic, social, and behavioral studies have shown that there are a large number of correlated differences across ethnic groups at the genetic, cultural, and environmental levels. From a methodological point of view, any comparison across ethnic groups from a single disciplinary vantage point will have a tremendous confounding issue. It is only by studying the multiple levels and risk factors simultaneously within subgroups (defined by ethnicity, geography, genetic backgrounds, and exposures to the environment) that we will begin to understand how specific combinations of environmental factors combine with specific combinations of genetic factors to give rise to health differences.

Race and Genetic Variation

Geographic origin, patterns of migration, selection, and historic events can lead to development of populations with very different genetic allele frequencies. Historically, to the extent that barriers such as large deserts or bodies of water, high mountains, or major cultural factors impeded communication and interaction of people, mating was restricted within group, producing genetic marker differences and thus, differences in the presence of specific disease-related alleles (see Box 5-1 ) ( Kittles and Weiss, 2003 ). In line with this, Burchard and colleagues (2003) found that population genetic research of the last 20 years shows that the largest genetic differences occur between groups separated by continents. However, an analysis of 134 meta-analyses of genetic association studies by Ioannidis et al. (2004) found “at least 85% of genetic variation is accounted for by within-population interindividual differences, not by differences between groups.”

The Importance of Ancestral Origin. Despite the complexities and care that must be taken in attributing phenotypic differences to genetic differences among races, much may be gained by focusing on disorders that occur more frequently within a well-defined (more...)

Claims about correlations among genetic variation and race vary widely. Self-identified race/ethnicity corresponds highly to genetic cluster categories according to Tang and colleagues (2005) ; of the 3,636 individuals studied, less than 1 percent exhibited differences between their self-identified race/ ethnicity and genetic cluster membership. However Bamshad (2005) in his review of the literature suggests that while genetic ancestry and geographic ancestry are correlated, race and genetic ancestry is only modestly related.

Research into differences among population groups often uses single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers to identify phenotypic variation. SNPs may affect a given phenotype at multiple levels so that a given protein is altered in its sequence, in its proper place in the organism, and in its proper development time. A codon may be altered that leads to protein with an altered amino acid sequence which results in either an inactive or a hyperactive form of the protein in every cell where the protein is expressed. A part of the promoter may be altered such that a protein is absent in some of its normal tissues but not in others or is present in the wrong tissue or at the wrong time. An mRNA splice site may be altered such that protein isoforms are inappropriately expressed in a given tissue. A target sequence may be altered leading to aberrant targeting of the protein to cellular compartments. An untranslated sequence in the 3′-end of the gene may be altered to give a longer or shorter period of existence for a given mRNA. Finally, an epigenetic mechanism may be altered leading to changes in developmental timing of a particular protein.

Due to evolutionary history, sequence is more highly conserved in cod ing regions when compared to noncoding regions. This feature creates the following situation in the genetic research of traits of great importance for public health: the interactions of SNPs with environment will be subtle and so will require large studies comprised of large cohorts carefully phenotyped for large numbers of environmental factors and genotyped for thousands of SNPs. Yet another challenge facing investigation using SNPs is that the bulk of SNPs found are not located in the conserved coding regions. Coordination of researchers involved in studies of humans, of other mammalian systems, of protein biochemistry and site-directed mutagenesis, and of cellular biology will be required to understand the interaction of genes and environment required to make an impact on public health in the United States. 1

The use of SNPs also may aid in understanding variations in health outcomes among racial/ethnic groups. Using a sample that included a small number (less than 50 each) of African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, and Europeans, Smith et al. (2001) found that distribution of genetic variants showed a median difference of 15 to 20 percent at both the microsatellite and SNP markers. Additionally, 10 percent of all markers showed a difference of 40 percent or more. To the extent that findings from this study reflect the larger population, one would hypothesize that an allele with 20 percent or greater frequency in one racial group would also be found in another racial group, while those with a frequency below 20 percent would most likely be race-specific.

According to Burchard (2003) , “race-specificity of variants is particularly common among Africans, who display greater genetic variability than other racial groups and have a larger number of low-frequency alleles.” Burchard concludes that variation among racial groups in the occurrence of variant alleles underlying disease or normal phenotypes may lead to differences in occurrence of the phenotypes themselves. For example, in some studies of hypertension, variation of SNPs at different allelic frequencies from one population to another suggest that higher rates of hypertension found in African Americans may be related to the alternations in DNA that vary by group ( Cui et al., 2003 ; Erlich et al., 2003 ). Prior to drawing conclusions, however, one must consider alternative explanations that include gene-environment interactions as possible contributors to observed disparities ( Whitfield and McClearn, 2005 ).

Arguments that genetic factors cannot be a major cause of health disparities arise out of a paradigm of genetic research that focuses on independent effects of genetics. Research on health disparities is an important opportunity to integrate biological knowledge with social and behavioral knowledge in order to better understand the determinants of disease. Social factors are certainly key contributors, but there is evidence that those factors do not account for all health differences ( Braun, 2002 ). Conversely, solely focusing on molecular genetics ignores the dynamic nature of populations of DNA and the complex relationships among genes, organisms, and environment.

Considerable literature exists concerning how environmental processes, events, and circumstances contribute to development and behavior in ways that influence health as well. Some of these environmental factors are negative and are found to be more prevalent in the development of minorities. Some research suggests that African Americans may experience events and circumstances that have sociocultural origins that significantly influence development over the life course ( Levine, 1982 ; Spencer et al., 1985 ; McLoyd and Randolph, 1985 ; Jackson, 1985 ; Jackson and Chatters, 1986 ). These sociocultural influences contribute to differences between racial groups as well as to differences between individuals within groups ( Krauss, 1980 ; Levine, 1982 ; Jackson and Chatters, 1986 ). Sources of individual differences in health and behavior in African Americans have implications for the quality of late life as well as quantity of late life (years of life remaining). The multiple jeopardy hypothesis, for example, holds that negative environmental, social, and economic conditions during the early years of life for African Americans detrimentally affect social, psychological, and biological conditions in late life ( Jackson, 1989 ). Although this hypothesis attempts to explain health differentials experienced by African Americans relative to Caucasians, it is critical to remember that there is considerable individual variability in these conditions within the African American population and within other minority populations.

In the search for the environmental origins of health differentials among ethnic groups, much of the earlier research focused on behaviors and social structures ( NRC, 2001 ). The complexity of variables within racial groups presents challenges to identifying single, simple causes for poor health among racial/ethnic minorities. For example, environmental and behavioral variability among Hispanics evinces similarities and differences among its subgroups. This racial/ethnic (Hispanic) category consists of people from more than 20 different origins, but the people share a common language. Conversely, the groups within the Hispanic category significantly differ in their regional concentrations in the United States (e.g., Mexicans in the Southwest, Puerto Ricans in the Northeast, and Cubans in the Southeast) ( NRC, 2001 ). In the United States, a significant relationship between race/ ethnicity and foreign birth status also is found ( NRC, 2001 ). Contrasts between immigrants and their U.S.-born peers suggest an advantage in health status to those who are foreign born ( Singh and Yu, 1996 ; Hummer et al., 1999 ), at least until they become oriented to American culture. Then the advantage decreases ( Vega and Amaro, 1994 ).

Perhaps the most studied social variable in the search for environmental origins of health differentials is socioeconomic status (SES) (see Chapter 2 ). For example, substantial differences exist between African Americans and Caucasian Americans with regard to their socioeconomic position. Thus, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey ( DeNavas et al., 2005 ), the median income for African American households was $30,134 in 2004 (the latest year for which data are available), compared to $48,977 among non-Hispanic Caucasian Americans. Poverty rates among African American households are nearly three times as high (24.7 percent in 2004), compared to Caucasian households (8.6 percent). Comparing households reporting similar levels of income, African American households report substantially lower levels of net wealth compared to Caucasian Americans ( Conley, 1999 ). These differences in income and wealth are partly attributable to differences in average educational attainment when comparing African Americans (17.6 percent of whom reported having bachelor’s degree or higher in 2004) to Caucasian Americans (30.6 percent of whom had a bachelor’s degree or higher) ( U.S. Census Bureau, 2005 ). Racial differences in intergenerational transfers of wealth, the growth of home equity over time, and access to federal programs that facilitated home ownership after World War II have played an even larger role in racial disparities in wealth over time ( Oliver and Shapiro, 1997 ). African Americans also report higher levels of uninsurance (19.7 percent in 2004) compared to Caucasian Americans (11.3 percent) ( DeNavas et al., 2005 ).

Research reveals that these socioeconomic differences between races account for a substantial portion of the racial disparity in health outcomes ( IOM, 2000 ). At the same time, adjusting for socioeconomic differences does not completely eliminate racial disparities for all health outcomes (e.g., infant mortality). In other words, there is an independent contribution of racial/ethnic status to disparities in specific health outcomes. These residual health differences may result from the adverse health consequences of perceived discrimination for African Americans ( IOM, 2000 ), from potential differences in biological susceptibility to disease, and/or from gene-environment interactions.

A universal finding is that people with higher indices of SES (education, income, and occupational grade) have lower mortality rates and lower rates of most diseases. However, more research is needed on how particular markers of SES show linear or nonlinear effects on health status ( NRC, 2001 ). These gradients will be critical to understand in examining how genetic influences vary in social environments.

One of the future and formidable challenges to using the information ascertained from adding genetic information to examinations of health differentials is to gain an understanding of the underlying effect genes have on health within these complex environments. It may be found that the polymorphisms that occur in genotypes are destructive or protective factors related to disease and health that are created, modified, or triggered by cultural and contextual factors ( Whitfield, 2005 ; Whitfield and McClearn, 2005 ).

Sex-linked biology and gender relations, as well as the concepts of race and ethnicity, require conceptual clarity in order to determine the interactive influences of each in giving rise to health differentials. To narrowly focus on such concepts impedes an appreciation of the rich variety among humans, however attention must be given to these and other categories in order to conduct meaningful research assessing the impact on health of interactions among social, behavioral, and genetic factors. For example, although a consistent genetic effect across racial groups can result in genetic variants with a common biological effect, that effect can be modified by both environmental exposures and the overall admixture of the population. The challenge is to parse out how health outcomes are influenced by genetic variations, behavioral and cultural practices, and social environments independently and as they interact with each others, while recognizing that sex, gender, race, and ethnicity may play important roles in their own right and because of their social meanings.

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The committee would like to thank Kent Taylor, Ph.D., Associate Director, Genotyping Laboratory, Medical Genetics Institute at Cedars Sinai Medical Center for his explication of SNP variation.

Cite this Page Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Assessing Interactions Among Social, Behavioral, and Genetic Factors in Health; Hernandez LM, Blazer DG, editors. Genes, Behavior, and the Social Environment: Moving Beyond the Nature/Nurture Debate. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2006. 5, Sex/Gender, Race/Ethnicity, and Health.
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How Saidiya Hartman Retells the History of Black Life

By Alexis Okeowo

On a clear night earlier this year, the writer and scholar Saidiya Hartman was fidgeting in a cab on the way to MOMA PS1, the contemporary-art center in Queens. The museum was holding an event to celebrate Hartman’s latest book, “ Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments ,” an account, set in New York and Philadelphia at the turn of the twentieth century, that blends history and fiction to chronicle the sexual and gender rebellions of young Black women. Several artists planned to present work that illustrated Hartman’s influence on them. She was nervous just thinking about it. “I’m crying on the inside,” she said. “I’m this shy person, and this feels so weird.”

Hartman, who is fifty-nine, wore a blue batik tunic over slim black pants and plum-shaded ankle boots. A professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia, she occupies a singular position in contemporary culture: she is an academic, influenced by Michel Foucault, who has both received a MacArthur “genius” grant and appeared in a Jay-Z video. Hartman has a serene, patient demeanor, which the cultural theorist Judith Butler described as “withheld and shy, self-protective.” She speaks at what seems like precisely three-quarters speed, to allow her to inspect her thoughts before releasing them. “She definitely has a bit of that holding-your-tongue thing as a power mode,” the artist Arthur Jafa , a friend and collaborator of hers, told me. “She carries the universe in her head, and you can feel it in her presence.” But her best friend, Tina Campt, a professor of visual culture at Brown, called her endearingly “goofy and awkward.” On a recent trip to London, Campt told me, Hartman got lost returning to her hotel from a restaurant. The hotel was a block away.

At the museum, a tent had been set up in a courtyard, and a line of attendees snaked around it: artists, fashion people, writers, students, cool kids with their hair in topknots. Thelma Golden, the director of the Studio Museum in Harlem, greeted Hartman with a hug and warned, “Prepare for fan-girling.”

The event’s curator, Thomas Lax, was waiting inside the tent to show Hartman around. (Hartman’s partner, Samuel Miller, a civil-rights attorney, had stayed home in Manhattan to help their teen-age daughter study for finals.) Lax had been a graduate student of Hartman’s at Columbia, and they remain in touch. “Once you’re in the circle, you don’t want to leave,” Lax said. Jafa, wearing a brocaded coat and gold-heeled boots, surveyed the crowd, which included the artists Glenn Ligon and Lorraine O’Grady. “ Everybody’s here,” he said.

In three books and a series of essays, Hartman has explored the interior lives of enslaved people and their descendants, employing a method that she says “troubles the line between history and imagination.” Her iconoclastic thinking on the legacy of slavery in American life has prefigured the current cultural moment. In 2008, five years before Black Lives Matter was founded, she wrote of “a past that has yet to be done, and the ongoing state of emergency in which black life remains in peril.” Her writing has become a lodestar for a generation of students and, increasingly, for politically engaged people outside the academy.

At the museum, Jafa screened footage that showed how Hartman’s ideas had “infiltrated” his art-making. The choreographer and performer Okwui Okpokwasili sang a piece inspired by characters in her book: domestic workers, chorus girls, juvenile delinquents, and wanderers. The artist Cameron Rowland read from a letter written by a South Carolina planter, detailing disobedience on his plantation—a litany of impudent acts that the planter seemed not to realize constituted a campaign of sly subversion. Rowland said that the letter evoked the “legacies of Black antagonism that are part of what Saidiya calls ‘acts of everyday resistance.’ ” As Rowland read, the crowd erupted into laughter and cheers.

When the presentations were over, Hartman sat at a table at the back of the tent, where a line of people held copies of her book for her to sign. One woman said that she was having a “small crisis” and was about to change her name.

Hartman, whose given name is Valarie, responded soothingly. “That’s O.K.,” she said. “Which name do you want it signed to?” Another asked for advice on graduate programs; Hartman invited the woman to come see her at Columbia.

After the signing, a group of celebrants headed out to an Italian restaurant nearby. Hartman sat in the middle of a long table, the reluctant center of gravity. “She’s royalty for us,” Jafa said. “We’re celebrating her, but we’re also celebrating ourselves. It’s a victory dance for the marginal, edgy, weirdo Black nerds.”

Hartman grew up in Brooklyn, but her people on her mother’s side are from Alabama. According to family lore, their forebears were enslaved first in Mississippi, but a slaveowner sold one of them to an Alabama plantation, to pay a debt. As a girl, Hartman occasionally visited Alabama during the summer, and remembers long Baptist services and cold bottles of Coca-Cola; her great-grandfather took her on country drives, pointing out farms that had once been owned by Black folks. The drives “deeply marked me,” Hartman told me. But she also felt out of place in the conservative circles that her family occupied. “That Black social world was defined by a class and color hierarchy that was so extreme,” she said.

Her mother, Beryle, grew up in Montgomery, among churchgoing activists; she and her parents took part in the bus boycott of the nineteen-fifties. During segregation, the family was proudly middle-class: one relative was among the first Black doctors in Selma, and another was a Tuskegee Airman. Beryle went to Tuskegee University and then to Tennessee State, where she studied social work. She was also schooled in propriety, encouraged to wear white gloves and forbidden to have male visitors in her dorm.

During college, Beryle met Virgilio Hartman, a private stationed at Maxwell Air Force Base. Her parents did not approve; Virgilio hadn’t attended college, and he didn’t come from the right kind of people. His family, immigrants to New York from Curaçao, were hardworking strivers, but, Hartman recalled, “there was less keeping up with the Joneses.”

In Brooklyn, Hartman’s parents’ closest friends were a Jewish lesbian couple; her own friends were the children of immigrants from Panama and Haiti. Her mother took her and the neighborhood kids to the Guggenheim and the Museum of Modern Art, and to see shows like “ For Colored Girls. . . . ” Her father, a policeman, encouraged her to attend the highly competitive Stuyvesant High School.

Hartman, surrounded by people of varied ethnicities, considered herself a New Yorker first. Audre Lorde’s daughter was a schoolmate; she also hung out with “privileged, disaffected white kids.” She wrote poetry, played classical guitar, joined a physics club for a month. She wore overalls, flannel shirts, and a “wild Afro,” to fit in with her leftist crew and also to reject the “Black American princess” image that her mother wanted her to present.

Hartman’s early experience of politics was “simple and direct and radical,” she said. She joined socialist organizations and reproductive-rights groups. While in high school, she interviewed the radical writer Amiri Baraka, and asked if there was a more effective way than poetry to bring about societal change. “Yes,” he told her. “The gun.” But her own inclinations were less combative. A few years before, her parents had sent her to a Black-nationalist summer camp in Crown Heights. On a camp trip to Pennsylvania, she accidentally stepped on the foot of a white boy and apologized. A counsellor told her that she should never apologize to a white person, and to go step on his foot again. Hartman made her way back to the boy and brushed his foot with hers. She vowed never to return to the camp.

Hartman was “questing,” she said. After high school, she spent a year at Wesleyan, and then a year in a film program at New York University—an unhappy experience at what she describes as “vocational school for white guys from Long Island.” Returning to Wesleyan, she sat in on a course on feminism, taught by Judith Butler . “She was so smart that I thought the windows were gonna blow out,” Butler, who now teaches Hartman’s books, said. “The quickness of her mind and the sharpness of her critique were breathtaking.”

Hartman’s mentors were working to erode the dominance of European perspectives. Hazel Carby gave Hartman a Marxist view of African-American, Caribbean, and African histories; Gayatri Spivak introduced her to post-structuralism, which holds that the truth of events is inextricably tied to the language used to describe them. Hartman began thinking about the invisible framework that governed her (relatively charmed) life as a young Black woman. “I wanted to understand the inequality that was structuring the world—even as I was feeling that it had not made anything impossible for me,” she said. She changed her name from Valarie to Saidiya, which is derived from the Swahili word for “to help.” The change, she wrote later, “extirpated all evidence of upstanding Negroes and their striving bastard heirs, and confirmed my place in the company of poor Black girls—Tamikas, Roqueshas, and Shanequas.” (Her family called her by the new name reluctantly.)

Hartman was still marked by the experiences of her youth: following the rules down South, roaming free in New York. “I’m both a pessimist and a wild dreamer,” she told me. She imagined getting involved in radical politics, going to Grenada to join Maurice Bishop’s Black-liberation movement. Instead, she went to graduate school at Yale, and studied voraciously. The playwright Lynn Nottage , who met her there, recalled, “At parties, I’d be rocking to the music, and she’d be standing back trying to interrogate what was happening. I’d say, ‘Just come into the party,’ and she would be analyzing the lyrics to the song, how people are dancing, the gender and racial dynamics.”

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For her doctoral thesis, Hartman planned to write about the blues. But when she read Foucault’s work on the ways that people are subjected to power, she saw a chance to do something new. Foucault, she realized, was “not thinking about Black people or slavery in the Americas.” Her thesis would examine how totalizing, violent domination had shaped the status and agency of enslaved people.

The result was “ Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America ,” which argued, in dense and provocative detail, that Emancipation constituted another phase of enslavement for Black Americans, as they moved from the plantations to the punitive controls of the Black Codes and Jim Crow. Hartman was illuminating what she calls the “afterlife of slavery”: limited access to health care and education, premature death, incarceration, and impoverishment—the “skewed life chances” that Black people still face, and the furious desire for freedom that comes with them. As Butler put it, “The question she returns to again and again is: ‘Did slavery ever really end?’ ”

That question had been the subject of earlier scholarship; Hartman’s book, with its compelling portrayal of lives caught between cruelty and resistance, helped move it toward the mainstream. Frank B. Wilderson III , a former student of Hartman’s who now chairs the department of African-American studies at the University of California, Irvine, described her as quietly persuasive. “She’s not an ‘angry Black woman,’ ” he told me. “She’s not Assata Shakur. But what they don’t know is that, where Assata Shakur will blow your head off, Saidiya has just put a stiletto between your ribs.”

Wilderson interviewed Hartman in 2002 for an article called “The Position of the Unthought.” In it, he criticized scholars of African-American history for underplaying the “terror of their evidence in order to propose some kind of coherent, hopeful solution”; he praised “Scenes of Subjection” for exposing the unrelenting violence of slavery. Hartman agreed that turning that legacy into a narrative of uplift was “obscene.” But she has always been interested in portraying the agency of Black people. In “Scenes of Subjection,” her subjects endure vicious circumstances through acts of imagination, making a way out of no way; they evaded work on plantations and, after Emancipation, refused to enter into contracts with their former masters. Hartman told me that her goal was to shift Black lives from the “object of scholarly analysis” to the basis for an “argument that challenged the assumptions of history.” Once, while she was discussing “Scenes of Subjection” with her class at Columbia, a student expressed surprise that she gave the words of a slave the same weight as those of Foucault. “Yeah,” she responded. “Exactly.”

One rainy evening, I visited Hartman at the apartment that she shares with her family, in a stately building on the Upper West Side. Her labradoodle was barking excitedly, and Miller pulled him into the kitchen so that Hartman and I could talk in the living room. Behind her was a book-crammed study, with two handsome desks. Academic work has given Hartman a comfortable life—the apartment, provided by Columbia, is spacious, with hardwood floors, West African-cloth table runners, and a view of Riverside Park. But it has also, at times, been at odds with her creative instincts. She told me that she went to graduate school with no intention of becoming a professor: “I didn’t have a trust fund, and I wanted to continue to study.” That initial ambivalence has never really gone away.

Hartman’s first teaching job was at the University of California, Berkeley, where she received early tenure on the strength of her draft of “Scenes of Subjection.” The chair of the English department told her that, since she now had tenure, there was no need to finish the book. Hartman was taken aback, but ultimately she found freedom in her colleagues’ low expectations. “As a Black woman intellectual, I am at the bottom of the food chain,” she said during a talk at the Hammer Museum, in Los Angeles. But “within that space of no one taking me seriously, there was also all this space to work.”

At Berkeley, Hartman wanted to reckon with the ways in which violence had been used to enforce social order. She also wanted to write with a resonance that was uncommon in scholarly literature. “I wanted to be a Wailer,” she said—a member of Bob Marley’s band. “What does it mean to describe Trench Town, in Jamaica, but be describing the world? What does it mean to have that kind of power articulating a condition, with poetry and beauty?”

Hartman is well versed in academic discourse; she sometimes describes her work as an effort to “topple the hierarchy of discourse” and to “jeopardize the status of the event.” But she can also write with striking intimacy, evoking the feelings and the conditions of Black life. In her second book, a kind of anti-memoir called “ Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route ,” she described a pervasive sense of dispossession:

Two people meeting on the avenue will ask, ‘Is this where you stay?’ Not, ‘Is this your house?’ ‘I stayed here all my life’ is the reply. Staying is living in a country without exercising any claims on its resources. It is the perilous condition of existing in a world in which you have no investments. It is having never resided in a place that you can say is yours.

The book grew out of a trip that Hartman took to Ghana, inspired by her great-great-grandmother Polly, who had been a slave in Alabama. As a girl, Hartman had been frustrated with the gaps in Polly’s story: what she looked like, how her life had been. She wanted to investigate the rupture between Africa and the United States—the oceanic graveyard that transformed free people into slaves and, she believes, shaped the identity of the Black diaspora. “The routes traveled by strangers were as close to a mother country as I would come,” she writes. In Ghana, she retraced the paths of captives, from ancestral villages to holding cells. But, instead of the words of enslaved Africans, she found only silence. Hartman wandered Accra and the Gold Coast for a year, disappointed that the Ghanaians she met saw her as an outsider, and upset that they refused to talk about African culpability in the slave trade.

The historical archive was little help. Hartman pored over records that often amounted to commercial transactions of enslaved bodies: slaver manifests, trade ledgers, food inventories, captains’ logs, bills of sale. “In every line item, I saw a grave,” she writes. “To read the archive is to enter a mortuary; it permits one final viewing and allows for a last glimpse of persons about to disappear into the slave hold.”

The detailed narratives that did exist had been left by people like Thomas Thistlewood, a British plantation overseer in Jamaica. In his diaries, he described punishing a slave: “Gave him a moderate whipping, pickled him well, made Hector shit in his mouth, immediately put a gag in it whilst his mouth was full & made him wear it 4 or 5 hours.” How could Hartman describe an enslaved life using such a passage, whose “annihilating force” revealed a great deal about Thistlewood but nothing about the slave?

Through those years, Hartman told me, “I was wrestling with what it means to have the colonial archive, the archive of the Western bourgeoisie, dictate what it is we can know about these lives.” Even later, more earnest attempts at historical memory were misleading; the Works Progress Administration’s slave narratives, which often had white Southerners ask formerly enslaved people about their lives, made honest responses unthinkable. Hartman had been trying to overcome the silences about Black life, but she found herself reproducing them. As she once wrote, “The loss of stories sharpens the hunger for them.”

For Hartman, reckoning with history means returning again and again to old events and ideas. The writer Maggie Nelson told me that “Scenes of Subjection” is one of her favorite books, because it “uses historical record and trenchant argument to upend truisms.” Nelson praised Hartman’s ability to reframe events: “As a writer, she’s continuing to shift the kaleidoscope and keep offering something different, like ‘Now how about this? How about this?’ ”

In “Lose Your Mother,” she wrote of a girl who was tortured to death on a British slave ship, possibly because she had refused to dance naked for the captain. The girl’s death intensified a debate in England over the abolition of the slave trade. Hartman’s account, re-creating the brutal killing and the trials that followed, briefly mentions another captive on the ship, a young girl who is referred to in legal documents only as Venus. After the book came out, Hartman said, “I was really haunted by that second girl.”

A year later, in the essay “Venus in Two Acts,” Hartman returns to the girl, criticizing herself for abandoning her. She admits to being tired of trying to tell stories based on “empty rooms, and silence, and lives reduced to waste,” and wonders how to wring more from the archive. “What else is there to know?” she writes. “Hers is the same fate as every other Black Venus: no one remembered her name or recorded the things she said, or observed that she refused to say anything at all.”

Hartman began exploring “what might have been,” starting with a single invented detail, of a sailor testifying that the two girls seemed like friends. In a process that she calls “critical fabulation,” she imagined a narrative: two doomed children passing days together, finding solace and joy in each other’s company; Venus holding her friend as she died, whispering that everything would be all right.

Hartman knew that such a counter-history would be seen as less legitimate. “History pledges to be faithful to the limits of fact, evidence, and archive,” she wrote. “I wanted to write a romance that exceeded the fictions of history.” But a conventional history of the girls’ experience was impossible. As she noted, “There is not one extant autobiographical narrative of a female captive who survived the Middle Passage.”

Still, she spends much of the essay describing her own uncertainty about what she’s doing. Can stories fill in the archive? They might provide comfort, but to whom? For the dead, it is too late. In the end, Hartman decides that the goal is not to “recover” or “redeem” the dead girls but to create a fuller picture of their lives. Campt, her friend and colleague, said, “She gave us a way of seeing them, not on the terms that society wanted to see them but on their own terms.”

In 2017, Arthur Jafa directed a video for the Jay-Z single “4:44,” an apology for the rapper’s romantic failings. Two and a half minutes in, a woman walks down a New York street, wearing a pensive, purposeful expression: Hartman. “I was totally awkward and stiff,” she said, laughing as she recalled the filming. “She had a certain primness, properness,” Jafa acknowledged. “But it’s an image of a person thinking in motion.” When Jay-Z saw a cut of the video, he asked who Hartman was. Jafa explained that she is “the archangel of Black precarity.” Her presence, he said, “may not register to ninety-five per cent of his audience now, but five years down the line, ten years down the line, twenty years down the line, that’s going to be one of the most powerful moments of the video.”

These days, Hartman is regularly referred to by activists, social-media influencers, and woke celebrities like Jeremy O. Harris , the author of “Slave Play.” Her latest book, “Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments,” might be her most daring; it is certainly her most popular. “After ‘Scenes of Subjection’ and ‘Lose Your Mother,’ I thought, I just can’t write another book about slavery,” Hartman told an interviewer at the London Review Bookshop last October. But Hartman, who describes her work as “a lot of sitting at my desk and staring off into space,” has spent much of her writing life thinking about how Black people have resisted subjugation by means of “productive, creative, life-saving deviations from the norm.” As she worked on the book, she began reimagining a scene from the life of W. E. B. Du Bois .

On an August day toward the end of the nineteenth century, Du Bois was on South Street in Philadelphia, amid day laborers and new migrants, pretty boys and brazen girls. Twenty-eight years old, Harvard-educated, and dressed in a gray three-piece suit, Du Bois was then a novice sociologist, hired to conduct a study of the Seventh Ward, the city’s oldest Black neighborhood. Du Bois was scandalized by the slum’s naked display of brawling, pleasure-seeking, and hustling; he blamed slavery’s destruction of the Black family, but also the loose morals of the recent arrivals from the South. On South Street, he saw two young Black women window-shopping at a shoe store, and heard one tell the other, “That’s the kind of shoes I’d buy my fellow.” In Du Bois’s view, “the remark fixed their life history.” They must have been prostitutes, from one of the slums “where each woman supports some man from the results of her gains.”

Hartman admires Du Bois, whom she sees as a model for innovative readings of the archive. In “ Black Reconstruction ,” he narrates the lives of slaves who refused to work and who fled plantations; by describing these activities not as criminality but as a “general strike,” he changed the way historians treated enslaved people.

But his telling of the encounter with the two young women felt incomplete to Hartman. “There was drama in that moment,” she told me. “There’s Du Bois’s framing of it—but how did he look in their eyes? Why was female desire so scandalous that they could only be prostitutes?”

In “Wayward Lives,” Hartman retells the scene from the women’s point of view, as if she were a filmmaker, pulling back the lens to reveal characters at the margins of the frame. “They looked long and hard at all the objects on display in the shop window, expectant and dreaming of a way out,” she writes. Stopping to admire a pair of boots, the color of oxblood and ivory, they imagine them worn by a “beautiful, dangerous” man, and fantasize about the adventures they might have with him. They pay no mind to Du Bois; he is just part of the hectic cityscape, an afterthought.

The young Black women in “Wayward Lives” arrived in New York and Philadelphia in the early days of the Great Migration, a generation or two removed from slavery. They were hoping for something more than what they’d left behind. What they found was decrepit slums, domestic work that felt akin to slavery, and social reformers and policemen who patrolled their most intimate activities. Laws to discourage “wayward minors” criminalized dancing, dating, and even walking in some streets. Under the guise of housing reform, young Black women were routinely arrested on “suspicion of prostitution,” and sent to reformatories and workhouses. Hartman writes that they were arrested “on the threshold of their homes and inside their apartments, while exiting taxicabs, flirting at dance halls, waiting for their husbands, walking home from the cabaret with friends, enjoying an intimate act with a lover, being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Many of the city’s young Black women lived in a kind of “everyday anarchy,” anyway; they took lovers, had lesbian relationships, dressed and behaved as they pleased. (Black women, Hartman notes, were flappers before the term existed.) She writes of Harriet Powell, a seventeen-year-old who, despite being arrested for her “nocturnal wanderings,” danced past midnight in Harlem clubs, went to movies, and rented a room where she met her lover. Powell and other Black girls in the city’s sexual revolution had a freedom that their grandmothers could only dream of.

The archival material that Hartman draws on was mostly left by people who saw Black women as a “problem”: journals of rent collectors, surveys of sociologists, trial transcripts and slum photographs, prison case files, interviews with psychiatrists and psychologists. To balance the portrait, Hartman does her most speculative work, exploring her subjects’ shared horizon of desire and yearning. In one exchange, she writes about a white reform worker, Helen Parrish, fretting over her tenant Mamie Sharp, who saw other men besides her partner:

There was no easy way to lead into the matter of adultery, so Helen broached the issue directly. “Mamie, have you been going around town with other men? Have you?” The question was as much an accusation as inquiry. Mamie’s reply was no less direct: “Yes, I like to go about as I please.” Mamie didn’t apologize or offer any excuses for not being able to hold steady; she did not try to temper Helen’s judgment by admitting that she had been lonely.

As Hartman worked on the book, she thought of her maternal grandmother, Berdie. She had gone to college to be a teacher, but became pregnant with Beryle, and her parents threw her out of the house, raising the child themselves.

Families like Beryle’s, striving for respectability in a racist world, would have been embarrassed to acknowledge women who had children out of wedlock—let alone those who did sex work or had female lovers. “There is a certain kind of uplift and progress narrative that was saying, ‘Oh, no, no, don’t waste any time thinking about the past. Move on. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps,’ ” Hartman said. In “Wayward Lives,” though, women like these are “sexual modernists, free lovers, radicals, and anarchists.” They are visionaries, imagining a different way of life.

Hartman’s rethinking of the archive has enormous appeal for readers hungry to see their identity—feminist, queer, gender-nonconforming—mirrored in the past. Part of the book’s argument is that Black women originated a set of social arrangements that were once considered deviant and are now commonplace: expansive notions of family, generous intimacy and sociality, fluid romantic relationships. Black women, Hartman says, have often operated outside of gender norms, whether they wanted to or not. During slavery, they had little control over their children or their reproduction. Afterward, poverty and discrimination forced them to do things that few white women did: work for wages, lead households, and enter and leave marriages freely. If they could not meet expectations set by white men, that allowed them to conduct experiments in living. The poet and theorist Fred Moten told me, “Saidiya does the very crucial work of expanding our understanding of the Black radical tradition,” revealing that it is “fundamentally the work of working-class Black women and young Black girls.”

But the historian Annette Gordon-Reed, writing recently in the New York Review of Books , wondered if Hartman was projecting political aims onto people driven by necessity. She considered the case of Mattie Nelson, who, on the way to a sexual awakening, lost a baby in a teen-age pregnancy and was painfully abandoned by several male lovers. “If Nelson were given the choice between living a precarious life, depending upon men whom society prevented from realizing their potential, and being a wife and mother under circumstances available to white middle- and upper-class women, there is no reason to assume she would not have opted for the latter,” Gordon-Reed wrote. “We live after a sustained critique of bourgeois values and lifestyles, decades in the making. Nelson did not.” For Hartman, though, rebels don’t need to be motivated by ideology, or even to consider themselves revolutionaries. “Many of the people who have produced radical thought have not been imagined to be involved in the task of thinking at all,” she said.

In March, “Wayward Lives” won the National Book Critics Circle Award—for criticism, rather than for nonfiction or fiction. No one seemed sure how to categorize it. “The book has had a very complex reception,” Hartman told me. “I’ve been exploring the same set of critical questions since the beginning. But some people in the university world are, like, ‘ “Scenes of Subjection” is the real thing. What are these other two books?’ ” Her publisher, W. W. Norton, had hoped for higher sales, and Hartman wondered if the book’s marketing was partly to blame. The U.S. edition was published with extensive endnotes, and the interplay of factual and speculative sections may have confused readers new to her work. Her British publisher, Profile Books, classified “Wayward Lives” as both literature and history; it cut the endnotes and put them online, allowing the book to be read as creative nonfiction rather than as scholarship. “Some people told me, ‘Oh, I like that novel,’ ” Hartman said, laughing. “I’m so unfaithful to genre, so it was fine.”

A man with a foam finger and a lawn chair prepares to watch the neighborhood kids play since there are no professional...

But Hartman rejects the idea that her books should be understood as historical fiction. Instead, she calls her work a “history of the present”—writing that examines the past to show how it haunts our time. Many of her peers were engaged in the same project, she said; she points to the Canadian writer M. NourbeSe Philip’s “ Zong ,” a book of poems, extrapolated from legal documents, about a hundred and fifty Africans who were drowned on a British slave ship, so that the owners could collect an insurance payment.

For several decades, Black female scholars like Hortense Spillers, Sarah Haley, Erica Armstrong Dunbar, Tera Hunter, Farah Griffin, and Deborah Gray White have been creatively reading the archive, reconstructing the experiences of Black women using such alternative sources as cleaning manuals, Black newspapers, musical productions, and buried correspondence. Hartman sees her work as “enabled” by these women. But, she says, “the people who I really felt provoked and solicited by have been creative writers, the novelists and poets who are making other kinds of stories.” Her inspirations include Caryl Phillips, Jamaica Kincaid, and, especially, Toni Morrison , whose novel “ Beloved ,” inspired by a single newspaper clipping, was a painstaking effort to deepen the archive.

In 1987, the year that “Beloved” was published, Morrison wrote of a process of “emotional memory” that aimed to find truth in the gaps of verifiable fact. “They straightened out the Mississippi River in places, to make room for houses and livable acreage. Occasionally the river floods these places,” she wrote. “It is remembering. Remembering where it used to be. All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was. Writers are like that.”

In “Wayward Lives,” a chorus girl at a Harlem night club finds herself in the luxurious apartment of A’Lelia Walker, the daughter of the Black hair-care entrepreneur Madam C. J. Walker. The girl, Mabel Hampton, sees men and women—“voyeurs, exhibitionists, the merely curious, queers, the polyamorous, and the catholic”—stretched out on silk pillows. They are drinking champagne, eating caviar, and smoking marijuana; to Hampton’s surprise, they are also having sex out in the open.

Walker—who, Hartman writes, “drank excessively, played cards with her intimates, gorged on rich food”—arrives late but makes an impression:

She conversed with her guests, wearing a little silk short set, but it might as well have been an ermine coat; she had the bearing of a queen, and wore the flimsy little outfit with a stately air. Even without her infamous riding crop, there remained something forbidding and dangerous about her.

The scene is rooted in archival fact; historians agree that Walker had queer friends, threw decadent parties, and hosted salons during the Harlem Renaissance. In an interview in 1983, Hampton recalled attending a sex party in the early twenties. “There was men and women, women and women, and men and men,” she said. “And everyone did whatever they wanted to do.” But the vivid specificity of Hartman’s portrayal drew criticism.

“I’m uncomfortable with people making claims and drawing conclusions,” A’Lelia Bundles, a journalist who is Walker’s great-granddaughter, told me, “just because they want to project something onto her.” Bundles, who has published several books about Walker and is working on a new biography, said that Hartman had not consulted her or examined Walker’s letters. She disputed the detail of the riding crop, which suggested that Walker was interested in S & M; in Bundles’s photographic archive of Walker, she never carried a crop. A private sex party “would have not been impossible,” Bundles said. But her research made it seem unlikely that Walker would have led such a visibly queer life.

Hartman said that she never interviews her subjects’ relatives, and pointed out that the crop appeared in earlier historians’ work. She believes that the pushback revealed “an anxiety around queerness.” Her goal, she said, is “not about trying to pin down an identity, but thinking about the queer networks of love and friendship, and depending on the ephemera and rumors when the archive refuses to document these lives. So much of queer life could only survive without being detected.”

The historian and artist Nell Painter saw value in Hartman’s interrogation of the archive: “She can raise questions for historians to do historical work that they might not have thought of.” But, she told me, “her work is not history—it’s literature. She has a lot to say to history, but historians do something that’s somewhat different. We can’t make up an archive that doesn’t exist or read into the archive what we want to find.” Painter believes that there is still more evidence to be found about the history of Black life. “The past changes according to what questions we ask,” she said. “The archive is a living, moving thing. The sources we can put our eyes on are changing as we speak.”

All historians make imaginative leaps, but filling in blanks with precise details makes some uneasy. A fellow-academic and admirer of Hartman told me, “When it comes to specific people who lived real lives, I think fiction is the only place where we should speculate.”

Hartman tends to be less interested in honoring the archive than in considering “the way in which language and narrative and plot are entangled in the mechanisms of power.” She argues that much of what the archive contains about enslaved people was left by people whose views were so compromised as to be effectively made-up. “Fact is simply fiction endorsed with state power . . . to maintain a fidelity to a certain set of archival limits,” she said, at the Hammer Museum. “Are we going to be consigned forever to tell the same kinds of stories? Given the violence and power that has engendered this limit, why should I be faithful to that limit? Why should I respect that?”

As the coronavirus forced New York into lockdown, I visited Hartman’s corner office at Columbia, where she had begun teaching a seminar remotely. A framed print of Lorna Simpson ’s photograph “Two Sisters and Two Tongues” leaned against a bookcase; outside, students in graduation gowns posed for distanced photos on the steps.

The university sprawls along the southern edge of Harlem, where Hartman once lived, in a housing project with her film-school boyfriend. (“My family was mortified,” she recalled.) I asked if she ever felt nostalgic when she went uptown. Looking out the window, she said, “It feels like a museum. All I see on the streets is private capital and rapaciousness, moving people of color out of New York.”

A few days later, Hartman and her family left for Massachusetts, where they have a home. When I spoke to her recently, she had been at her desk, working on a project that she prefers to keep secret. “I’m very superstitious about that,” she said, laughing. She would say only that it has to do with chronicling the history of the world from the perspective of Black women. She had also been gardening, rereading Morrison and Claudia Rankine , and watching “Greenleaf,” a TV melodrama about a Southern Black church, with her daughter.

The news from the city had been on her mind. “Witnessing so many Black and brown people die, it was really emotionally devastating,” Hartman said. As the lockdown intensified, New York assigned police to enforce social-distancing and mask-wearing rules. In six weeks, Brooklyn officers arrested forty people for violations; thirty-five were Black. Reports emerged of officers breaking up an evening cookout, swinging batons and knocking out someone’s tooth.

In “Wayward Lives,” Hartman lingers on the incongruous beauty of dark hallways where lovers could meet. For residents of Black neighborhoods, the halls, staircases, fire escapes, stoops, and courtyards became an extension of living spaces; if your apartment was too small or too uncomfortable, you could go a few feet outside and still feel at home. But that practice of escape has become fraught and, during the lockdown, criminalized. “You’re not permitted to take up space in the public sphere,” Hartman said. “We see this in gentrifying neighborhoods in New York. The new homeowners will try to pass ordinances like ‘No barbecues in the front yard.’ ”

During the pandemic, the tense relationship between Black residents and the police worsened. Mass protests against the police killing of George Floyd, in Minneapolis, swept through the city, and video footage captured incidents of violence from officers. Black New Yorkers were not only dying from the coronavirus at twice the rate of their white neighbors; they remained disproportionately vulnerable to police brutality. But Hartman saw reason for hope. “Millions of people are involved in the critique of anti-Black racism and state violence,” she said. “They’re not settling for a tinkering with this order, but saying that the foundation of this order is slavery and settler colonialism, and that we have to build something new.” They were imagining a different way of life. ♦

This article has been updated to reflect Thomas Lax’s pronoun usage.

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5.3: Writing about Race, Ethnic, and Cultural Identity: A Process Approach

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To review, race, ethnic, and cultural identity theory provides us with a particular lens to use when we read and interpret works of literature. Such reading and interpreting, however, never happens after just a first reading; in fact, all critics reread works multiple times before venturing an interpretation. You can see, then, the connection between reading and writing: as Chapter 1 indicates, writers create multiple drafts before settling for a finished product. The writing process, in turn, is dependent on the multiple rereadings you have performed to gather evidence for your essay. It’s important that you integrate the reading and writing process together. As a model, use the following ten-step plan as you write using race, ethnic, and cultural identity theory:

Carefully read the work you will analyze.
Formulate a general question after your initial reading that identifies a problem—a tension—related to a historical or cultural issue.
Reread the work , paying particular attention to the question you posed. Take notes, which should be focused on your central question. Write an exploratory journal entry or blog post that allows you to play with ideas.
What does the work mean?
How does the work demonstrate the theme you’ve identified using a new historical approach?
“So what” is significant about the work? That is, why is it important for you to write about this work? What will readers learn from reading your interpretation? How does the theory you apply illuminate the work’s meaning?
Reread the text to gather textual evidence for support.
Construct an informal outline that demonstrates how you will support your interpretation.
Write a first draft.
Receive feedback from peers and your instructor via peer review and conferencing with your instructor (if possible).
Revise the paper , which will include revising your original thesis statement and restructuring your paper to best support the thesis. Note: You probably will revise many times, so it is important to receive feedback at every draft stage if possible.
Edit and proofread for correctness, clarity, and style.

We recommend that you follow this process for every paper that you write from this textbook. Of course, these steps can be modified to fit your writing process, but the plan does ensure that you will engage in a thorough reading of the text as you work through the writing process, which demands that you allow plenty of time for reading, reflecting, writing, reviewing, and revising.

Peer Reviewing

A central stage in the writing process is the feedback stage, in which you receive revision suggestions from classmates and your instructor. By receiving feedback on your paper, you will be able to make more intelligent revision decisions. Furthermore, by reading and responding to your peers’ papers, you become a more astute reader, which will help when you revise your own papers. In Chapter 10, you will find peer-review sheets for each chapter.

Race and Gender Privileges in Society Essay

Introduction, privilege, dominance, and race, privilege and gender, works cited.

Based on everything that has been presented in the course materials so far privilege for me can be summed up as a form of “entitlement” which is based on preconceived social and cultural norms from which a set of accorded “rights” are attributed to a certain class of individuals (Mcintosh 79-82).

How privilege works in the context of social norms and behaviors (as I understand it from the readings presented) is that it confers a certain degree of dominance-based on race and sex. For example, a person’s skin color (being white) enables them a far more likely chance to be accepted for a certain job, attain a degree or even avoid being accused of a crime on the basis that their skin color accords them a preconceived social status as being more likely not to commit a crime, have a greater possibility of performing well at a particular job and lastly having a greater chance of integration within a predominantly white campus community.

On the other end of the spectrum, privilege can also encompass aspects related to gender stereotyping wherein males are thought of as being “superior” to females based on their “superior” gender, and as such men should be accorded certain privileges as befits their station (a widely held belief within the Middle East). Commonly held social beliefs regarding women (which are an inherent part of society yet few people willingly acknowledge them as fact) is that they are the weaker gender, lack the physical strength and endurance to live in a “man’s world” and as such are more suited to staying at home and taking care of children. While in the modern-day era women’s rights and equality between genders has ensured that women are accorded the same right as men in the workplace such aspects are superficial in that men are still more “privileged” than women in this regard. Examples of this can be seen in the hiring practices of corporations wherein more men hold senior positions within a company as compared to women are given higher salaries, more benefits and in the end, are presented with more opportunities for advancement as compared to their female counterparts.

In summary, it can be seen that the concept of privilege based on race and gender is an unfortunate fact of society that needs to be changed to create a just and equal “playing field” so to speak for people of all races and genders.

Crenshaw, Kimberle. “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, hut out of ~ that they and Violence against Women of Color.” Feminist Frontiers . 7. (2007): 431-437. Print.

Devor, Aaron. “Who are We?.” Sex, Gender and Sexuality . 6.2 (2009): 527-534. Print.

Wilchins, Riki. “Gender rights are human rights.” Gender Queer . (2002): 187-191. Print.

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