Black Women’s Body Image: Implications for Identity Formation and Well-Being

Abstract

This paper serves as the introduction to a special issue on Black women’s body image. Today, controlling images of Black women, such as the Jezebel, Mammy, and Sapphire stereotypes, are evident in controversial public and corporate policies regarding natural hair choices, differential judicial outcomes for darker-skinned Black women, and inequitable responses to Black women’s COVID-19 symptoms and maternal health experiences. In response to these events, many Black women are (re)claiming control over their biological, social, and cultural bodily experiences across public and private spaces. Thus, we highlight how the papers in this special issue represent a large-scale effort to apply the Black feminist thought framework to the scientific study of body image among Black women. Consistent with body positivity principles, all papers use the foundation of Black feminist thought in the experiences and knowledge of Black women, consider the roles of power, privilege, and oppression throughout the inquiry process, and address the utility of findings for improving the lives of marginalized groups through structural and social change. With this special issue, we hope to advance scholarship on the ways in which Black women’s bodies are evaluated and monitored. Black women’s efforts to resist and dismantle these controlling images and gendered racial injustices are also critical contributions needed to strengthen this area of research.