Evaluations of Women and Men Among Black and White College Students

Abstract

Rainwater's assertion that blacks have low self‐evaluations because they receive more negative evaluations from other blacks than whites receive from other whites is challenged here by reference to Heiss and Owens evidence that negative self evaluation among blacks is limited to work‐related traits. Substantial support was found for our major hypotheses that, compared to whites, (1) blacks would report more negative evaluation of “most men” but not of “most women” (since the provider role is traditionally ascribed primarily to men), and (2) the more negative evaluation of “most men” by blacks would be limited to work‐related traits.

A Longitudinal Study of African American Women and the Maintenance of a Healthy Self-Esteem

“…Recent research solidifies the notion that Black girls, adolescents, and women have high levels of self-esteem (Crain & Weisman, 1972;DeFrancisco & Chatham-Carpenter, 2000;Hoelter, 1983;Myers, 1975Myers, , 1980Richman, Clark, & Brown, 1985;Rosenberg & Simmons, 1972;Turner & Turner, 1974, 1982. Somehow, in constructing their lives, Black females have developed implicit attitudes and explicit behaviors that enable them to possess internal sources of self-esteem that are socially rooted (Gibbs & Fuery, 1994).…”

“…Porter and Washington (1979) contend that this component is crucial to the selfesteem of African Americans. Some theorists initially believed that Blacks blame themselves for their failures (Heiss & Owens, 1972;Pettigrew, 1964;Turner & Turner, 1974, 1982, especially in relation to socioeconomic issues. But what they found was that African Americans actually attribute the cause of their shortcomings to external forces, such as racial discrimination, that they could not control (Crain & Wiessman, 1972;Gurin & Epps, 1975;Hughes & Demo, 1989).…”

High school science enrollment of black students

“…Riley and Napier studied the 1976 NAEP data for 17-year olds and found that the demographic variable sex accounted for only 2% of the variance in cognitive achievement (1982). With the exception of the findings of Kelly and Wingrove (1975), other studies found black females demonstrating lower levels of educational aspirations (Gurin & Gaylord, 1976;Turner & Turner, 1975;Gilmartin, 1976;and Teahan, 1974).…”

The Image of the Black Family Portrayed by Television: A Critical Comment

“…It does appear that the practice of belittling and dehumanizing black males has been continued in a subtler manner by television's producers and writers who have now cast black women in the role of belittlers of black men. Although there is some evidence that black women do negatively stereotype black men (Turner & Turner, 1974), this behavior is not as absolute as that depictcd on T.V.…”