Racism or Sexism? Attributional Ambiguity and Simultaneous Membership in Multiple Oppressed Groups¹

Abstract

This study examines short‐term psychological effects of prejudice attributions on African American women. Black female college students (N= 112) imagined themselves in an audiotaped scenario in which White male students made negative evaluations of them. Participants completed self‐report measures of psychological stress and state self‐esteem after they rated the likely contributions of various causal attributions to the negative evaluations. Attributions included personal characteristics of the participant and classmates, as well as 3 kinds of prejudice: racism, sexism, and ethgender prejudice (the interaction of racism and sexism). Attributions to racism and ethgender prejudice predicted increased stress and decreased state social self‐esteem. Results contradict assertions that prejudice attributions are self‐protective and imply that prejudice might involve internal and external causal dimensions.

Examining the associations of racism, sexism, and stressful life events on psychological distress among African-American women.

“…In a sample of African American female college students, King (2003) found that racism and the interaction of racism and sexism predicted increased stress. However, Szymanski and Stewart (2010) found that when examining internalized racism and sexism concomitantly in a sample of adult African American women, only sexism emerged as a significant predictor of distress.…”

Sojourner Syndrome and Health Disparities in African American Women

“…The intersection of these specific race, gender, class, or age statuses confers health risks for African American women that are currently not fully included in empirical research. 6,11,21,28 Examination of intersectionality is also important because this approach frames health disparities not as characterizations of groups historically known to be disadvantaged, such as African Americans, the poor, women, or the elderly, but as a consequence of long-standing social, economic, and political processes that create hierarchies of privilege, power, and opportunity. The intersectional approach provokes examination of the ways in which race, gender, class, and age are not discrete or additive but, instead, are multiplicative, interlocking, interactive, and relational in how they structure vulnerability.…”

“…[11][12][13] African American women occupy subordinate and disempowered positions in the social hierarchies of race and gender and can experience "gendered racism," which describes how racism and sexism intertwine to subject African American women to a unique form of oppression that disparages being female and black simultaneously. 28 Differentiating sexism from racism is difficult.…”

“…8,9 Particularly pernicious sources of stress include discrimination due to race, gender, class, and age. Although the existence of various types of discrimination and their effects on physical and mental health is well documented, there is little research on their combined effects on African American women's health [9][10][11] and differentiating the independent effects of each of these on health outcomes can be nearly impossible. 12 It is at the intersection of these categories that the heterogeneity and complexity of the lived experience of African American women can be described and where sources of health inequalities can be discovered.…”

Las actitudes prejuiciosas del alumnado universitario hacia los inmigrantes en situación irregular: un estudio exploratorio

“…Brown y Hewstone (2005) encuentran correlación entre el prejuicio étnico y racial con actitudes negativas hacia otras minorías. Así, las personas que manifiestan prejuicio contra minorías étnicas suelen obtener correlaciones altas con otras medidas de prejuicio general (Dunbar, 1995), sexismo (Glick y Fiske, 1995;King, 2003), prejuicio hacia las mujeres (Fiske y Von Herdy, 1992;Swim, Aikin, Hall y Hunter, 1995), hacia las personas homosexuales (Cárdenas, 2007) o referidas a antisemitismo (Dumbar, 1995;Dunbar y Simonova, 2003). Además, estas personas suelen mantener escaso contacto y bajos niveles de intimidad con las personas pertenecientes a los exogrupos.…”