Superwoman Schema and John Henryism among African American women: An intersectional perspective on coping with racism

Black women social workers: Workplace stress experiences

“…Many workplace settings adhere to unwritten practices that are sexist and racist. For example, gaslighting practices around high caseloads being an expectation for all, when in fact high caseloads are assigned based on the assumption that Black women are resilient in the face of adversity and can handle large workloads ( Woods-Giscombe, 2018 ; Perez et al, 2022 ). The imbalance in workload often creates a workplace culture that is not supportive of Black women.…”

“…Black women are expected to carry the responsibility within the workplace of being flexible in an inflexible environment. For example, BWSWs often carry the responsibility of taking care of everyone around them (e.g., partners, children, friends, and parents) ( Szymanski and Stewart, 2010 ; Thomas et al, 2008 ; Perez et al, 2022 ). The pressure to accept additional work responsibilities, with little support from supervisors, has had physical and emotional impacts on Black women.…”

“…Most study participants shared high stress levels both in the workplace and in their daily lives. BWSWs in the study expressed the ability to work beyond their limits to take care of all personal and professional responsibilities to keep physical and mental manifestations of stress at bay similar to the Super Woman schema ( Perez et al, 2022 ).…”

Congruence and discrepancy in Asian American women's perception and stress appraisal of gendered racial microaggressions: Relationships with depressive symptoms and internalized racism

“…For example, some AAW may endorse views of Asian American women as hypersexualized and exoticized, such that being treated as a sexual object or as submissive may not be perceived as a stressful discriminatory event, particularly if they themselves choose to “play the part.” Despite results indicating that AAW at high levels of internalized racism do not report depressive symptoms, which could be interpreted as having potential protective benefits, it is important to note that AAW may still incur self-deprecating costs to their mental health in the long-term for becoming “honorary Whites” or “White adjacent” and upholding detrimental racist ideologies perpetuated through White norms and beliefs ( 48 ). In addition, research on the John Henryism hypothesis among African American women suggests that AAW that perform as the exotic and hypersexualized Asian women may be engaging in a form of high effort coping in response to prolonged exposures to GRM, and will likely experience significant costs to their physical and mental health in the long term ( 49 ). Accordingly, future research would need to assess other psychological factors such as color-blind racial attitudes and the role of AAW's gender racial identity to understand how AAW's level of critical awareness of their own gender racial identity and gendered racism in the U.S. can affect their perceptions and stress appraisal of GRM, thereby shaping important nuances in AAW's mental health, particularly when considering the role of internalized racism.…”

An initial framework for the study of internalized racism and health: Internalized racism as a racism‐induced identity threat response

“…Consistent with SITM (Major & O’Brian, 2005) and MSTM (Brooks, 1981; Meyer, 2003), the above suggest that exposure to racism, experiences and anticipation of being discriminated against, and an awareness that one's racial group is devalued, are positively associated with IR. Overtime continued exposure to racism and racial identity‐threatening situations can deplete coping resources and undermine attempts at self‐regulation (Brondolo et al., 2009; Forsyth & Carter, 2012; Inzlicht & Schmeichel, 2012) as regulating racism‐related stress requires effort (Perez et al., 2022). To my knowledge, only a few studies have examined the relationship between IR and coping responses—but with unexpected findings.…”