The Hypersexualization of Black Girls
Jenny Freedman
Black Childhood
October 27, 2019
The intersection of discrimination at the crossroads of race and gender puts black girls in a uniquely complex position. Black and female are both traits America’s history has marked inferior, weak, and worthless. In the public sphere, black girls are utilized as idyllic representations of the black race as a whole. This development is due to the systematic determination of ideal female behavior as proper and domestic. The negative societal associations of blackness and femininity and their intersections produce a deep-rooted antipathy and sexualization of black women.
The confinement of black girl behavior is the structure for their oppression. Black children are expected to behave properly and with manners because they have less room for failure. The stark consequences of a history entwined with blatant racism against blacks sets children up to fall into the holes of negative stereotypes. Ta-Nehisi Coates describes this sentiment in his novel Between the World and Me when he explains, “All my life I’d heard people tell their black boys and black girls to ‘be twice as good,’ which is to say ‘accept half as much’” (Coates, 91). The overbearing amount of expectations for black children is one element, as an inability to act be morally and behaviorally comparable to civilized whites further intensify prejudice; however, when also considering the factor of an extremely gendered society, the strict framework of behavior and manners for black girls becomes strikingly evident. Before even discovering one’s identity, black girls are forced into a specific domestic role in order to bolster the appearance of the black race as a whole.
Black girls are often denied the idea of childhood. While white girls are associated with pureness and innocence, a certain mistrust and shame are attached to the identity of the black girl. Furthermore, rather than having her own identity, how she is viewed is wholly defined by her status and the connotations of being black and female. Forgotten and oppressed, the black girl is majorly underrepresented and overcontrolled. Their stories and struggles are brushed aside, for Black girls “remain illegible” (Cox, vii). The convergence of the forced domesticity and subservience associated with females and the inferiority associated with the black race places black females at the crossroads of the deep negative sentiment. The intersection and interactions between the identities of race and gender produce sexually fueled hatred toward black girls within society.
After the category of conduct literature became popularized, women gained a newfound self-determination and social mobility. While “one’s place and role in society” can be changed in the eyes of individual women, societal standards are still permeable to the perspectives of outsider sources. (Wright, 94) Black women continue to be sexualized and objectified in the media, which causes the same sexist sentiments to bleed into everyday life. Floyd’s Flowers, written by black intellectuals, was a grouping of conduct books aimed for black readers. Many of the texts represented a sentiment of self-hatred, placing the blame for negative race representations on the blacks themselves. In Morals and Manners, W.E.B. Du Bois describes how blacks are thought to be “thotless [sic] in manners and altogether quite hopeless in sexual morals” (Wright, 94). Black people are often labeled as promiscuous and sexually-driven, leaving some to reject this idea and enact the opposite, while others embrace the assumptions. Either way, judgement is immediately placed on individuals with high sexual activity; however, when they are black and female, their identity is utilized to explain and confirm their behaviors.
Conduct literature is key in defining the overwhelming sexual stereotypes and objectification of black women. These texts focused on teaching black children to “manage the body through a conservative agenda that promoted propriety, morality, and decorum” by enacting effective parenting (Wright, 95). They assumed a deplorable lust and sexual drive inherently ingrained in all black women, for they must actively utilize knowledge from conduct texts to adjust to the norms of the white world. As men are often seen as dominant, or the protector and provider for the family, women are expected to maintain the role of the caring mother and housewife. These ideals of submissiveness and subservience can often come with sexual connotations. The sex lives of black women are tied to a great shame, as conduct literature teaches them to repress any sexuality and improperness.
Black Childhood
October 27, 2019
The intersection of discrimination at the crossroads of race and gender puts black girls in a uniquely complex position. Black and female are both traits America’s history has marked inferior, weak, and worthless. In the public sphere, black girls are utilized as idyllic representations of the black race as a whole. This development is due to the systematic determination of ideal female behavior as proper and domestic. The negative societal associations of blackness and femininity and their intersections produce a deep-rooted antipathy and sexualization of black women.
The confinement of black girl behavior is the structure for their oppression. Black children are expected to behave properly and with manners because they have less room for failure. The stark consequences of a history entwined with blatant racism against blacks sets children up to fall into the holes of negative stereotypes. Ta-Nehisi Coates describes this sentiment in his novel Between the World and Me when he explains, “All my life I’d heard people tell their black boys and black girls to ‘be twice as good,’ which is to say ‘accept half as much’” (Coates, 91). The overbearing amount of expectations for black children is one element, as an inability to act be morally and behaviorally comparable to civilized whites further intensify prejudice; however, when also considering the factor of an extremely gendered society, the strict framework of behavior and manners for black girls becomes strikingly evident. Before even discovering one’s identity, black girls are forced into a specific domestic role in order to bolster the appearance of the black race as a whole.
Black girls are often denied the idea of childhood. While white girls are associated with pureness and innocence, a certain mistrust and shame are attached to the identity of the black girl. Furthermore, rather than having her own identity, how she is viewed is wholly defined by her status and the connotations of being black and female. Forgotten and oppressed, the black girl is majorly underrepresented and overcontrolled. Their stories and struggles are brushed aside, for Black girls “remain illegible” (Cox, vii). The convergence of the forced domesticity and subservience associated with females and the inferiority associated with the black race places black females at the crossroads of the deep negative sentiment. The intersection and interactions between the identities of race and gender produce sexually fueled hatred toward black girls within society.
After the category of conduct literature became popularized, women gained a newfound self-determination and social mobility. While “one’s place and role in society” can be changed in the eyes of individual women, societal standards are still permeable to the perspectives of outsider sources. (Wright, 94) Black women continue to be sexualized and objectified in the media, which causes the same sexist sentiments to bleed into everyday life. Floyd’s Flowers, written by black intellectuals, was a grouping of conduct books aimed for black readers. Many of the texts represented a sentiment of self-hatred, placing the blame for negative race representations on the blacks themselves. In Morals and Manners, W.E.B. Du Bois describes how blacks are thought to be “thotless [sic] in manners and altogether quite hopeless in sexual morals” (Wright, 94). Black people are often labeled as promiscuous and sexually-driven, leaving some to reject this idea and enact the opposite, while others embrace the assumptions. Either way, judgement is immediately placed on individuals with high sexual activity; however, when they are black and female, their identity is utilized to explain and confirm their behaviors.
Conduct literature is key in defining the overwhelming sexual stereotypes and objectification of black women. These texts focused on teaching black children to “manage the body through a conservative agenda that promoted propriety, morality, and decorum” by enacting effective parenting (Wright, 95). They assumed a deplorable lust and sexual drive inherently ingrained in all black women, for they must actively utilize knowledge from conduct texts to adjust to the norms of the white world. As men are often seen as dominant, or the protector and provider for the family, women are expected to maintain the role of the caring mother and housewife. These ideals of submissiveness and subservience can often come with sexual connotations. The sex lives of black women are tied to a great shame, as conduct literature teaches them to repress any sexuality and improperness.