Due to the Angry Black Woman stereotype, Black women tend to become desensitized to their own feelings to avoid judgment. They often feel that they must show no emotion outside of their comfortable spaces. That results in the accumulation of these feelings of hurt, which can be projected on loved ones as anger. Once seen as angry, Black women are always seen in that light, and their opinions, aspirations, and values are dismissed.167 The repression of those feelings can also result in serious mental health issues, which creates a complex for the Strong Black Woman. As a common problem within the Black community, Black women seldom seek help for their mental health challenges.168
In a recent Forbes article, author and diversity, equity and inclusion consultant Dr. Janice Gassam Asare further explains the harm being done to Black women as we endure the onslaught of trauma from being exposed daily to these negative stereotypes and facing the effects of, not only how we navigate the predominantly white spaces we inhabit, but also how we are perceived and received in those spaces. The results are at once illuminating, revealing, and frankly exhausting to fully grasp. It’s helpful to first revisit the difficult situation that Black women in particular face in order to frame these discussions and the process of understanding the results, using the negative effects of misogyny or intersectionality that Kimberlé Crenshaw first identified in 1989. She identifies how race, class, gender, and other intersecting systems shape the experiences of many, perpetuating privilege. Crenshaw used intersectionality to display the disadvantages caused by intersecting systems creating structural, political, and representational aspects of violence against minorities in the workplace and society.169
Dr. Asare explains that, when trying to understand a person’s experiences, intersectionality is an important consideration. Intersectionality was initially defined as the unique forms of oppression that Black women face. The experiences that people with intersecting identities now face are the reason why the term has become more mainstream. Moya Bailey coined a newer term, misogynoir, to describe “the specific hatred, dislike, distrust, and prejudice directed toward Black women.” Anti-racism education and efforts must explore misogynoir, how it manifests, and how it can be mitigated.
Misogynoir is rampant in ways that may not even be realized. The hashtag #SayHerName was created in 2014 to highlight misogynoir and how stories of Black women and girls often go overlooked, unnoticed, and untold. These experiences range from police violence to sexual assault, and often go unreported. Two very apparent examples of misogynoir in the public sphere can be found in the stories of musician R. Kelly’s victims and, most recently, the events that transpired with rapper Megan Thee Stallion.
Throughout R. Kelly’s thirty-year career, a number of women and girls, mostly Black and underage, have made claims that R. Kelly has sexually abused them. Despite the growing number of accusations, it wasn’t until recently, when the 2019 documentary Surviving R. Kelly came out, that these stories were given credence. Black women and girls who share experiences of abuse, trauma, and assault are largely shunned, criticized, and ignored. These experiences are questioned, scrutinized, and dissected more than any other group.170
According to the National Black Women’s Justice Institute, Black women and girls have been stereotyped as promiscuous and hypersexual for centuries, and that stereotype continues today. The “Strong Black Woman” stereotype means that we are less likely to be seen as victims. Our mental health and well-being are minimized or disregarded. Our trauma remains unacknowledged and unaddressed. And the very institutions and organizations in charge of providing us with that protection—such as schools, hospitals, and mental health facilities—leave us unprotected.
Sexual trauma is frequently associated with PTSD, depression, substance misuse, suicide ideation and attempts, and other adverse health effects. For Black women, the added effects of sexism and racism can heighten depressive and PTSD symptoms. When trauma is unaddressed, it leaves us more at risk of interaction with law enforcement and the legal system because, often, the way we express our trauma does not conform to traditional clinical symptoms. As a result, we are criminalized instead of receiving the treatment and care we need and deserve.
Additionally, the strategies that Black women and girls take to survive are often criminalized, creating an abuse-to-incarceration pipeline that overwhelmingly targets Black women and girls.171 And this snowball effect of trauma begins with the adultification of Black girls by a society that views them as older, more mature, and less deserving of protection. According to the landmark Georgetown University study “Girlhood Interrupted: The Erasure of Black Girls’ Childhood,” scholars found substantial evidence of adultification of Black girls. The study reveals how society often prematurely assigns adult characteristics to young Black girls, consequently erasing their childhood. Noting that our society “regularly responds to Black girls as if they are fully developed adults,” Dr. Monique W. Morris has observed, “The assignment of more adult-like characteristics to the expressions of young Black girls is a form of age compression. Along this truncated age continuum, Black girls are likened more to adults than to children, and are treated as if they are willfully engaging in behaviors typically expected of Black women. This compression [has] stripped Black girls of their childhood freedoms [and] rendered Black girlhood interchangeable with Black womanhood.”172
These perceptions, often resulting in Black girls being viewed as older than they are, demonstrate that stereotypes of them as “loud” carry adult-like connotations and cause them to be seen as a threat. In a recent study focused on teacher-student interactions by Professor Edward W. Morris, one teacher’s comment stood out: “[Black girls] think they are adults too, and they try to act like they should have control sometimes.” This comment was made in the context of classroom management, showing how Black girls’ assertiveness can be misconstrued as inappropriate maturity.173 Such comments demonstrate that stereotypes of Black girls, interpreted as “loud,” are imbued with adult-like aspirations and perceived, in turn, as a threat. The same study recorded teachers’ descriptions of Black girls as exhibiting “very ‘mature’ behavior that is socially (but not academically) sophisticated and ‘controlling at a young age.’ ” This interpretation of Black girls’ outspokenness may be associated with the stereotype of Black women as aggressive and dominating.174175
Another harmful aspect of adultification for Black girls lies in the culturally embedded stereotypes about Black girls’ sexualization.176 The commonly held stereotype of Black girls as hypersexualized is defined by “society’s attribution of sex as part of the ‘natural’ role of Black women and girls.”177 Noting the long history of perceiving Black women as hypersexualized, Monique W. Morris has observed that adultification results in applying these stereotypes to Black girls:
Caricatures of Black femininity are often deposited into distinct chambers of our public consciousness, narrowly defining Black female identity and movement according to the stereotypes described by Pauli Murray as “female dominance” on the one hand and loose morals on the other hand, both growing out of the roles forced upon them during the slavery experience and its aftermath. As such, in the public’s collective consciousness, latent ideas about Black females as hypersexual, conniving, loud, and sassy predominate. However, age compression renders Black girls just as vulnerable to these aspersive representations.178
The images and historical stereotypes of Black women aren’t just relics of the past. They continue to have real-life consequences for Black girls today. According to Blake and colleagues, “these stereotypes underlie the implicit bias that shapes many adult views of Black females [as] …sexually promiscuous, hedonistic, and in need of socialization.”179
In essence, “the adultification stereotype results in some [Black] children not being afforded the opportunity” to make mistakes and to learn, grow, and benefit from correction for youthful missteps to the same degree as white children. The Georgetown University study shows that Black girls experience this stereotype directly.180
We know that these stereotypes have been used to silence our strong forces and create resistance to our embracing the full power of the divine feminine that resides inside all of us as women of the African diaspora. So how do we harness that power while disavowing and divesting from these harmful, toxic, and false representations? It starts with amplifying our voices, embracing our individuality, and consciously rejecting these harmful stereotypes. For me, this mindset shift meant decolonizing and recalibrating my mind. It involved surrounding myself with positive representations of Black womanhood, seeking out inspiring stories and powerful figures from our history, and reminding myself daily that we are the descendants of humanity’s birthplace.
To protect our peace, it is very necessary to begin the process of decolonizing our minds: replacing old thoughts and beliefs with traditional Afrocentric ideals rooted in our authentically native ancestry. In thinking about my own identity as a Black woman, I’d often fallen victim to many of the stereotypes and carried those narratives with me both mentally and physically. It affects how we show up, our own ideals about womanhood, our mental and emotional well-being, and even our very identity.
At times, we feel like ships adrift in the sea. We know how we feel inside, but we don’t feel that our actions match our intent as we move. Are we being too loud, too quiet, too outspoken, or not assertive enough? Are we dressed appropriately? Do we meet the expectations of our community? What about our families? And even more intimidating, how do we appear to the world? All of the confusion about what we represent in our physical and symbolic essence can be absolutely exhausting. And without anywhere to seek answers to those questions, we often internalize this disconnect, thinking there is something inherently wrong with us when what has actually happened is a trauma response to a society that has created a rendition that is entirely not of our making.
The process of deconstructing these ideas began in my Black community in Fort Lauderdale, where I was nurtured and encouraged about my identity and greatness. I was told that not only was I worthy, I was more than worthy. And although I didn’t see myself represented in society at large, everyone close to me reflected positive energy centered on my perfect existence. It wasn’t until I ventured out of those safe spaces into environments that didn’t look like me that I started to doubt the perfection of my identity. I had always been charged with the responsibility of loving not only myself, but everyone else around me who looked like me. I was part of a resilient community that, despite material limitations, showered me with love, wisdom, and a strong sense of belonging.
Going into predominantly white spaces, the clarion call was the opposite. On the first day of orientation, I was told to look both left and right, and that neither student would be there at graduation. In my classes, I was anonymous—one of thousands. The safest course of action was to blend in with everyone around me. The only problem with that philosophy was that it was impossible. And even if it were possible, I knew deep inside that I would never want that to happen.
To counter these feelings of displacement and loss, Simphiwe Sesanti, a professor at the University of the Western Cape (UWC)’s Faculty of Education, calls for “Decolonized and Afrocentric Education: For Centering African Women in Remembering, Re-Membering, and the African Renaissance.” Decolonization was a widespread effort, spanning both the African continent and its diaspora. It was a fight against the influences of European slavery and colonialism. This movement symbolized an African Renaissance—a rebirth and reclamation of our culture. Colonialism and colonization dismembered Africans through land dispossession and forcible relocation into slavery. Both the physical and cultural dismemberment were entrenched and sustained through Eurocentric education, which sought to displace Africans’ cultural memory by replacing it with European cultural memory. Decolonization struggles were an expression of an African Renaissance because they sought to “regain” and “restore” not only physical but also cultural freedom.181
The revolutionary Pan-Africanist scholar, academic, and activist, W. E. B. Du Bois, declared in his book The Souls of Black Folk, first published in 1903, that “THE PROBLEM of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line—the relation of the darker to lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea.”182
In his book Dark Water: Voices From Within The Veil, published seventeen years later, Du Bois pointed out that the “uplift of women is, next to the problem of the color line and the peace movement, our greatest modern cause.” Du Bois further pointed out that when “two of these movements—woman and color—combine in one, the combination has deep meaning.”
Du Bois’s logic was informed by recognition, not only that the oppression and exploitation of African Americans was unnatural and wrong, but also that the struggle for the dignity of Black women in the United States was about the reclamation of an African culture that slavery dealt a blow to. His studies on ancient African history had taught him that in Africa “none is more tenderly loved than the Negro mother.” Du Bois had learned that:
•“Everywhere in Africa […] no greater affront can be offered a Negro than insulting his mother.” He discovered that the Krus, the Fantis, and the Mandingo could withstand an enemy’s blows, but would not put up with abuse directed toward their mothers.
•Among the Dyoor, Du Bois learned that “[a] bond between mother and child which lasts for life is the measure of affection shown.”
•Among the Zulu-speaking Africans and the Waganda, Du Bois found that “the mother is the most influential counselor at the court of ferocious sovereigns, like Chaka or Mtesa; sometimes sisters take her place.”
In these African cultures, Du Bois learned that women were held in high esteem. Evidence for this could be seen in the many queens, the respect given to medicine women, and the participation of women in public meetings in many African societies.
On the basis of his studies on Africa, Du Bois concluded that this picture appeared as if “the great Black race, in passing up the steps of human culture, gave the world not only the Iron Age, the cultivation of the soil, and the domestication of animals, but also, in peculiar emphasis, the mother-idea.”183
The “mother-idea” refers to all that is mentioned above—the centering, the veneration, and the love for womanhood. The “mother-idea” refers to the “sacredness and infallibility of mothers,” which finds expression in an Igbo woman song: “Woman is principal, is principal, is principal.”184 The African “mother-idea” also finds expression in the Ohaffia proverb, “Father’s penis scatters, mother’s womb gathers,” a saying that is both literal and metaphorical.185 The African “mother-idea” was disrupted (among some)—but not destroyed—in the African American community because “the westward slave trade and American slavery struck like doom.” Against the “doom” of American slavery, the “mother-idea” remained a constant in the Black community and characterized the uniquely esteemed and elevated role of womanhood across the African diaspora.
Many African Americans held on tenaciously to their ancestral cultural beliefs that defined their humanity. A conversation between Maya Angelou, a Pan-Africanist and world-renowned poetess, and Nana Nketsia, the University of Ghana’s first vice chancellor, reveals as much. Nana Nketsia addressed Angelou:
You are a mother and we love our mothers […] Africa is herself a mother. The mother of mankind. We Africans take motherhood as the most sacred condition human beings can achieve. Camara Laye, our brother, has said, “The Mother is there to protect you. She is buried in Africa, and Africa is buried in her. That is why she is supreme.”
Angelou reciprocated, affirming the enduring cultural bonds between Africans on the continent and in the Diaspora, bonds that defied the ravages of slavery.
Nana, I appreciate hearing that Africans cherish their mothers. It confirms my belief that in America we have retained more Africanisms than we know. For also, among Black Americans, motherhood is sacred. We have strong mothers, and we love them dearly.186
Echoing Du Bois’s stance against sexism, Professor Sesanti emphasizes that the fight is not a one-time event, but a continual effort. He proposes this can be achieved through a decolonized, Afrocentric education. An Afrocentric “education system should be such that the children are taught that the natural line of descent is through the mother.” This can be demonstrated beyond doubt once it is understood that all human beings are conceived by women. Through Afrocentric education, children should be made aware that the traits of both sexes exist within each human being: within every man there is a woman, and within every woman there is a man. Therefore, any man who hates women is a man who hates an aspect of himself that he cannot come to terms with. His hatred for women is therefore an externalization of this self-hatred.187
Sitting in the Women in Africa class my junior year helped me learn, just as my ancestors, W.E.B. DuBois and Maya Angelou, had learned before me. I was the descendant of a lineage of Black women in Africa who were not characterized by any of the harmful and toxic stereotypes, archetypes, and descriptions that had done nothing to empower me, but had been deliberately deployed by those in the majority to disarm and erode my self-confidence, leading to doubt in myself and my identity while eroding my mental health and emotional well-being, making me question everything around me, including my very existence. Instead, I recaptured the feeling of joy and belonging I felt inside when my African American studies teacher smiled at me and called me “Amina” when I was in the eleventh grade.
journaling questions 
1.How do you connect with or perceive the concept of the African Sacred Feminine, and what significance does it hold for you?
2.What steps can you take to deepen your understanding and connection to the African Sacred Feminine, given its potential transformative power?
3.Can you identify specific stereotypes of Black women that have impacted you personally, either by being imposed upon you or through internalized beliefs?
4.What strategies or practices have you found effective in challenging and countering harmful stereotypes about Black women, both externally and within yourself?
5.In what ways have societal perceptions of Black women influenced your interactions, opportunities, or self-perception?
