Challenging Misrepresentations of Black Womanhood

Media, Literature and Theory

Marquita M. Gammage, Antwanisha Alameen-Shavers

• Publisher: Anthem Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781783089376
• eBook ISBN: 9781783089390
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Black Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

"Challenging Misrepresentations of Black Womanhood" investigates the typecasting of Black womanhood and the larger sociological impact on Black women's self-perceptions. It details the historical and contemporary use of stereotypes against Black women and how these women work to challenge and dispel false perceptions. The book highlights the role of racist ideas in the reproduction and promotion of stereotypes of Black femaleness in media, literature, artificial intelligence and the perceptions of the general public. Contributors in this collection identify the racist and sexist ideologies behind the misperceptions of Black womanhood and illuminate twenty-first–century stereotypical treatment of Black women such as Michelle Obama and Serena Williams, and explore topics such as comedic expressions of Black motherhood, representations of Black women in television dramas and literature, and identity reclamation and self-determination. "Challenging Misrepresentations of Black Womanhood" establishes the criteria with which to examine the role of stereotypes in the lives of Black women and, more specifically, its impact on their social and psychological well-being.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Black Student Mothers: A Culturally Relevant Exploratory Study
• Chapter 2 Uninhabitable Moments: The Symbol of Serena Williams, Rage and Rackets in Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric
• Chapter 3 “Black Women Are Genius!”: The Image of Celebrated Black Motherhood in Stand-Up Comedy?
• Chapter 4 The Virility of the Haitian Womb: The Biggest Threat to the Dominican Right
• Chapter 5 Ladyhood in Distress: Neoliberalism and Black Politics in Nicole Sconiers’s Escape from Beckyville: Tales of Race, Hair, and Rage
• Chapter 6 Sapphires Gone Wild: The Politics of Black Women’s Respectability in the Age of the Ratchet
• Chapter 7 Representing the Black Woman as Immoral and Abandoning the Black Family: A Cultural Analysis of Twenty-First-Century Television Dramas Starring Black Women
• Chapter 8 Historical Miseducation on Black Womanhood
• Chapter 9 Michelle Obama Laughs: Political Meme Warfare and the Regurgitation of the Mythological Black Woman
• Chapter 10 Kawaida Womanism as an Interpretative Framework for Understanding Africana Womanhood: Analyzing African American Women’s Self-Perceptions
• List of Contributors
• Index