*(Slideshow image source: The Huffington Post)
By Fatoumata Drammeh
Malcom X once said “The most disrespected person in America is the black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America is the black woman.”
He wasn’t wrong in 1962, and this statement still isn’t incorrect in 2020.
The misogynoir directed towards black women has left their lives unprotected, their issues overlooked, and their voices silenced. One factor that most certainly impacts many growing black women is a forced “adultification” (entailing social expectations of adult behaviors), which sadly works hand-in-hand with the hyper-sexualization of black women as well.
Black girls are stereotypically seen as more mature and less innocent then their non-black counterparts. It’s something a lot of black girls themselves have noticed while growing up. Now, their private observations are formally supported by the study, “Girlhood Interrupted: The Erasure of Black Girls’ Childhood”, in which authors Rebecca Epstein, Jamilia J. Blake and Thalia González, have taken a long, hard, look at how young black girls are viewed by society. The results of their study revealed too many people who believe that black girls: “need less nurturing, need less protection, need to be supported less, need to be comforted less, are more independent, know more about adult topics, and know more about sex,” than white counterparts of the same age.
Black girls face a unique misogyny compared to their non-black female counterparts; in short, it is a style of misogyny for which researchers have coined the term misogynoir. Black girls also face a unique form of discrimination compared to that which is faced by their male counterparts, because the intersectionality of their race and their gender play into a double bias against them. This double bias is rooted in hyper-sexuality and adultification.
Projections of hyper-sexuality onto black bodies can be traced back to the writings and descriptions made of Africans by European travelers, and the dehumanizing propaganda supporting the slave trade. European travelers sexualized African women and their sometimes scanty style of dress (which was largely due to environmental heat), and hyper sexualized tribal dances that were simply cultural traditions as indicating the “promiscuous” ways of African women. They further amplified this narrative to argue that all of their actions were driven by the desire to “lure” in a lover.
William Smith (a surveyor employed by the Royal African Company in 1726) is an example of one of the white writers that helped perpetuate the stereotype of black hyper-sexuality as the trans-Atlantic slave trade increased. It’s no secret that during times of slavery, African women (and men) were subjected to rape by their owners. These rapes were justified (in part) by the myth that hyper-sexualized black women were insatiable, promiscuous, sex starved creatures who “tempted” white men into raping them.
Of course, due to the laws of that time, taking sexual advantage of a slave was not considered rape. So, combined with a black woman’s lack of political voice and power, this misconstructed narrative spread and reigned. Throughout the Americas in particular this false narrative continued into the 20th century. We can even see the notorious “Jezebel” stereotype projected onto black women in the early 1900s through movies and other media. Since this era also focused on sexualizing and mocking black females with provocative art and advertising, their curvy bodies were often the focus of caricatures.
While this narrative was started many decades ago, we still experience the effects of it today in the way black youths are immediately seen/treated as more mature. Through friends and my own experiences there’s this expectation that we are more sexually advanced and knowledgeable. We also see the negative results of these assumptions online. When black mothers straighten their daughters hair or paint their nails before posting their pictures online, they’re often criticized and told to stop dressing their kids up to look like grown women. Yet when white mothers make similar efforts to post “glamour shots” of their children, the response is often the total opposite, and we have to wonder why. I believe it’s because when black girls try to look sophisticated or “pretty,” their actions are taken more suggestively. Black girls’ bodies are automatically sexualized, and I can say as a black girl myself I’ve grown up having my body sexualized even though I dress very modestly. We are often more “dress-coded” as well.
Curves aren’t a problem until others make them a problem. A lot of curvy black girls can wear the same outfits as their thinner, less voluptuous counterparts, but they’re more likely to be dress-coded. The National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) did a study of Washington schools and dress codes three years ago and it found that, “African-American girls are especially harmed by dress and grooming codes.” Black female students are more likely to fall afoul of, or be targeted by these codes because: “Black girls, and especially [the] curvier students, are disproportionately targeted.” This is wrong in itself because it perpetuates the idea that women are at fault for the natural growth of their bodies and the way others react to them. Considering that these are children who are being told by adults that their bodies are “distracting,” the way these dress codes are enforced is alarming. Many young black girls’ explorations of their own femininity are not seen as innocent curiosity either. When they do their hair in a grown up way, or wear some makeup, it’s not seen as innocent play, but as a symptom of hyper-sexuality.
Black girls are also often “disciplined much more often and more severely than white girls across our schools and in our juvenile justice system,” according to the director of the Center on Poverty and Inequality at the Georgetown University Law Center. A lot of black girls can testify that their misbehavior wasn’t looked upon as partially accidental or naive—like any other child misbehaving—but as something done with malicious intent. An example of this is seen in Rochaun Meadows-Fernandez’s story that she share shared in the New York Times. As a three-year-old, her inability to stay still was seen as “manipulative and intentionally disruptive.” A pre-k teacher went as far as to try and prove this to her mother by making videos of her. But when the teacher failed to accumulate the video footage needed to prove her point, she accused Fernandez of deliberately behaving better when she saw the camera. Keep in mind that this was a three-year-old. A three-year-old.
In the study cited by Epstein, the idea that black girls are more independent coincides with the findings that they are seen as girls who need less nurturing. In reality, black girls are often simply robbed off their childhoods. Be it because they are an elder daughter in a multi-sibling POC household who has to take on a caretaker role and be subjected to tight restraints, or be it because of the way they are treated by society, black girls are forced to “grow up” to guard and protect themselves.
When young girls learn that they are always presumed to have sexual intentions, it creates a double consciousness that takes away the playful joy of trying on certain clothes or participating in certain activities for fear of being seen as “fast” or inviting people to comment on their bodies. Black girls are often subjected to sexual harassment in the form of jokes about their bodies and assumed sexual capabilities. It’s actually only because black women are often left unprotected that our independent nature flourishes. However, this premature maturity is forced, and therefore it’s quite sad.
Ultimately, what makes assumed hyper-sexuality and adultifying most alarming is the fact that it contributes to sexual abuse. The increase in sexual assault of young black girls, and society tending to both question whether they were victims, or to deny or delay their pursuit of justice, is criminal. Research has shown that, “black girls face even greater skepticism [from] the figures that wield such authority over their lives, than other victims of sexual violence.” This lack of belief in their stories comes not only from outside the black community but within it as well. A lot of young black girls are taken advantage of by friends or relatives living around them, and often mothers or other family members turn a blind eye. This was addressed in the movie Precious, and was most likely also a factor in why the r&b singer R. Kelly, for example, got away with sexual abuse for so long—because his targets were black girls.
I wonder why can’t black girls be innocent? Why can’t they just want to change-up their hair? Why is their natural development and every move, sexualized? When they report sexual abuse, why aren’t they believed as often as other victims? What can we do to change this? In contemporary Western societies (whether among friends, teachers and even their own families), black girls fall victim to the myth that they mature ridiculously early, and lack any simple childish innocence … and it’s hurting them. This myth sabotaging their childhoods. It’s leaving them vulnerable to psychological and physical abuse, and it isn’t fair. We need to do better.