LIE links: Raising young ladies or “loudies”
From NPR:
Edward Morris, a sociology professor at Ohio University, gets to the bottom of how teachers in one Texas middle school used racial stereotypes to classify the behavior of black female students as “un-ladylike.” Listen…
This study came up in a Twitter conversation I had last Friday. It is more than two years old, but still compelling.
Thoughts? What can all parents do to combat this stereotyping of young, black girls?
About Tami
Tami Winfrey Harris writes about race, feminism, politics and pop culture at the blog What Tami Said. Her work has also appeared online at The Guardian’s Comment is Free, Ms. Magazine blog, Newsweek, Change.org, Huffington Post and Racialicious. She is a graduate of the Iowa State University Greenlee School of Journalism. She is mom to two awesome stepkids and spends her spare time researching her family history and cultivating a righteous 'fro.
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I’m feeling pretty hopeless about this right now, actually. What can we do to combat this stereotyping of young black girls? Maybe make sure that we, as parents, choose diverse and sensitive schools for our children? Perhaps confront these stereotypes head on…wait…that would risk labeling us as “loudies,” particularly problematic for the black mothers among us. I often feel worried about speaking out even on blogs for fear of being labeled “over-sensitive” to race issues. Example: the comments on the WSJ juggle blog yesterday infuriated me…but no one else cared! http://blogs.wsj.com/juggle/2010/03/15/would-growing-up-french-make-us-eat-healthier/tab/comments/#comment-150641 If I speak up, I end up being the PC police and risk not being taken seriously. Plus, I get all emotional about these topics so its hard not to feel attacked. I try to take a deep breath and pick my battles wisely. When it comes to my child(ren)…I think I may have to homeschool (only half joking).
I’d be curious if it was white or black or Hispanic teachers that perceived the girls as being too loud and told them to act like “young ladies.” And was the behavior comparable? Were all the groups of girls being equally loud and one group of girls wasn’t scolded for doing the same thing that the other groups were?
As an adult, I’d probably scold any group of teenage girls (and boys too, actually) for being loud or rowdy or too physical in the hallways or for speaking out of turn in class. I would expect and demand that kids be respectful and raise their hands before asking a question. My teachers probably would have used “Now, people” or “Now, boys and girls” before telling us to quiet down and a few of the more old-fashioned ones would have said “Sit like a lady” if a girl had her legs spread-eagle. Any kid who’s acting up in school needs to know that school isn’t the place to be loud or disrespectful. But if one group of kids is being singled out for acting in a way that all the other kids are acting, that’s a problem of bias and hopefully the teachers will be made aware of it so they check themselves.
Knowing the race and gender of the teachers would make a huge difference to me. Many female black teachers are harder on black students, at least that was my experience growing up. And yes, the criticism issued when behavior devianted from the norm (middle class white girls) but it was based on the belief (right, wrong or indifferent) that as blacks in society one had to be twice as good than your white counterparts to be seen as good.
This article documents an interesting and potentially disturbing phenomena, but IMHO it is incomplete. It raises more questions and I would need a whole lot more information.
Some very good points were raised here.
My thoughts…can black girls be loud? They certainly can. I’ve witnessed it.
Can they be unladylike? Sure. But so can other girls. It depends on the individual’s upbringing and her personality.
I’m biracial. My Jamaican mother raised me to be soft-spoken and polite. I’m shy, sweet, and reserved. I’ve only been loud when it is necessary, i.e. if someone has really pissed me off.
I’ve met other girls, black and/or biracial, with personalities like mine. They were quiet, shy, ladylike, and gentle. I’ve met some very classy, refined black women in my life.
I wish people wouldn’t stereotype. Yes, lots of black girls/women can be loud and obnoxious. But so can white girls and girls of other ethnic groups.
As a Black woman, many Black women and girls *are* loud. But, there are loud women and girls in every ethnic group. I think it’s a matter of how one is socialized. My Dear Mother taught me to monitor my voice tone, and so therefore that is perhaps the reason today I am not partial to loud people – men and women, boys and girls – regardless of race.
In as far as being “unladylike”, well, that’s a matter of perspective, and, as they say, it’s relative. I encounter conflict around this with my female students. What may be perceived as unladylike to me, given my age, class and race, it may not be to them. So, I realize that I need to watch my own privilege around this.
I also have Jamaican parents who raised me that way. I would give almost anything to be as loud and confident as those other black girls. It gets on my nerves that I always FEEL walked on and ignored. Or , kept under lock and key. So I feel conflicted, but
I hate the stereotyping of those girls.
@ Cinnamondiva
I also have Jamaican parents who raised me that way. I would give almost anything to be as loud and confident as those other black girls. It gets on my nerves that I always FEEL walked on and ignored. Or , kept under lock and key. So I feel conflicted, but
I hate the stereotyping of those girls.