Myths about black women, marriage dating with white men
It’s a tough marriage market for black women — on and offline, says Sarah Adeyinka-Skold, who is a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania where she studies the marriage patterns of black women. That perception is due to long-held myths and beliefs about black women, says Adeyinka-Skold, which have transformed into commonly-held ideologies.
A 2014 OKCupid study of its user data showed that most men on the site rated black women as less attractive than women of other races. But many of the myths and misconceptions that exist today are rooted in stereotypes invented decades ago. Racism, she said, pervades every aspect of American life, including love.
Can you talk a bit about how you landed on this area of research?
I landed on this area of research basically because I’m a black woman who at some point was looking for love herself. I’ve had discussions in college, post college, about finding a partner, how hard it is. … It’s a great lens for examining racial stratification. I was [at Princeton University], in sociology, seeing all these other white women that I was friends with dating, and I was also friends with black women and we weren’t dating. We weren’t hooking up, nothing was happening with us at TrouverMe.com
It’s not like there were no black women dating, but comparatively to the other women on campus, we just weren’t feeling the love. I had always imagined that I was going to go to college and I was going to find my husband … and I was like ‘Wow, this is going to be much tougher than I thought it was going to be.’
Black Women Are Visible But They Are Not Seen
The slogan “listen to black women” emerged as a familiar refrain after the 2016 election, and with good reason. Some of the first people to decry Donald Trump’s actions as a political figure were black women, from the 94 percent of us who didn’t vote for him to Congressional leaders like Maxine Waters, who pushed for the now unfolding impeachment inquiry long before her peers. I couldn’t help but think about all this after watching Joker. The film positions its black women characters in an oddly similar fashion, though it ends up doing them, and the movie, a great disservice in the process.
In the music video for her latest single, “Stretch You Out,” Summer Walker mists a stripper pole with disinfectant before twirling around it in clear acrylic pumps and a sparkly silver bra and shorts set.
The spritz isn’t just for telegenic effect; before she became R&B’s next big thing, Walker worked as both an exotic dancer and a housekeeper.
On “Stretch You Out,” Walker tells her man she would rather enjoy a night in bed with him than deal with his stress. That raw, straightforward point of view, reminiscent of Mary J. Blige’s hardened approach to rap-influenced soul, earned the 23-year-old Atlanta native 1 billion streams before she even dropped her debut album.