This study showed how navigating a race-and-gender-conscious society requires high stress coping that weakens Black women’s bodies and puts them at greater risk of poor health outcomes. Results showed that Black women had the highest chronic stress load compared to Black men, White men, and White women, a pattern not explained by socioeconomic factors, such as poverty. In this study, the effect of “ weathering” or early health decline due to coping with persistent stress, was tested for Black and White men and women. For example, a 2006 study showed differences in the effects of chronic stress for Black women compared with their male and/or White counterparts. Over the past 20 years, public health research has shown how health outcomes for women of color are distinct from those who share their race or their gender, such as White women and men of color. How does gendered racism impact Black and brown women of color?

Intersectionality serves as one conceptualization of gendered racism, and it has been applied as a theoretical framework for public health. Even though all women can be affected by sexist ideas and policies, Black and other marginalized women of color are additionally affected by racist ideas and policies in ways that are multiplied for their racial group.

This is how I think about gendered racism, or a system of policies and ideas that cause and maintain racial inequities between those who belong simultaneously to minoritized gender and race groups.

However, when systems of oppression combine, the effect develops into something entirely new, like a loaf of bread that includes multiple ingredients that are no longer individually identifiable. Examples include how racism impacts individuals based on their race alone or how sexism impacts individuals related to their sex or gender – such as wage gaps between men and women. When thinking of “–isms,” or systems of oppression, many often think of single constructs that operate independently like ingredients in a salad.

The woman of colour anonymous