Black women and the U.S. Politics

Black women are playing a very vital role in the United States of America politics. However, the politicking of black women has been faced with some challenges ranging from discrimination from white women, white men, and black men as well. In other words, black women are struggling to succeed in the US political arena since they are subjected to gender and racial based discrimination.

On a broad perspective, women are considered weak and inferior and therefore not worthy holding any influential post. From time immemorial, women have been treated as a man’s property and often, denied a chance of addressing public gatherings. The best example is the Roman Catholic Church which denies women an opportunity to be ordained. This affects all women; both white and black and therefore lacks the psyche of running for public offices (Brown 4).

Gender Based Prejudice and Stereotypes

When it comes to gender disparity, black women just like white women when compared to men, they feel the political positions are highly competitive and highly discriminative against women (Palmer, Barbara, and Dennis15). The notion of the system working against them puts off black women and all women at large from running for political offices hence lowering their success the political field. The report shows that women, unlike men, feel that they are less qualified for the political offices hence the low numbers. The report indicates that there is one woman in a group of 5 congress members. Besides, black women due to the inferiority complex, are more likely to respond negatively to toxic aspects of the modern campaigns. Failure to contain their emotions in heated campaigns makes them lose their support base and therefore fail winning an election. On the same note, women irrespective of their race, are often not receptive to contrary opinions. Also, it is less likely that women will receive an idea from anyone to run for a public office. This therefore adversely affect their success in politics. Women and black women in particular who are deemed less civilized are solely responsible for bringing up children and handling household chores. Obviously, concentrating on household matters will deny the black women a chance of engaging in matters related to politics. Even men; both black and white see them (women) belong in the kitchen.

Racial Discrimination

Apart from the gender aspect which derails the black women’s success in politics, black women are as well affected by the racial element. Often, black people are perceived as belonging to an inferior race compared to the white people. This is a deplorable state since it puts black women at a point of double tragedy which aligns with the concept of intersectionality. For instance, while black women are discriminated against by fellow women who happen to be whites, they still face intense prejudice from men; both black men and white men.

Failure to Garner Support from Family Members

Lack of family and social support can also lead to the underrepresentation of black women in both houses. This is attributed to the fact that black women members come with diverse familial experiences during both the campaigning and governing period. It has also been proved black women in power tend to challenge the traditional form of living and gender-oriented roles (Dittmar 5). For that reason, most of the black women running for elective posts or those who are already in office, are unmarried or divorced. The percentage unmarried black women in the Congress stand at 71.4%, and that of non-black women stands at 23.5%. Married black women in the Congress hold 28.6% while non-black women contains76.5% (Guerra 5). These figures show that black women do not enjoy their spouses’ support during the campaign or governance and this explains why black women struggle to succeed in politics. Coupled together, race and gender aspects have seen a continued low representation of black women in the American politics. Despite their vast population (7.4% of the US population), black women only make a 2.6 % of the Congress and 3.2% of members of the US. House (Dittmar, 4). In both houses, black women have a representation of 18% of all female representatives. This is way too low compared to their numbers.

Black women do not Believe in Themselves

Away from the fact that black women are segregated due to gender and race, statistics show a striking feature where black women do not support their very own (Philpot, Tasha and Hanes 3). Despite their high registration and higher voter turnout black women have been found to prefer voting electing black men or whites. History shows that black women have registered and voted highly in all years as from 1998 (Dittmar, 6). Interestingly, black women surpassed all genders and races between 2008 and 2012. Contrary to logic, black women represent only 34.2% of black members of the Congress, 25% of black statewide executive elected officials, and 37.7% of black state lawmakers. In this case, therefore, black women rarely support each other, and that is why they are making little progress in the political arena.

In summary, a black woman involved in US politics should expect to encounter myriad challenges ranging from gender, race or both. Being a black woman is also not a guarantee of being supported by fellow black women.

Work cited

Brown, Nadia. Sisters in the Statehouse: Black Women and Legislative Decision-Making. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. 2014.
Dittmar. K. The Status of Black Women in the American Politics. New York. Rutgers University. 2017. Print.
Guerra, Maria. “Fact Sheet: The State of African American Women in the United States.” Washington, DC: Center for American Progress 2013. Retrieved from: http://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/SOWfactsheet-AA.pdf.
Palmer, Barbara, and Dennis Simon. Women and Congressional Elections: A Century of Change. Lynne Reiner.2012. Print.
Philpot, Tasha S., and Hanes Walton. “One of Our Own: Black Female Candidates and the Voters who Support Them.”American Journal of Political Science51 (1) (2007): 49-62. Print.