Black Women Politicians in the Archives

Sister Style

10.1093/oso/9780197540572.001.0001 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Nadia E. Brown ◽

Danielle Casarez Lemi

Keyword(s):

Black Women ◽

Women Politicians ◽

Skin Tone ◽

Women's Bodies ◽

Deep Dive ◽

Women Candidates ◽

Phenotypic Profile ◽

Gendered Identities ◽

Candidate Evaluations ◽

Hair Texture

Sister Style: The Politics of Appearance for Black Women Political Elites centers Black women’s bodies, specifically their hair texture and skin tone, to argue that phenotypic differences among Black women politicians directly impact how they experience political office and how Black voters evaluate them. The book brings together an interdisciplinary, multi-method, and blended epistemological approach of positivism and interpretivism to ask whether African American women’s appearances provide a more nuanced lens through which to study how their raced-gendered identities impact their candidacies and shape their political behavior. The authors take a deep dive into intersectional theory-building, through which they examine the intra-categorical differences among Black women. They find that Black women vary in their political experiences because of their appearances, and that dominant, Eurocentric beauty standards influence the electoral chances of Black women. They observe that skin tone and hair texture, along with the historical legacies that have shaped the current cultural and political contexts, dictate Black women elites’ political experiences and voter evaluations of them. The book asks the following questions: What do the politics of appearance for Black women mean for Black women politicians and for Black voters who evaluate them? What are the origins of the contemporary focus on Black women’s bodies in public life? How do Black women politicians themselves make sense of the politics of appearance? Is there a phenotypic profile into which most Black women politicians fit? What is the effect of variation in Black women’s phenotypes for candidate evaluations? And how do voters process the appearances of Black women candidates?

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Afro-Textured Hair and the CROWN Act

Sister Style ◽

10.1093/oso/9780197540572.003.0002 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 18-45

Author(s):

Nadia E. Brown ◽

Danielle Casarez Lemi

Keyword(s):

Black Women ◽

Historical Development ◽

Women Politicians ◽

The United States ◽

The Political ◽

Political Opportunity ◽

Opportunity Structure ◽

Natural Hair ◽

Open World

This chapter traces the historical development of the politics of Black women’s appearances in the United States by assessing the sociological, political, and legal forces that have built the political opportunity structure for Black women politicians. The chapter presents a thorough overview of Afro-textured hair and Black protective hairstyles to provide a primer on why Black (women’s) hair is political. Through a case study of the Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair (CROWN) Act, it examines how New Jersey state lawmakers successfully passed legislation to end hair discrimination. In this chapter, we make a connection to contemporary policy and how Black women lawmakers bring uncrystallized issues to legislative bodies.

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