The New Black Feminine
posted by Dominque Elliott | February 21, 2020 | In News, Opinion“Ain’t I a woman?”
Although it’s controversial whether a white female novelist embellished the speech, the question of identity that was supposedly posed by Sojourner Truth has always resonated with African American women.
Truth’s alleged words demonstrate the frustration of navigating the composing duality of race and gender on Black womanhood. For example, when performing the role of the strong Black woman stereotype, Black women have to exhibit traditional masculine and feminine roles, like breadwinner and homemaker to the extent having very negative and toxic repercussions—which can also be called role strain.
In the past few years, the online Black female community has started to call attention to this.
“In 2012, I published my book. Prior to that I started blogging,” said Christelyn Karazin from the YouTube channel “The Pink Pill,” owner of the blog “Beyond Black & White” and author of “Swirling: How to Date, Mate, and Relate Mixing Race, Culture, and Creed.” “I noticed that black women started to ask questions. They started to share experiences, and the online community of Black women saw that they related to each other. For a long time, the community has not allowed Black women to ask questions. The anonymity of the Internet has allowed for those questions to thrive.”
On the internet, Black women seemed to realize that the stereotype forced them to sacrifice their femininity in order to perform traditionally masculine roles.
“After the huge out-of-wedlock rate in the ‘90s,” Karazin referenced, “we had two generations of Black girls without men in the home, who cannot even fathom … or are not used to male masculinity, protection, and security.”
“Single mothers cannot have their femininity come out,” Karazin went on to state. “These girls had to witness their mothers in masculine mode all the time—to the point where they asked the question ‘What is femininity?’”
Black female YouTubers such as Karazin, are actively working to answer this question for Black women through videos, blogs, and even online classes. Surprisingly, this is done through the unsuspecting package of dating advice, which upon first impression talks about a range of topics from interracial dating, navigating relationships, and properly vetting men.
However, even though their message may come in the form of dating advice, these YouTubers end up actively preaching a lifestyle change. The social media influencers, especially through pop culture commentary, educate Black women on how to maintain self-care, mental health, and confidence while also discussing solutions to navigating racism, colorism, and classism throughout American society. Their impact seems to start becoming more palpable on social media, as the numbers of their subscriptions start to grow.
Notable YouTube channels such as Karazin’s “The Pink Pill,” but also “Chrissie,” “Real Talk with Yanie,” Nicole Michelle’s “InnerBeautyTV,” “The Feminine Fancy,” and “Paris Milan” are all ran and supported by Black women with a diverse set of values, ages, and opinions who are ushering in a new lifestyle movement for their large Black female audience.
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