Emotional Labor and the Stereotype of the "Angry Black Woman"

The reading for Wednesday begins with an examination of negative perceptions of Michelle Obama, and how the stereotype of the "angry Black woman" reinforces a lack of femininity and self-worth.

This is then extrapolated to experiences of Black women in the modern office workplace, and the role they have been forced into as a side effect of affirmative action policies. The authors discuss the need for a specific form of presentation, titled emotional labor, as a way in they must present specifically in a largely passive manner. The focus then is to appear as quiet and non-intrusive as possible, leaving them without any identity of their own and undermining the superficial push for diversity that many organizations are highly focused upon.

We watched the following video in class that brings together concepts of workplace stereotypes and inequalities in the context of media production.

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Communicating Gender, Race, and Class: 2020

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