Self-empowerment through spirituality: the African-American woman

Research has shown that throughout history African-American women have been subjected to various forms of oppression. According to Thomas, Speight and Witherspoon (2008) the oppression that African-American women encounter occurs simultaneously as a result of being both Black and female. For some African-American women, the experiences of being both a woman and an African-American have not been easy to separate, because they identify with discrimination due to their race and gender. The oppression that African-American women face contributes to the stress of the African-American women. Important studies have explored the intersections of race and gender for African-American women. Shorter-Gooden and Jones (2003) conducted a large national study on African-American women\u27s perceptions and experiences of racism and sexism simultaneously. The qualitative study revealed that African-American women reported a range of oppressive experiences including but not limited to discrimination, harassment, sexism, and negative stereotyping. The places where African-American women experienced the unequal treatment varied from the place of work, educational settings, and to service providers. The effects on the African-American women caused different levels of distress and oppression. The literature shows that African-American women\u27s life stressors place demands upon them to find ways to cope with continuing racial and gender oppression. Shorter-Gooden (2004) outlined the ways African-American\u27s deal with the impact of racial and gender bias in its various forms. It was explained that despite the long history of racial and gender discrimination toward the African-American women, little was known about the strategies that African-Americans use to cope and handle the day-to-day stresses. My study aims to show that in coping with stresses an individual\u27s spirituality affects one\u27s resiliency to coping with stress. I have three hypotheses, the first hypotheses is African-American women participants who score high on spirituality will likely score high on measure of resilience. Secondly, it is hypothesized that the older the participants are, the higher the score on spirituality in comparison with the younger participants. Lastly, older research participants who score high on spirituality will also score high on resilience