Black feminist consciousness: An empirical analysis of the simultaneous effects of race and gender on political behavior

Despite the emergence of the study of women and politics within the discipline of political science, few books or articles have been written about the black female condition in the United States. A persistent problem for scholars has been how to develop empirical models that would take into account the simultaneous effects of race and gender. This project takes root, in part, in the deficiencies and limitations of existing research, which focuses almost entirely upon race and gender differences separately, rather than testing their simultaneous effects (notable exceptions being Wilcox 1990; Mansbridge and Tate 1992; Gay and Tate 1998). With this in mind, I begin by discussing the literature on black feminist consciousness and how the concept might be empirically measured. Based on this literature, I derive a set of testable hypotheses about the determinants of black feminist consciousness and its overall impact on black political behavior. Using data from the 1993 National Black Politics Study—a unique study in that it contains questions measuring black feminist consciousness—I construct a highly sophisticated and explanatory model of black political behavior