William A. Smith, distinguished professor at the University of Utah, is the lead author of a new article examining how anti-Black misogyny shapes the experiences of Black women throughout their lifetime.
Dr. Smith and his co-authors from the University of Utah, the University of Maryland, Stanford University, and Vanderbilt University define anti-Black misogyny as “the structural system through which people, institutions, and environments interpret and regulate Black women’s bodies, emotions, and intellectual contributions across a continuum ranging from apathy and indifference to hostility and overt hatred.”
To understand how Black women are affected by anti-Black misogyny, the research team conducted a series of semi-structured interviews with a group of Black women who resided in multiple regions in the U.S. The participants ranged in age from their mid-20s to mid-60s and had varying levels of educational attainment.
The study participants cited early schooling as their first sustained exposure to anti-Black misogyny, which accumulates throughout adolescence, postsecondary education, professional contexts, and crisis conditions. In early childhood, participants reported learning expectations to regulate their tone, manage emotions, and avoid punishment. By adolescence, these expectations evolved into strategies to navigate heightened surveillance, peer racial aggression, and academic discouragement from their teachers.
Participants described similar strategies during their postsecondary education at historically White institutions. Although they initially expected greater intellectual freedom and institutional support in academia, participants said anti-Black misogyny reappeared in more complex and consequential forms. They had to navigate racialized assumptions about their competence and often felt pressure to manage peers’ and faculty members’ discomfort.
In professional life, participants reported patterns of tone policing, exclusion from decision-making, intensified scrutiny, and diminished support, which required them to manage their emotions, defend their competence, and remain professional under chronic scrutiny. These patterns were accelerated in crisis contexts, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, which exposed the fragility of support systems and magnified the psychological, emotional, behavioral, and self-reported demands Black women carried across their lifetime.
“Racialized gender dynamics encountered early do not diminish with age, educational attainment, or professional advancement. Instead, they evolve and intensify as Black girls and women move through historically White institutions marked by higher stakes, increased visibility, and heightened scrutiny,” the authors write. “These patterns challenge assumptions that education or professional status protect Black women from racialized gender harm, showing instead that advancement often introduces new demands for surveillance management, emotional regulation, and institutional navigation.”
At the University of Utah, Dr. Smith is the co-founder of the Center for Research on Race, Health Justice & Public Policy, chief executive administrator for the Huntsman Mental Health Institute, and the John M. Huntsman Presidential Chair. He is known for coining the concept of “Racial Battle Fatigue,” a systemic racism-related repetitive stress injury resulting from the cumulative mental and physical toll of racial aggressions on those targeted by racism. His scholarly publications include The Racial Crisis in American Higher Education: The Continuing Challenges for the 21st Century (State University of New York Press, 2023), which is now in its third edition.
Dr. Smith earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in psychology from Eastern Illinois University and his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
