Black Beauty: Womanist Consciousness as a Protective Factor in Black Women’s Body Image Satisfaction

Abstract

Black American women are exposed to mainstream beauty standards, which may have implications for body image satisfaction. Given that beauty standards are often based on idealized depictions of White women’s physical features, scholars have called for body image research that extends beyond body type/weight (e.g., skin tone/hair) to better examine the experiences of Black women. In examining body image satisfaction and protective factors (e.g., ethnic identity), empirical research has yet to attend to these experiences at the intersection of race/ethnicity and gender. An online survey was used to examine whether womanist consciousness (WC) was a protective factor for Black American women (N = 211). Findings indicated that after controlling for ethnic identity, higher womanist consciousness significantly predicted higher body satisfaction with historically racially defined features (e.g., skin tone/hair) and lower self-ideal discrepancy. Darker skin tone was linked to higher body importance and higher ethnic identity level. Last, increased frequency of wearing hair weaves was associated with lower body satisfaction while more frequently wearing Afrocentric hair styles/textures was associated with higher body satisfaction.