Mothering While Black: Raising African American Boys and Girls and Confronting Gendered Racism

Dawn M. Dow

Associate Professor, University of Maryland

Friday 12th November, 2:30 pm - 4 pm (OSC location for internal audience or online via Zoom)

Recent events have underscored the harsh and, at times, tragic consequences of gendered racism-racial discrimination that varies based on gender- for African American children in the U.S. How do African American middle-class mothers address these challenges?

Through in-depth interviews with African American middle- and upper-middle-class mothers, Dr. Dow will discuss how gendered racism influences these mothers' concerns for their sons and daughters and how it influences how they approach parenting their children. Dr. Dow describes how for their sons, mothers were principally concerned with preventing perceptions of them as criminals or "thugs" and protecting their physical safety. By contrast, mothers were principally concerned with protecting and building their daughters' self-esteem and self-value. Mothers used different strategies to help their sons and daughters navigate these challenges.

These mothers' experiences illuminate how they prepare their children for the different societal reception they believe their sons and daughters will encounter and shed light on the work needed to build racial empathy and understanding in the contemporary era.

Dr. Dawn M. Dow is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park, a Faculty Associate in the Maryland Population Research Center, the deputy editor for the Journal of Marriage and Family, and an editorial board member of Contexts.
From 2019-2021 she served as the faculty director of the Critical Race Initiative. Dr. Dow received a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley, and earned a J.D. from Columbia University, School of Law.
Her research examines intersections of race, class, and gender within the context of the family, educational settings, the workplace, the law, and political mobilization.
She is the author of the award-winning book Mothering While Black: Boundaries and Burdens of Middle-Class Parenthood (2019), published by the University of California Press. Dr. Dow's work has appeared in journals including Gender & Society, Journal of Marriage and Family, Sociology of Race & Ethnicity, Science Advances, and Mobilization.

Registration is compulsory. Thank you.