Black women’s mental health matters: Theoretical perspectives and future directions

Despite recent sociological research exploring how stratification systems impinge on the health of socially disadvantaged populations, Black women’s mental health is rarely a topic of investigation among scholars of medical sociology, sociology of race and racism, or sociology of gender. In this review, we incorporate perspectives from sociology, social psychiatry, psychology, and social work to develop a transdisciplinary intersectional model of Black women’s mental health. We also present critical interventions in the extant literature. First, though stress exposure is generally associated with poor mental health, more research is necessary to ascertain the gendered-racialized stressors to which Black women are exposed, owing to their racial and gender oppression. Second, we admonish mental health scholars to incorporate other status dimensions (e.g., nativity, sexual orientation, age) to provide a more nuanced depiction of Black women’s psychological health. Third, the unique and enduring relationship between the U.S. punishment system and the mental health of Black women should be further explicated in future research. Last, we envision a body of work on Black women’s mental health that captures the ways in which they cope with societal level marginalization, as these forms of resilience and resistance may be mental health protective.     

A Sociology of Human Rights: Rights through a Social Movements Lens

Cet article propose un cadre théorique pour développer une sociologie des droits humains en s'intéressant aux mouvements sociaux dans le but de comprendre les cultures de droits locales. Si le droit humain est une idée qui se développe historiquement principalement à travers l'État, on remarque qu'au Canada, les avancées des droits de l'homme sont le fait de militants travaillant sur le terrain. Dans cet article, on explore aussi les écrits en sociologie au Canada. Les auteurs argumentent qu'on observe un sérieux manque d'engagement de la part des sociologues anglophones et francophones au Canada et que trop peu d'entres eux proposent de réelles études nationales. Évidemment, l'accès restreint à l'information législative représente un obstacle sérieux à la recherche académique au Canada. This article offers a framework for developing a sociology of human rights using social movements to understand local rights cultures. The idea of human rights has historically been highly statist, but grass‐roots activism has been at the heart of the most profound human rights advances in Canada. The article also raises questions about the current state of sociological writing about Canada. The author contends that there is a serious lack of engagement among English and French sociologists, and too few scholars provide genuine “national” studies. Moreover, restrictive access to information legislation represents a serious obstacle to academic research in Canada.     

Gender and physical health: a study of African American and Caribbean black adults

Although gender disparities in health in the United States remain a primary concern among health professionals, less is known about this phenomenon within the black American population. Using the National Survey of American Life, the author examines gender differences in self-rated health, chronic illness, and functional limitations among African Americans (n = 3,330) and Caribbean blacks (n = 1,562) and the extent to which the availability of resources explains these differences. The results reveal a consistent disadvantage among African American women across indicators of health. The gender-health relationship among Caribbean blacks is somewhat weaker, but there is a health disadvantage for immigrant women and U.S.-born Caribbean men when certain resources are taken into account. These findings illustrate the importance of the intersections of race, ethnicity, and nativity in our understanding of gender differences in health.