Structural Heteropatriarchy, Sexuality, and Stress-Related Physiological Functioning Among Black and White Young Adult Women

• In Event: 50210 - Health Inequalities Across the Life Course

Abstract

Recent literature shows that structural heteropatriarchy (SHP) is a determinant of women’s reproductive health, and that these associations are patterned by race/ethnicity and sexuality. Still, little is known about the role that SHP plays in shaping stress-related health outcomes among young adults, particularly for population subgroups of women. Using Waves I, III, and IV of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (N = 4,696), I conduct a race-stratified analysis exploring the relationship between SHP and allostatic load—a marker of stress-related physiological dysregulation—for young adult (average age 28) Black and White females while also focusing on differences in the association by sexual minority status. I find evidence that higher levels of exposure to SHP during adolescence and early adulthood are positively associated with allostatic load during young adulthood for both Black and White women. Findings also support effect modification by both race/ethnicity and sexuality. Specifically, SHP is more strongly associated with allostatic load among White sexual minority young women than among White heterosexual young women. There is no evidence of effect modification by sexuality among Black women. This study contributes to the sociology of women’s health by developing our understanding of the ways that social inequality manifests in the bodies of multiply marginalized women.

Author

• Sylvie Tuder, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill