White Fragility, Misogynoir & Sentencing Disparities: Micro Analysis of Individual Identity Influence

• In Event: Lightning Talk: Women, Parenting, Families, & Criminal Justice

Abstract

This piece examines the individual identity processes of white fragility and its relationship with whiteness, femininity, and misogynoir. This paper discusses the individual understanding of criminality, Black women, and womanhood in relation to whiteness and femininity. This is to be looked at through the eyes of white people who may or may not have an understanding of their whiteness, its privileges, and its status in the hierarchy of a structurally racist system. The criminal justice system is not built around rehabilitation but rather continues to disproportionately scrutinize and punish people of color, specifically, Black women, when it comes to sentencing. Within this history of whiteness, an intersectional lens is used to explain and analyze how misogynoir impacts Black women through the stereotypes attached to them by others that infer their criminality. This interpretation by white people, especially when compared to a white woman, is exacerbated by how they connect race to positionality, status, and inequality. This study employs a 3x3 factor analysis vignette experiment, as well as numerous scales, to determine the extent to which a person's decision-making is inherent to their ideological racial association with the defendant rather than being focused solely on the crime.

Author

• Caitlin Charles, Louisiana State University