The Excess of Stress Minorities Possess – A study about minority stress among black women and bisexual women

Sammanfattning

The purpose of this study was to better understand black women and bisexual women’s experiences of minority stress, divided into three categories: stigma consciousness, sexualization and microaggressions. We also looked at differences in perceived visibility and possibility to start a romantic relationship with (white) men. This was done using five Mann-Whitney U tests. Lastly two correlation studies were made; one concerning the correlations between minority stress and ability to start romantic relationships with (white) men, and one for the correlation between visibility and our other variables. To examine this a quantitative survey was used, which included 97 participants: 52 black straight women and 45 bisexual non-black women. The results showed a statistically significant difference between black women and bisexual women in stigma consciousness, ability to start a romantic relationship, and visibility, but none for sexualization or microaggressions. The ability to start a romantic relationship positively correlated with stigma consciousness for both groups, as well as sexualization and microaggressions for black women. Visibility gave a statistically significant, positive correlation with stigma consciousness and the ability to start a romantic relationship when we looked at both groups together, but no correlation was found for the groups separately.