Online Victimization, Womanism, and Body Esteem among Young Black Women: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach

Digital media use represents a central part of young adults’ daily life, within which social interactions increasingly center on visual content. While visual content, such as representations of self, may facilitate positive social interactivity, it may also increase susceptibility to harmful social...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inSex roles Vol. 86; no. 11-12; pp. 681 - 694
Main Authors Matsuzaka, Sara, Avery, Lanice R., Stanton, Alexis G., Espinel, Sarah
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York Springer US 01.06.2022
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects
Behavioral Science and Psychology
Black people
Body image
Everyday life
Females
Gender Studies
Human body
Internet
Intersectionality
Medicine/Public Health
Microaggressions
Online Surveys
Oppression
Original Article
Psychology
Self Concept
Social interaction
Sociology
Structural equation modeling
Structural Equation Models
Victimization
Womanism
Women
Young adults
Online victimization
Sexism
Body image
Womanism
Black women
Body esteem
Racism
Gendered racial victimization
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Summary:Digital media use represents a central part of young adults’ daily life, within which social interactions increasingly center on visual content. While visual content, such as representations of self, may facilitate positive social interactivity, it may also increase susceptibility to harmful social interactions, such as appearance-related online victimization. Black women’s bodies are often the target of gendered racial microaggressions and sexual victimization which can contribute to body image concerns. Still, the online victimization–body esteem link among Black women remains unexamined. This study used structural equation modeling to examine the associations between four categories of online victimization (i.e., general online victimization, online individual racial victimization, online vicarious racial victimization, online sexual victimization) and body esteem. We further examined whether womanism, an identity-based factor, moderated the relationship between online victimization and body esteem. A sample of 1,595 young Black women completed an online survey. Results showed that online sexual victimization was significantly negatively associated with body esteem and that high levels of womanism buffered the harmful impact of general online victimization on body esteem. Future research is needed to examine Black women’s and gender expansive people’s experiences with online gendered racial victimization along with other forms of online intersectional oppression.
ISSN:0360-0025
1573-2762
DOI:10.1007/s11199-022-01296-z