Transmuting Girls Into Women: Examining the Adultification of Black Female Sexual Assault Survivors Through Twitter Feedback

Abstract

The present study explored the adultification of young Black girls, specifically through the mythos of the fast-tailed girl, by examining the commentary on Twitter associated with the #SurvivingRKelly hashtag. Applying critical discourse analysis, three discursive themes emerged: (1) calling out the culture of accepting, (2) resistance through provocation and inquiry, and (3) challenging transgenerational dating. This study's results indicate the need for further research on the social construction of Black girlhood and how societal and cultural beliefs may serve as discursive mechanisms by which the adultification of young Black girls is perpetuated.

Keywords

Black girls Twitter adultification Surviving R. Kelly critical discourse analysis (CDA)fast-tailed girls sexual abuse

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Acquaviva

B. L.

O’Neal

E. N.

Clevenger

S. L.

(2021). Sexual assault awareness in the #Metoo era: Student perceptions of victim believability and cases in the media. American Journal of Criminal Justice, 46(1), 6–32. https://doi.org/0.1007/s12103-020-09585-7.

Amin

Austrian

Chau

Glazer

Green

E. P.

Stewart

Stoner

(2013). The adolescent girls vulnerability index: Guiding strategic investment in Uganda. UNICEF. https://doi.org/10.31899/pgy11.1005 .

Amuzu

E. A.

(2019). Fast tailed girls: A qualitative analysis of adult African American women’s early gender and sex-related socialization messages. (80), ProQuest Information & Learning.

Armstrong

E. A.

Gleckman-Krut

Johnson

(2018). Silence, power, and inequality: An intersectional approach to sexual violence. Annual Review of Sociology, 44, 99–122. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-073117-041410.

Aroustamian

(2019). Time’s up: Recognising sexual violence as a public policy issue: A qualitative content analysis of sexual violence cases and the media. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 50, 101341. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2019.101341.

Bailey

. (2016). Misogynoir in medical media: On Caster Semenya and R. Kelly. Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience, 2(2), 1–31. https://doi.org/10.28968/cftt.v2i2.28800.

Bailey

(2021). Misogynoir transformed: Black women’s digital resistance. New York University Press.

Bailey

Trudy . (2018). On misogynoir: Citation, erasure, and plagiarism. Feminist Media Studies, 18(4), 762–768. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2018.1447395.

Banner

. (2016). Honest victim scripting in the Twitterverse. William & Mary Journal of Women and the Law, 22, 495. https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmjowl/vol22/iss3/3 .

10.

Bantebya

Ochen

Pereznieto

Walker

. (2014). Cross-generational and transactional sexual relations in Uganda. Overseas Development Institute 2014 Report. Overseas Development Institute, 1–36. https://odi.org/en/publications/cross-generational-and-transactional-sexual-relations-in-uganda-income-poverty-as-a-risk-factor-for-adolescents-full-report/#:~:text=From%20a%20child%20protection%20perspective,cross%2Dgenerational%20relationships%20become%20transactional.

11.

Bauder

(2012). Nielsen study shows people using twitter while watching tv, going to the bathroom. Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/03/nielsen-study-twitter_n_2230571.html.

12.

Bell

C. C.

Mattis

. (2000). The importance of cultural competence in ministering to African American victims of domestic violence. Violence Against Women, 6, 515–532. https://doi.org/10.1177/10778010022182001.

13.

Black Women’s Blueprint. (2012). The truth commission on Black women and sexual violence. https://www.bwbtraining.org/the-truth-and-reconciliation.

14.

Bradley

(2019). Surviving R. Kelly breaks lifetime ratings record. https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/01/surviving-r-kelly-ratings-lifetime.

15.

Braun

Clarke

(2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101. https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa.

16.

Brock

(2012). From the Blackhand side: Twitter as a cultural conversation. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 56(4), 529–549. https://doi.org/10.1080/08838151.2012.732147.

17.

Byrd

. (2019). Silence and the inner lives of Black nationalist women. Journal of Civil and Human Rights, 5(1), 98–103. https://doi.org/10.5406/jcivihumarigh.5.1.0098.

18.

Carby

H. V

. (1992). Policing the Black woman’s body in an urban context. Critical Inquiry, 18, 738–755. https://doi.org/10.1086/448654.

19.

Collins

P. H

(1990). Black feminist thought in the matrix of domination. In P.H. Collins (Ed.) Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment (2n ed., pp. 221–238). Routledge.

20.

Collins

P. H.

Bilge

(2016). Intersectionality. John Wiley & Sons.

21.

Corden

A. S. R.

(2005). Volunteering for employment skills: A qualitative research study. Social Policy Research Unit.

22.

Crenshaw

(1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 139–167. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429500480-5.

23.

Da Silva

N. F. F.

Coletta

L. F. S.

Hruschka

E. R

. (2016). A survey and comparative study of tweet sentiment analysis via semi-supervised learning. ACM Computing Surveys, 49, 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1145/2932708.

24.

Dobson

Knezevic

. (2018). “Ain’t nobody got time for that!”: Framing and stereotyping in legacy and social media. Canadian Journal of Communication, 43(3), 381–397. https://doi.org/10.22230/cjc.2019v44n3a3378.

25.

Donovan

R. A.

(2011). Tough or tender: (Dis) similarities in white college students’ perceptions of black and white women. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 35(3), 458–468. https://doi.org/10.1177/0361684311406874.

26.

Epstein

Blake

Gonzalez

(2017). Girlhood interrupted: The erasure of black girls’ childhood. Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality. https://www.law.georgetown.edu/poverty-inequality-center/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2017/08/girlhood-interrupted.pdf .

27.

Fairclough

(2014). Critical language awareness. Routledge.

28.

Fox

Cruz

Lee

J. Y

. (2015). Perpetuating online sexism offline: Anonymity, interactivity, and the effects of sexist hashtags on social media. Computers in Human Behavior, 52, 436–442. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.06.024.

29.

George

W. H.

Martínez

L. J

. (2002). Victim blaming in rape: Effects of victim and perpetrator race, type of rape, and participant racism. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 26, 110–119. https://doi.org/10.1111/1471-6402.00049.

30.

Golafshani

. (2003). Understanding reliability and validity in qualitative research. The Qualitative Report, 8, 597–607. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2003.1870.

31.

Gómez

J. M.

Gobin

R. L.

(2020). Black women and girls & #MeToo: Rape, cultural betrayal, & healing. Sex Roles, 82(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-019-01040-0.

32.

Hancock

A. M.

(2016). Intersectionality: An intellectual history. Oxford University Press.

33.

Harp

Grimm

Loke

. (2018). Rape, storytelling and social media: How twitter interrupted the news media’s ability to construct collective memory. Feminist Media Studies, 18, 979–995. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2017.1373688.

34.

Helman

(2018). Mapping the unrapeability of white and black womxn. Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity, 32(4), 10–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/10130950.2018.1533302.

35.

Hine

D. C.

(1992). Rape and the inner lives of southern black women: Thoughts on the culture of dissemblance. In Bernhard

Brandon

Fox-Genovese

Perdue

(Eds.), Southern women: Histories and identities (pp. 177–189). University of Missouri Press.

36.

hooks

(1981). Ain’t I A woman: Black women and feminism. Routledge.

37.

Hussen

S. A.

Bowleg

Sangaramoorthy

Malebranche

D. J

. (2012). Parents, peers and pornography: The influence of formative sexual scripts on adult HIV sexual risk behaviour among Black men in the USA. Culture, Health & Sexuality, 14, 863–877. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691058.2012.703327.

38.

Iberer

(2019). Points of views: Post documentary interviews and reactions on social media surrounding the women in the documentary Surviving R. Kelly [Unpublished master’s thesis]. Malmö universite.

39.

Ilgen

D. R.

Fisher

C. D.

Taylor

M. S

. (1979). Consequences of individual feedback on behavior in organizations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 64, 349. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.64.4.349.

40.

Jackson

S. J

. (2016). (Re) imagining intersectional democracy from black feminism to hashtag activism. Women’s Studies in Communication, 39, 375–379. https://doi.org/10.1080/07491409.2016.1226654.

41.

Kio

S. I

. (2015). Feedback theory through the lens of social networking. Issues in Educational Research, 25(2), 135–152.

42.

Krebs

C. P.

Lindquist

C. H.

Barrick

(2010). The historically black college and university campus sexual assault (HBCU-CSA) study . National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice. https://doi.org/10.1037/e545562011-001.

43.

Lang

D. L.

Sales

J. M.

Salazar

L. F.

Hardin

J. W.

Diclemente

R. J.

Wingood

G. M.

Rose

. (2011). Rape victimization and high risk sexual behaviors: Longitudinal study of African-American adolescent females. Western Journal of Emergency Medicine, 12, 333–342.

44.

Lincoln

Y. S.

Guba

E. G.

(1985). Naturalistic inquiry. Sage.

45.

Lindquist

C. H.

Crosby

C. M.

Barrick

Krebs

C. P.

Settles-Reaves

. (2016). Disclosure of sexual assault experiences among undergraduate women at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUS). Journal of American College Health, 64, 469–480. https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2016.1181635.

46.

Lindsey

T. B.

(2018). Ain’t nobody got time for that: anti-black girl violence in the era of # SayHerName. Urban Education, 53(2), 162–175. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085917747098.

47.

Luke

Kurz

(2002). Cross-generational and transactional sexual relations in sub-Saharan Africa. International Center for Research on Women (ICRW).

48.

Maben

Helvie-Mason

. (2017). When twitter meets advocacy: A multicultural undergraduate research project from a first-year seminar. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 29, 162–176.

49.

Mendes

Ringrose

Keller

. (2018). #Metoo and the promise and pitfalls of challenging rape culture through digital feminist activism. European Journal of Women’s Studies, 25, 236–246. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350506818765318.

50.

Merken

James

(2019). Perpetrating the myth: Exploring media accounts of rape myths on “women’s” networks. Deviant Behavior, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/01639625.2019.1603531.

51.

Midha

(2014). Study: Exposure to tv tweets drives consumers to take action-both on and off of twitter. https://blog.twitter.com/official/en_us/a/2014/study-exposure-to-tv-tweets-drives-consumers-to-take-action-both-on-and-off-of-twitter.html.

52.

Morgan

J. L.

(2011). Laboring women: Reproduction and gender In New World slavery. University of Pennsylvania Press.

53.

Morris

(2016). Pushout: The criminalization of Black girls in schools. The New Press.

54.

Mwangi

Chrystal

Bettencourt

G. M.

Malaney

V. K

. (2016). Collegians creating (counter) space online: A critical discourse analysis of the I, too, am social media movement. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 11, 146–163. http://doi.org/10.1037/dhe0000054 .

55.

Nash

S. T

. (2005). Through Black eyes: African American women’s constructions of their experiences with intimate male partner violence. Violence Against Women, 11, 1420–1440. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801205280272.

56.

Parker

(2018). Fast tailed girls: An inquiry into black girlhood, black womanhood, and the politics of sexuality. Honors thesis, Duke University. https://hdl.handle.net/10161/16717 .

57.

Pérez

(2016). The ontology of twerk: From ‘sexy’ Black movement style to Afro-Diasporic sacred dance. African and Black Diaspora: An International Journal, 9(1), 16–31. https://doi.org/10.1080/17528631.2015.1055650.

58.

Pew Research Center. (2021). Social media fact sheet. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/social-media/? menuItem=2fc5fff9-9899-4317-b786-9e0b60934bcf.

59.

Phillips

(2015). Black girls and the (im) possibilities of a victim trope: The intersectional failures of legal and advocacy interventions in the commercial sexual exploitation of minors in the United States. UCLA Law Review, 62, 1642.

60.

Potter

Wetherell

(1987). Discourse and social psychology: Beyond attitudes and behaviour. Sage.

61.

Rossie

(2015). Moving beyond ‘Am I pretty or ugly?’: Disciplining girls through YouTube feedback. Continuum, 29, 230–240. https://doi.org/10.1080/10304312.2015.1022953.

62.

Smith

, (2014). African Americans and technology use. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2014/01/06/african-americans-and-technology-use/ .

63.

Smith

S. G.

Zhang

Basile

K. C.

Merrick

M. T.

Wang

Kresnow

Chen

(2018). National intimate partner and sexual violence survey: 2015 data brief. National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

64.

Smith-Evans

George

Graves

F. G.

Kaufmann

L. S.

Frohlich

(2014). Unlocking opportunity for African American girls: A call to action for educational equity. National Women’s Law Center.

65.

Sommerville

D. M.

(2005). Rape and race in the nineteenth-century south. University of North Carolina Press.

66.

Ssewanyana

Kasirye

(2012). Poverty and inequality dynamics in Uganda: Insights from the Uganda national panel surveys 2005/6 and 2009/10 . Economic Policy Research Centre, https://doi.org/10.22004/ag.econ.148953.

67.

Starks

Brown Trinidad

(2007). Choose your method: A comparison of phenomenology, discourse analysis, and grounded theory. Qualitative Health Research, 17(10), 1372–1380. https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732307307031.

68.

Streitfeld

(2008, June 14). R. Kelly is acquitted in child pornography case. New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/14/arts/music/14kell.html.

69.

Stubbs-Richardson

Rader

N. E.

Cosby

A. G

. (2018). Tweeting rape culture: Examining portrayals of victim blaming in discussions of sexual assault cases on twitter. Feminism & Psychology, 28, 90–108. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959353517715874.

70.

Suler

. (2004). The online disinhibition effect. Cyber Psychology & Behavior, 7, 321–326. https://doi.org/10.1089/1094931041291295.

71.

Tillet

Scheherazade

(2019, January 10). After the ‘Surviving R. Kelly’ Documentary, #metoo has finally returned to Black girls. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/10/opinion/r-kelly-documentary-metoo.html.

72.

Tillman

Bryant-Davis

Smith

Marks

(2010). Shattering silence: Exploring barriers to disclosure for African American sexual assault survivors. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 11(2), 59–70. https://doi.org/10.1177/1524838010363717.

73.

Townsend

T. G.

Neilands

T. B.

Thomas

A. J.

Jackson

T. R.

(2010). I’m no jezebel; I am young, gifted, and black: Identity, sexuality, and black girls. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 34(3), 273–285. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.2010.01574.x.

74.

UNICEF (2007). U.N. Study on violence against children in Uganda. UNICEF.

75.

Washington

P. A

. (2001). Disclosure patterns of black female sexual assault survivors. Violence Against Women, 7, 1254–1283. https://doi.org/10.1177/10778010122183856.

76.

Welch

(2019). “Dirty John” and “Surviving R. Kelly” lead the cable live + 7 ratings for December 31, 2018 – January 6, 2019. https://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/dvr-ratings/cable-live-7-ratings-dec-31-2018-jan-6-2019/.

77.

West

(2008). Mammy, jezebel, sapphire, and their homegirls: Developing an “oppositional gaze” toward the images of black women. In Chrisler

J. C.

Golden

Rozee

P. D.

(Eds.), Lectures on the psychology of women (pp. 287–286). McGraw Hill.

78.

Whiting

J. B.

Dansby Olufowote

Cravens-Pickens

J. D.

Banford Witting

(2019). Online blaming and intimate partner violence: A content analysis of social media comments. The Qualitative Report, 24(1), 78–94. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2019.3486.

79.

Williams

. (2015). Digital defense: Black feminists resist violence with hashtag activism. Feminist Media Studies, 15, 341–344. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2015.1008744.

80.

Wood

L. A.

Kroger

R. O.

(2000). Doing discourse analysis: Methods for studying action in talk and text. Sage.

81.

Yiga

(2010). Assessment report on development of a national child protection system and community child protection responses in Uganda. OAK Foundation.

82.

Zimmerman

A. G.

Ybarra

G. J

. (2016). Online aggression: The influences of anonymity and social modeling. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 5, 181–193. https://doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000038.

83.

Zounlome

N. O.

Wong

Y. J.

Klann

E. M.

David

J. L.

Stephens

N. J.

(2019). “No On, E…saves black girls”: Black university women’s understanding of sexual violence. The Counseling Psychologist, 47(6), 873–908. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011000019893654.nn.