Sapphires and Superwomen: The Role of Ambivalent Sexism, Religiosity, and Internalized Racism on Perceptions of Intimate Partner Violence

This study was conducted with the aim of exploring a previously understudied role of internalized racism and Black female Stereotypes (the Sapphire and Superwoman) in encouraging the perpetuation of intimate partner violence (IPV) within the African community, in addition to more well-known factors such as ambivalent sexism and religiosity. Currently, it is the first experimental study into the hypothesis that internalized racism and endorsement of Black female stereotypes are not only strongly positively correlated with violence, but also act as significant positive predictors of individual attitudes towards Intimate Partner Violence alongside hostile sexism and religiosity. It was also hypothesized that there would be gender differences between scores, as male participants would score higher on the more overtly antagonistic measures (hostile sexism and Sapphire stereotype endorsement) while female participants would score higher on subjectively benign measures (benevolent sexism and Superwoman stereotype endorsement). The findings revealed that, while these hypotheses were largely supported by the results – with internalized racism being the strongest predictor of IPV attitudes amongst both genders – religiosity was unexpectedly found to be a negative predictor of IPV, especially in women. These results are discussed further in the literature. Keywords: Ambivalent Sexism, Stereotype, Sapphire, Superwoman, African, Intimate Partner Violence, Islam, Christianity, Religiosity