Communication Currents

New Series, Vol. 1, No. 8

Black women face a unique combination of anti-Black racism and misogyny (i.e., hatred of women), the combination of these oppressive forces referred to as misogynoir. Similarly, women who claim space in the public sphere, especially Black women, are often subject to a centuries-long trope, known as the public woman, which conflates prominent women with prostitutes solely on the basis of their visibility in the public sphere. While the authors do not problematize sex work, they use diachronic (i.e., across multiple historical periods) and synchronic (i.e.,  at this specific moment in time) analysis to articulate how the conflation of the public woman with dishonorable implications of prostitution has been used historically to circumscribe (Black) women’s political agency and how this trope is contemporarily “supercharged” by digital misogynoir in the form of widely circulated racist and misogynistic memes in the case of Vice President and Presidential nominee, Kamala Harris. Moreover, the public woman trope is notably infused with harsh criticism, hypersexualization, and assumptions of bad behavior and intentions, again, solely based on a woman’s publicity such that she loses her claims to morality and social capital by simply being a highly visible public figure. 

Using thin description, or compiling a collection of anecdotes across time and space for analysis, the authors present eight different artifacts to illustrate how (Black) public women who have claimed public space have been marginalized and discredited through harsh criticism and the conflation of their publicness with prostitution throughout history. These anecdotes include an 1862 General Order which criminalized any perceived insult or show of contempt toward an officer or soldier as an act of solicitation; an 1863 prostitution license that used the phrase “public woman” as a synonym for prostitution; nineteenth century art and medical textbooks containing evidence of white supremacist discourses that treated all Black women as prostitutes; an 1895 editor’s open letter in response to Ida B. Wells’s anti-lynching work condemning her, and Black women at large, as “prostitutes and ... natural liars and thieves;” the December 1895 arrest of Amelia Elizabeth “Lizzie” Schauer who was charged with disorderly conduct after asking two men for directions while alone on the street; a 1915 German-made porcelain figure caricaturizing a Black woman, possibly Sojourner Truth; the Jezebel archetype which stereotypically portrays Black women as sexually deviant and aggressive; and the use of the word “ho” in popular culture (e.g., rap and hip hop) referring to (Black) women. Taken together, this evidence illustrates how public women, especially Black public women, were and are still disciplined, controlled, and how their exploitation and harm for advocating about public concerns is justified through public discourse. Moreover, while white affluent women can thwart this trope through various strategies including acting in accordance with prescribed gender roles of domesticity or capitalizing on stereotypes of white innocence, Black women are afforded significantly fewer tactics to combat such accusations and perceptions. 

As the authors point out, recent Pew Research Center data suggests that roughly 20% of adults consume political news from social media sources, making how misogynoir operates in the digital rhetorical context highly relevant to the upcoming Presidential election. Moreover, as the authors articulated the use of the aforementioned institutional and cultural artifacts as tools for surveillance and control, they also highlight the use of similar tools enmeshed with social media platforms and content, including the use of memes and other digital shorthand to circulate and amplify harmful hegemonic stereotypes, such as the public woman in the case of Harris. Because these memes, hashtags, and their content is widely distributed so casually, misogynoir becomes entrenched in public discourse because presenting it in this format makes it appear “reasonable, descriptive, and true.” Although the sexualizing and objectifying nature of media coverage of (predominantly white) women candidates is somewhat widely acknowledged, Harris’s political authority is uniquely minimized through misogynoir to hypersexualize her and subsequently punish her for that same hypersexualization. Among the toxic archive, or collection of pieces of evidence of this despicable discourse targeting Harris compiled by authors, is a compelling data point that illustrates fake news about Harris being four times as prevalent as fake news about Tim Kaine in 2016 and Mike Pence in 2020. The authors also briefly touch upon more benevolent stereotypes applied to Harris such as “Momala” and the “funt” (i.e., fun aunt) and suggest that Harris’s embracement of a maternal status could be construed as an act of agency within the constraints of misogynoir by which she counters negative connotations of the public woman but also may be limiting as a “modern mammy” or “Black lady” frame. Although this rhetorical action by Harris is outside of the scope of the authors’ current analysis, it further illustrates the functions of misogynoir to constrain Harris’s authority and render white supremacist violence as an enduring, ambient threat.  

Communication Currents Discussion Questions 

1. How does the trope of the "public woman" function as a tool of hegemonic oppression that goes beyond sexism to include racism and classism? Can you think of other examples in history or modern times where Black women in public roles were discredited in similar ways? 
2. Reflect on your own experiences with social media. Have you ever encountered or shared content that, upon reflection, may perpetuate harmful stereotypes or ideologies? In what ways do memes and digital content perpetuate oppressive ideologies like misogynoir, racism, and classism? Why do you think this type of content is often considered acceptable in public discourse? How can we be more mindful of our role in spreading oppressive narratives? 
3. The essay discusses how Kamala Harris faces misogynoir, particularly in the form of hypersexualization. How does this reflect broader patterns of control over Black women's bodies in public life? Why are Black women afforded fewer strategies to combat these perceptions compared to white women? Consider the "Momala" and "funt" labels ascribed to Kamala Harris. In what ways might these benevolent stereotypes serve as a form of containment or limitation within the framework of misogynoir? How do they illustrate the tension between agency and constraint? 

For additional suggestions about how to use this and other Communication Currents in the classroom, see: https://www.natcom.org/publications/communication-currents/integrating-communication-currents-classroom  

About the Authors 

Cecilia Cerja (she/her) is Graduate Assistant Coach and Ph.D. Candidate in Rhetoric in the Department of Communication Studies at University of Georgia. 

Nicole D. Nave (she/her) is the Chief Executive Officer and Founder of An Ancestor’s Touch, L.L.C. 

Kelly L. Winfrey (she/her) is the Interim Director of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program and an Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Education in the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication at Iowa State University. 

Catherine Helen Palczewski (she/her) is a Professor in the Department of Communication and Media at the University of Northern Iowa. 

Leslie A. Hahner (she/her) is a Professor in the Department of Communication at Baylor University. 

This essay, by R. E. Purtell, translates the scholarly journal article, Cecilia Cerja, Nicole D. Nave, Kelly L. Winfrey, Catherine Helen Palczewski, & Leslie A. Hahner (2024): Misogynoir and the public woman: analog and digital sexualization of women in public from the Civil War to the era of Kamala Harris. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 110(1), 74–100. https://doi.org/10.1080/00335630.2023.2192262 

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