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In September 2008, a picture of a serious lookingMichelle Obama appeared on the cover of RadarMagazine above the tag line, “What’s So Scary About Michelle Obama?” The accompanying article,described as, “An Insider’s Guide to America’s Next

First Lady,” provided a list of FAQs and answerslike,“Why is she so angry?” (“She’s not angry; she ispassionate”). 

According to Columbia Business School professorKatherine Phillips, this cover story highlights acommon cultural image of African-American women – that they are controlling, demanding, angry, and

threatening. Women are not supposed to behave in these kinds of dominant ways, according tocultural norms. The Backlash Effect

Instead, Phillips explained in her recent talk at Stanford, women are expected to be friendly andnurturing and to behave demurely. Consequently, when women act in assertive ways they arepenalized for violating culturally sanctioned ideas about femininity. For example, Phillips noted onestudy which found that when women talk up their skills and abilities during a job interview it decreaseshow much people like them and decreases their likelihood of being hired compared to men whoengage in the same self-promoting behavior.

This backlash effect, or the negative evaluation of women for displaying dominant or leadershipcharacteristics, is a well-established finding…but only for white women.  It turns out, Phillips said, “thatwhen you look at this research it’s all done on white women compared to white men. There is noconsideration of other women like African- American or Asian women.” Intrigued by this lack of

research, Phillips decided to look at how race and gender come together and shape the backlasheffect.

Race, Gender, and Stereotypes

When she began her investigation, Phill ips had reason to suspect that the backlash effect might playout differently for black females than for white females because of their distinctly disadvantaged statusas members of not just one but two less powerful groups – African-Americans and women. In fact,conventional thinking in academic circles held that black women have a harder time than all othergroups because they face a kind of double jeopardy (racism + sexism). However, as Phillips’ researchgot underway she discovered something counterintuitive – in leadership contexts, black womenappeared to be helped, not held back, by the angry black woman stereotype.

Stereotypes may help black women succeed by Marianne Cooper on Monday, September 5, 2011 – 3:00am 

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2010 Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved.

An initial study conducted by Phillips and hercolleagues that examined the desirability of certaincharacteristics among different groups (whitewomen, black women etc.) found that people wantwhite women to be nicer and more communal(agreeable, compassionate, warm) than white menand want white men to be more dominant than white

women. In contrast, people do not expect blackwomen to be more communal than blackmen. Instead, people were more open to blackwomen possessing dominant traits than they were toblack men possessing them. From this first study,Phillips concluded that societal stereotypes abouthow white and black women ought to behave meanthat in any given social situation black women can beless nice and more domineering than white womenare allowed to be.

After determining that black women are given moreAfter determining that black women are given more leeway than white women to be independent andaggressive, Phillips decided to then see how these stereotypes interact with the backlash effect. In a

second, follow-up study, Phillips and her colleagues had evaluators rate the likeability and hireability oftwo equally dominant female job candidates who only differed from each other by race (white vs.black). The results of the study showed a clear backlash effect for the dominant white, femalecandidate – she was less liked and less likely to be hired. The dominant black, female candidate faredmuch better – she was more liked and more likely to be hired.

African-American Women Don’t Always Face Double Jeopardy 

Phillips’ findings are startling because they upend the widespread belief that African-American womenalways face a double jeopardy. What her results show is that in certain situations, like leadershipcontexts, the angry black women stereotype might give black women a leg up over other groups ofwomen.  As Phillips explained, such stereotypes, “may actually free black women to display the kind of dominance and agentic traits that white women are proscribed from doing…black women may be in a

unique position to, in fact, step into leadership positions, be embraced in leadership positions, andhopefully there may be some good outcomes out of that.”  

While some in the audience welcomed Phillips results as cause for celebration, Phillips cautioned thatthe way race, gender, as well as class interact is extremely complex and that more research needs tobe done to understand how these social forces play out for different people in different places. Forexample, Phillips noted, the angry black woman stereotype might produce negative outcomes for poorblack women trying to obtain entry-level jobs. Phillips hopes that her study will lead to more empiricalresearch on questions about the intersection of race and gender in the business world.  

Katherine Phillips the Paul Calello Professor of Leadership and Ethics at the Columbia Business School. Professor Phillips is an alum of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and was a visiting 

faculty member in Organizational Behavior at the Stanford GSB as well as a visiting scholar at the Center for Advanced Studies in Behavioral Sciences at Stanford (CASBS) from 2010- 2011. Phillips’ talk was co-sponsored by the Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research and the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity