Black Women's Agency in U.S. Institutions

Mara Stewart

Black Women’s Agency in U.S. Institutions: HIV/AIDS Activism and the Health Care System

Location: Art Gallery • Time: 4:00-4:15 PM

Due to deficiencies in access and quality of care in the traditional health care system, black women have been working to educate, fight, and help prevent HIV/AIDS in their communities. This presentation will highlight black women’s activism as patients and providers, as they work inside and outside health care organizations for personal and community empowerment.

Laura Sippel

Black Women’s Agency in U.S. Institutions: Worship in the Black Church

Location: Art Gallery • Time: 4:15-4:30 PM

This presentation examines how Black women act as active agents within the Black church, working to advance their social position and gain upward mobility despite barriers and inequalities created by systems of race, gender and class. I identify that much of Black women’s agency and empowerment within the Black church develops from and can further motivate liberating styles of worship, such as gospel music, prayer groups, educational leadership, and the inclusion of Black Liberation and Womanist theologies in sermons. In examining the agency of Black women within the Black church, I reveal the significant role the institution of religion plays in building an affirmative community that all members of a marginalized group can participate in.

Jocelyn Gesner

Black Women’s Agency in U.S. Institutions: Navigating Tracking and Curriculum Design

Location: Art Gallery • Time: 4:30-4:45 PM

The education system is one of the many institutions in the United States that is set up to fail certain groups of people. This brief talk addresses the ways that black women attempt to use the education system to their own benefit, despite exclusionary practices such as educational tracking and curriculum development.

Issa Rae, Mara Brock Akil, Debbie Allen, Shonda Rhimes and Ava DuVernay Essence Magazine

Eddi Kristina Lee-Barger

Black Women’s Agency in U.S. Institutions: Shaping Society through the Television Industry

Location: Art Gallery • Time: 4:45-5:00 PM

My presentation is focused on black women in the television industry by analyzing their active participation and agency within the television industry. The television industry is massive part of the social institution of mass media that greatly shapes our everyday lives. The television industry is large part of how Americans get their news and entertainment. We cannot fully understand television as an industry that influences society without examining the work that black women are doing in it. Black women are actively shaping the television industry through behind the scenes work and on stage work. They are contributing to the way the industry runs and what it produces. It is important to understand how their position as a racialized and gendered minority within the television industry and society affects an industry that so heavily influences society.

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