The article first looked at the real-life examples of inequality of Hedda Nussbaum a white women and Geraldine Mitchell, an African American woman. Both had almost identical circumstances, but Hedda Nussbaum had all her charges dropped well Geraldine Mitchell was found guilty of Manslaughter. To convince the judge you have BWS, you must be able to show the BWS emotional characteristics of being a “normal women, passive and fearful” (Allard 194 1991). Race plays a significant role in cultural expectations for women, and often white women are stereotyped as passive and gentle while black women inherit the negative stereotypes of being evil, angry and crazy. This automatically places black women at a disadvantage in the courtroom when trying to defend their actions. To some extent, BWS was based on the stereotypes given to white women from early social norms during slavery in the US and that makes our legal system inapplicable to women of color because our systems root creates the perception that black women are angry. Throughout our history, black women's
The article first looked at the real-life examples of inequality of Hedda Nussbaum a white women and Geraldine Mitchell, an African American woman. Both had almost identical circumstances, but Hedda Nussbaum had all her charges dropped well Geraldine Mitchell was found guilty of Manslaughter. To convince the judge you have BWS, you must be able to show the BWS emotional characteristics of being a “normal women, passive and fearful” (Allard 194 1991). Race plays a significant role in cultural expectations for women, and often white women are stereotyped as passive and gentle while black women inherit the negative stereotypes of being evil, angry and crazy. This automatically places black women at a disadvantage in the courtroom when trying to defend their actions. To some extent, BWS was based on the stereotypes given to white women from early social norms during slavery in the US and that makes our legal system inapplicable to women of color because our systems root creates the perception that black women are angry. Throughout our history, black women's