Changing the rules of the game the role of discrimination, intersecionality and system justification in black women's collective action

Abstract

The collective action of minorities is a widely studied phenomenon in social psychology. Factors such as being a victim of discrimination, group identity and system justification can be used to understand this phenomenon. Drawing on a long tradition of social psychological research on the response of disadvantaged groups to societal discrimination they face, we examined the conditions under which women and Black women respond to gender discrimination by engaging in collective actions that challenge gender inequality and those that motivate conservative, status-based collective actions. We posited the main hypothesis that discriminated women engage in collective action for social change (as opposed to conservative action) as a function of individual differences in ingroup gender and criticizing the gender hierarchy of the system's gender. We tested this hypothesis in five experimental studies, which are summarized in three empirical articles. In the first article, we analyzed ingroup identification as a moderating factor in the relationship between discrimination and collective action. The results showed that the mere salience of discrimination was not sufficient for collective action (Study 1, N = 147). In Study 2 (N = 214), we analyzed the combined moderating role of ingroup identification and system justification in collective action and confirmed that the influence of discrimination salience on women's engagement in collective action for gender equality was moderated by group identification and system justification. In Study 3 (N = 205), we focused on identity content and system justification as moderators of the influence of discrimination on collective action. As we predicted, participants in the discrimination condition indicated a greater intention to engage in collective action for equality, but this only occurred among women high in group identification and low in system justification. In the second article, we conducted an experimental investigation (Study 4, N=198) to address the question of whether gender and racial identity and system justification play a role in Black women's collective action to reduce social inequalities and conservative collective action in a context of intersectional racial and sexist discrimination. The results showed that Black women in a situation of racial discrimination were more likely to intend to take collective action to reduce social inequalities when they were critical of the system, and this effect also occurred among women who maintain low gender identification. Black women who have lower racial identification were more likely to respond to conservative collective action, and this effect also occurred among women with low system justification. In the third article (Study 5, N = 240), we confirmed that Black women's collective action is caused by actual discrimination in situations of sexism and racism/sexism, their high satisfaction with group identification, and low system justification. To summarize, the pattern of results supports our main hypothesis that women respond with more engagement in collective action to promote gender equality, conditional on individual differences in group identification and their motivation to justify the system. Furthermore, the mere salience of intersectional discrimination against Black women is not enough to motivate them to take collective action for equality or to preserve the system. However, the actual discrimination they have been victimized by has a direct impact on collective action, in line with their individual differences in gender and racial identification and their critique of system hierarchies.