The Excess of Stress Minorities Possess – A study about minority stress among black women and bisexual women

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this study was to better understand black women and bisexual women’s experiences of minority stress, divided into three categories: stigma consciousness, sexualization and microaggressions. We also looked at differences in perceived visibility and possibility to start a romantic relationship with (white) men. This was done using five Mann-Whitney U tests. Lastly two correlation studies were made; one concerning the correlations between minority stress and ability to start romantic relationships with (white) men, and one for the correlation between visibility and our other variables. To examine this a quantitative survey was used, which included 97 participants: 52 black straight women and 45 bisexual non-black women. The results showed a statistically significant difference between black women and bisexual women in stigma consciousness, ability to start a romantic relationship, and visibility, but none for sexualization or microaggressions. The ability to start a romantic relationship positively correlated with stigma consciousness for both groups, as well as sexualization and microaggressions for black women. Visibility gave a statistically significant, positive correlation with stigma consciousness and the ability to start a romantic relationship when we looked at both groups together, but no correlation was found for the groups separately.