From classrooms to chaos: racialized institutional environments, anti-black misogyny, and racial battle fatigue across the life course

This study examines how anti-Black misogyny shapes Black women’s life course experiences and contributes to gendered Racial Battle Fatigue. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with twenty-five Black women across multiple U.S. regions, the analysis traces how racialized gender regulation emerges in childhood, intensifies through adolescence and postsecondary schooling, and evolves within professional environments in historically White institutions. Anti-Black misogyny is defined as the structural system through which people, institutions, and environments interpret and regulate Black women’s bodies, emotions, and intellectual contributions across a continuum ranging from apathy and indifference to hostility and overt hatred. Findings show that participants experienced patterned surveillance, disciplinary control, tone policing, academic misrecognition, and intellectual devaluation that accumulated across developmental stages and required continuous psychological, emotional, behavioral, and self-reported embodied labor. The study extends Racial Battle Fatigue by identifying two mechanisms that shape these trajectories: the Conditional Inclusion Threshold and White Racial Homeostasis Threat. Together, the findings demonstrate how anti-Black misogyny produces a systemic racism-related repetitive stress injury across the life course.