Competition: The dating world is highly competitive. The barriers of dating are pretty much non-existent at this point and race in most cases is not an issue. On top of that if a black woman wants to date within her race the ratio of available black men to women shows that black women severely outnumber black men. That automatically makes competition between black women more intense not including what happens when other races also get involved. My friend L told me today that she feels blessed to have found a good man, but she knows that other women would jump at the chance to steal him from her. Because of this she feels the need to keep her guard up and protect her love.
Body Image Issues: I have experienced this personally many times. The problem here is America has created a negative body perception of black women. We are to become cartoons versions of ourselves in order to even get noticed. Thus we inject ourselves with fat to increase the size of our hips and butts, get nose jobs, bleach our skin, get longer hair and colored contacts. There's an odd balance between wanting to look more exotic and wanting to look normal. What is funny now that people such as Kim K and Iggy Azalea take what America has turned into negatives for black women i.e. a big butt and big lips and turned them into careers. There is also the element of colorism. Instead of just blackness as a whole there is a huge stigma placed on the specific shade. Certain connotations have been pushed into our brains since birth on the outcomes of light skin versus darker skin. This also could tie into the next factor.
Exoticizing: This can be so frustrating for women of color period. The fact of the matter is that black women can be exoticized by any race. As a mixed race woman I know that I have been approached by both black and white men alike asking about my origins, hair, and other such things. There are a couple different internal issues with this as well. We as black women need to be able to know the difference between exoticizing and curiosity. Some guys might just be curious while others want to date you as if they were trying on a new jacket or just wanting to experience us like a new exhibit at the museum. On the other hand we have to choose if we want to compromise how we feel about ourselves while dating. Now there are a lot of programs that are dedicated to taking black women out of the country in order to date outside of their race and outside of America. A lot of women in these programs have found a lot of success while others find that the exoticizing of them being African American was unbearable. On top of that I know a lot of black women are scared to date outside of their race because a lot of drama can come about. Also we as black women for some reason assume that white men won't even like us because of the color of our skin or they think we won't like them because of the color of theirs.
The Stigma: This might be the biggest factor out of the entire list. This is something that has been brought on mostly by the media. Today a black woman can do everything seemingly right when it comes to having her life together, but she will still be seen as something relating to this stigma. Many of my male friends have told me they either do not like dating black women or are scared of dating black women because they think they are loud, stingy, stuck up, ghetto, trashy, ignorant, needy, unadventurous, stereotypical, promiscuous, dependent, argumentative, angry, jealous, cold-hearted, overly emotional, disrespectful, lazy and mean. After hearing that I honestly was taking aback. Mainly because I felt that even if I worked my hardest and did everything right with getting my education and job I would still face this stigma with these attributes. What is even more wrong is that this stigma is for some reason only directly linked to black women. A lot of black women feel that even if you are smart, funny, attractive, accomplished, and outspoken it won't change how they are perceived.
Relationship Trauma: Now when I say trauma I do not necessarily mean physical, though that could play into it. I mean relationships in the past that have not worked out and have accumulated. Frankly, this could apply to women of any race but it is still a prevalent factor. Having bad or unsuccessful relationships constantly puts you in a gamblers chance mindset. After so long women may get to the point where they no longer want to date because they don't want to go through a bad relationship again and see no hope for a new one. This keeps a lot of women, especially black women, from trying when it comes to the dating scene. They choose to take solace in being single because they have more happiness in being lonely than in being in a possibly bad relationship. I personally have not dated in 3 years and have been taking the time to focus on myself and graduating. I do not know if I will even want to date when I get out of college because I have this gamblers chance psyche. There is of course a part of me that would love to find someone and get married someday and then there is a part that feels safe in being single.
All in all I just lightly touched on these specific elements as to some of the challenges women of color face when it comes to dating. I know there are tons more. I know my blaFeel free to share and comment with your thoughts on this post as well as your own experiences with relationships and maybe a few of the things on his list.
M.