Black women academics in the United States of America and South Africa deploying principles of Feminist Decoloniality as Care (FEMDAC) to confront experiences with microaggressions

abstract

While several studies detail the experiences of university students with racial and gender harassment, bullying, and microaggressions, few explore these phenomena among Black women faculty members in higher education transnationally. This article makes a novel contribution by examining Black women’s agentic responses to marginalising experiences in higher education. Black women’s extraordinary efforts to succeed in westernised universities built on the subjugation of and from the labour of their ancestors, awareness-raising about their negative experiences, and strategies to change colleagues’ behaviours defy ‘business as usual’ in higher education. Neoliberalism, Gender and Curriculum Transformation in Higher Education is a multi-site project led by Professor Relebohile Moletsane (Moletsane & Mabokela 2019), who partners with Black women to support their academic and scholarly success. This article reviews results of a survey administered to participants to document their experiences and explore the interventions designed by Moletsane’s Feminist Decoloniality as Care (FEMDAC) investigators at universities in South Africa and America. This article describes four ways in which researchers effectively operationalise feminist decoloniality as care, by: 1) truth-telling about the impact of neoliberal institutions on the daily lives of Black women academics; 2) locating the source of academic woundedness not solely in the individual behaviours of bad actors but in systemic oppression; 3) creating opportunities for women to see the similarities in their experiences transnationally and to recognise ways in which institutional structures marginalise them; and 4) mutual support, a team mentoring approach, and reproducing Black excellence.

keywords:

• microaggressions
• feminist decoloniality
• active bystander
• Black women faculty
• transnational collaborations in higher education
• USA
• South Africa

Introduction

While several studies detail the experiences of university students with racial and gender harassment, bullying, and microaggressions (Finchilescu & Dugard 2021; Nadal et al. 2013; Lewis et al. 2021; Sue 2010), few explore these phenomena among women faculty members. This article makes a novel contribution by focusing on the agentic responses to marginalising experiences of Black¹ women in higher education institutions (HEIs) transnationally. Black women’s extraordinary efforts to succeed in westernised universities built on the subjugation of and from the labour of their ancestors, interventions to support Black women academics, awareness-raising about their experiences of academic woundedness, and strategies to change colleagues’ behaviours defy ‘business as usual’ in HEIs.

Neoliberalism, Gender and Curriculum Transformation in Higher Education is a multi-sited project led by Professor Relebohile Moletsane, who partners with Black women to support their academic and scholarly success. This article reviews results of a survey administered to participants to document Black women academics’ experiences, explore the effectiveness of interventions designed by Moletsane’s Feminist Decoloniality as Care (FEMDAC) investigators from universities in South Africa and the United States of America (USA), and to learn ways in which they operationalise feminist decoloniality as care.

Literature review and theoretical framework

Defining gendered, racial, and intersectional microaggressions

Microaggressions are defined as brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioural, and environmental indignities (Sue 2007) that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racist, sexist, ableist, transphobic, homophobic, and other chauvinist slights and insults toward minoritised groups. They thus impede inclusive cultures in higher education.

Alhough microaggressions can be subtle and are often dismissed by perpetrators, their effects can cause anger and drain the psychic energy of minoritised groups emotionally and physically (Pierce 1969, 1970, 1974; Sue 2010). This article adds to the literature on microaggressions (Sue et al. 2007; Lewis et al. 2021) by documenting how such experiences are shared by Black women faculty members in South Africa and the USA and may be amplified given that Black women occupy a combination of these intersecting social locations. In this analysis I examine both gendered intersectional microaggressions (GIMAs) alongside racial and intersectional microaggressions (RIMAs). We turn to FEMDAC survey participants, who aptly define GIMAs and RIMAs:

In a conversation with my male supervisor … I was told that I needed to be mindful of my interaction with men on the campus because I was attractive. This happened … as part of a 1:1 meeting. It made me feel like I was the problem, and that job advancement was conditional upon not being seen as promiscuous. – colleague from the USA

This Black woman academic was confronted by a male supervisor who indicated that she needed to manage her interactions due to her appearance. Often such acts lead to survivors entering a pattern of ruminating on the following types of questions: Was I just sexually harassed? Was this a verbal assault? Did this perpetrator target me as a woman, African American, or both? Is this based on his own perceptions or have others come forward? Is it even worth it to report this problematic interaction?

This is an example of a GIMA. Regardless of the intention of perpetrator(s), this faculty member reports verbal harassment. In this case it is a verbal attack against this Black woman colleague’s character. The possibility of multiple perpetrators and their hidden identities and motives adds to potential negative effects experienced by this colleague via communicating that she is not welcome to show up as her whole self and does not belong. Note that part of the insidious nature of this harassment is that without interventions, the faculty member may continue to ruminate on the incident.

In a second example, a respondent reflects on comments by white colleagues who see this faculty member as an exceptional Black female:

Sometimes it comes in the form of a supposed compliment. ‘Wow, you are doing so well! We are so proud of you as one of our leading Black woman academics’. I think these two aspects of race and gender are often inseparable and reinforce the idea that Black women are not expected to perform well. – South African colleague

Here the participant remarks on the intersectional nature of this insult. The perpetrator refers to this colleague’s race and gender. Pride in her accomplishments may imply a hierarchical relationship, versus a peer relationship. The participant wonders: Why wouldn’t the perpetrator view high achievement as the norm among Black women senior faculty members? RIMAs are often communicated by insulting ‘compliments’. A famous example is President Joe Biden’s comment about then presidential candidate Barack Obama in 2007, in which he referred to President Obama as “the first mainstream African American candidate who is articulate and bright and clean … ” (CNN 2007).

In this article I distinguish GIMAs from RIMAs. The main operational distinction was created by asking three sets of questions in the survey. I first asked which categories of experience were the most salient to online survey participants. Then, I asked questions that focused on GIMAs separately from RIMAs. I asked: “Which categories are most salient to your identity and experiences?” where respondents could make multiple selections from among the following: “I am a woman; I am non-binary; I am queer or transgender (LGBTQIA+); I am a person of color or from a racially excluded group in higher education (e.g., in USA: Black, American Indian/Indigenous, Hispanic/Latinx, Asian, Middle Eastern; and in South Africa: Black, Coloured, Mixed Race, Indian, etc.)”. Once online survey participants selected their salient identities, they were branched in the survey to answer questions about those experiences. They were then invited to identify other identities and experiences of importance. In the results below, GIMAs are distinguished from RIMAs based upon participants’ reports concerning their salient identities, and responses to questions focused on GIMAs or RIMAs.

Types of racial, gender, and intersectional microaggressions (Sue et al. 2007) discussed in the literature follow. Insults are rude and insensitive actions or comments that insult women/non-binary; Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC, which also includes Latinx, Asian American and Pacific Islander, Middle East and North Africa, Jewish, Muslim, Multiracial individuals among other groups), persons with disabilities (PWDs), queer and trans folks by signalling that the individual is considered inferior to a white male counterpart, less intelligent, a second-class citizen, and for some groups, given to behaviour and criminality inscribed upon race. As an example, I was participating in a Passover celebration one year and read a passage of the Old Testament aloud. Afterwards, a participant remarked to me, “You read so well!”. At that point in my career I had been serving as a university professor for 20 years, and I had published three books in the academic press. This ‘compliment’ was insulting.

Invalidations are actions or comments that negate or ostracise women/nonbinary, BIPOC, PWD, and/or queer and trans lived realities. They deny gendered, racialised, ableist, homophobic and transphobic experiences. Often such invalidations are unconscious. Examples follow: “sexism is not relevant here. If you work hard you will succeed” or “he didn’t mean anything by it” (in reference to aggressive behaviour toward female scholar). Another: “If you are going to succeed, you cannot be so sensitive!” Assaults are similar and typically are conscious actions meant to demean a person through deliberate and overt racial discrimination, which can be violent verbal or nonverbal attacks. Often these explicit acts are performed in secret. Some examples include lynching threats against Black Studies directors in the American southwest, and transgender individuals nationally and internationally.

Theoretical frameworks

Decoloniality has been the outgrowth of theorists and philosophers largely writing within various disciplines in the humanities. I join authors of this Special Issue in approaching the decolonial turn from both a radical Black feminist perspective and as a social scientist. In the context of HEIs, decoloniality recognises that at its origin, the westernised university,² regardless of location and demographic composition, was created to support the interests of elites in our respective societies. The wealth of the elite classes was built from the subjugation and exploitation of people of colour globally. Neoliberal logics do not challenge these origins. Further, decoloniality recognises the Eurocentricism of the westernised university and its disciplines. While Vergès explains that decolonial feminism does “not aim to improve the existing system but to combat all forms of oppression: justice for women means justice for all” (2021, p. 47), we seek here to do what may be impossible, to both “combat all forms of oppression” while at the same time working to create space within the westernised university so that Black students and scholars can find room to breathe, and so we can raise the next generation of scholar activists. This work is guided by a Black transnational decolonial feminism, inspired by Françoise Vergès (2021), Ronelle L. Carolissen and her colleague (2018), among others, that recognises that:

• Neocolonial and neoliberal spaces and logics must be disrupted and replaced, for example, “disrupting privileging of Euro-American/western epistemologies” (Carolissen & Duckett 2018).

• Tools within our areas of expertise and experience can be deployed to disrupt systems that dehumanise and oppress us.

• Individual access to scarce resources carries the grave responsibility to not only share those resources but to enhance routes of access to them for groups typically excluded from them.

• We work in community in collaborative, restorative, reciprocal and redistributive ways.

• We must connect with a decolonial feminist community of practice (CoP) to be challenged to grow, to engage in the struggle, and to challenge our neoliberal socialisation.

Guided by Black feminist theory and its intersectional framework (Crenshaw 1991; Collins 1990; Zerai & Banks 2002), and academic literature that contributes to decolonial feminist methodology (DFM), I identify tenets of DFM that I deploy in analysing intersectional microaggressions among Black women faculty members in South Africa and the USA. As I have described elsewhere (Zerai & Banks 2002; Zerai 2023):

1. DFM highlights power imbalances and relational differences – that privileged bodies in spaces that enjoy unearned advantages often resulting from extracting labour or natural resources from oppressed groups.

2. Challenging ‘objectivity’, DFM promotes socially engaged research, spurred by a passion to address inequities, an ethic of caring and personal accountability, and ultimately “committed objectivity” (Agozino 1999), that holds in balance both social scientific principles and commitment to the communities we serve (Uchendu 1965).

3. DFM values insider perspectives of minoritised groups and embraces the responsibility to collaborate with racially and culturally excluded communities, seeing them as knowledge experts, recognising strengths within these communities, and seeking to authentically represent all voices in research.

4. DFM researchers contribute to the overall enterprise within our disciplines by creating research products that are recognisable to minoritised groups and other community partners, and which contribute to a body of knowledge that we assess through humanising speech (hooks & West 1991), supportive feedback, and words of encouragement.

In this article I have partnered with Black women leaders and participants in the FEMDAC project to unveil the often hidden or simply unnoticed daily experiences of managing microaggressions while maintaining academic distinction and scholarly progress. This work helps to reveal the deep and multi-layered meanings of Black excellence in higher education.

Methods

The multi-site FEMDAC project is led by a team of researchers at universities in South Africa and the USA. As shown in Table 1, FEMDAC project leaders are located at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), Stellenbosch University, and Durban University of Technology in South Africa, and at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and the University of New Mexico in the USA. Locations of FEMDAC participants who were invited to complete the online survey included these universities, and other HEIs in South Africa and the USA.

Table 1. FEMDAC universities, credentials and faculty/instructor titles of participants and leaders

South Africa Participants and staff: PhD candidates, MA and PhD holders, instructors Leaders: lecturers, and full and endowed professors	USA Participants and staff: PhD candidates, MA and PhD holders, assistant professors, and independent researcher Leaders: professors
UKZN	University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
Durban University of Technology	University of New Mexico
Stellenbosch University	University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
University of the Witwatersrand
University of Cape Town
Cape Peninsula University of Technology

Response rates

In spring 2023, 6 leaders and 27 participants in the FEMDAC project were invited to complete the GIMA online survey (N = 33). A total of 23 survey participants provided consent and began the online survey and 19 completed the entire survey. Response rates are shown in Table 2. We achieved a response rate of 63% overall, 78% in the USA sample and 58% among participants serving at universities in South Africa. In other words, 21 of 33 invited completed 50% of the survey or more, as indicated in Table 3.

Table 2. GIMA online survey response rates

Location	Invited	Consented and completed 50% of survey or more	Response rate
South Africa	24	14	58%
USA	9	7	78%
Total	33	21	63%

Data analysis strategy

Results were generated from analyses of FEMDAC participants. This article reports findings focused on Black women, as none indicated trans, queer, or disabled identities or experiences. Participants responded to questions concerning the nature of microaggressions they faced, and how often they have endured them. They also shared how microaggressions affected them and how they countered microaggressions.

Open-ended responses provided the opportunity for participants to share their specific experiences. Responses were coded by hand, and codes were organised into major themes. After open coding, I also examined themes found in the student-focused microaggressions literature (Sue 2010), followed by themes noted in the literature on Black women’s experiences in HEIs, such as those noted by Martinez-Cola (2020, Gutiérrez y Muhs et al. (2011), Collins (1990), and other scholars of higher education. Given the small population for this study, for quantitative questions Chi-square analysis was carried out using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. Results are provided regarding: a) incidence of microaggressions, b) impact of microaggressions on the respondent, and c) agentic responses to microaggressions.

Context for the study of RIMAs and GIMAs among FEMDAC participants

Context in the USA

One of the most pressing issues in higher education in the USA is the need to carry out institutional transformation to centre minoritised students, faculty, and staff. While the numbers of BIPOC undergraduates in some markets are growing (due to contemporary demographic trends), BIPOC communities remain underrepresented in terms of tenured faculty as well as those who are full professors and executive-level administrators. This situation is even worse for Black women faculty (June et al. 2021). For example, as shown in Figure 1, out of 1458 4-year institutions across the USA, on average only 2.75% of tenured faculty are Black women. The range is from zero (573 have 0, and 598 have <0.5%) to 53%. In fact, 39% of colleges and universities have 0 tenured Black women faculty, while 91% (over 1100 institutions) have 5% or fewer tenured Black women faculty. Most 4-year institutions with 15% tenured Black women or higher (69 institutions in total) are Historically Black Colleges and Universities or enroll a predominantly Black student body (Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System 2020).

Figure 1. Proportions of tenure-system faculty in the USA who are Black women.

Note: Data downloaded from https://www.chronicle.com/article/how-many-black-women-have-tenure-on-your-campus-search-here?cid=gen_sign_in

Source: US Department of Education Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, 2020.

South African context

In the context of HEIs in South Africa, settler colonial legacies led to the exclusion of Black Africans from higher education (Mabokela & Mawila 2004; Mabokela & Mlambo 2017). According to Mabokela and Mawila (2004, pp. 396-397), “prior to 1994, the law did not protect Black South Africans”. Their work describes secondary marginalisation, as described by Cathy Cohen (1999) as the experience of being a minority³ of a minority; “Apartheid was also used to curb the participation of women, in particular Black women, in various aspects of life, and it effectively relegated them to second-class citizenship status” (2004, p. 397). Mabokela and Mawila (2004, p. 397) also indicate that

… in 1993 women occupied 32% of the total research and teaching positions; at some historically white South African universities, women comprised 100% of the positions below junior lecturer rank, 89% of the junior lecturers, and 45% of the lecturers. … (Conversely) women comprised less than 3% of professors and about 8% of associate professors

Women and especially Black women were underrepresented as undergraduate and postgraduate students, trainees, postdocs, and faculty and administrators.

National data on the combined race and gender demographics of South African professoriate is difficult to find. However, a 2015 report by AfricaCheck showed that of 2175 professors in South Africa, only 41 (2%) were Black women. This is similar to Mabokela and Mawila’s (2004) results more than a decade earlier.

Descriptive statistics and summary of quantitative results

All (100%) of respondents are women; 89% indicated that they are BIPOC or Black (some did not respond to this question). Ethnicities indicated were African American, Black, Coloured, Xhosa, Zulu, and of Indian descent; 15% of respondents working in HEIs in South Africa, and 67% in the USA indicated that a parent or guardian had received a baccalaureate degree. Ages ranged from 30 to 59 years. Black women academics are more likely to report experiencing RIMAs relative to GIMAs. For example, for GIMAs, 50–80% of Black women indicated that they have never experienced GIMAs or have experienced them less than once a year, while 50–75% of Black women faculty in the USA reported experiencing RIMAs once a month or more (up to weekly occurrences). All Black women in the USA reported an incident of each of the select RIMAs. For Black South African women, only 29–58% reported experiencing RIMAs once a month or more, while 29–43% reported that they never experienced select RIMAs. Thus, GIMAs were more salient for Black women in South Africa relative to Black women in the USA. See Table 3 for details.

Table 3. GIMAs and RIMAs experienced by Black women academics in South Africa and the USA (n = 19)

Think about your experiences on your university campus. Indicate how often each event has happened to you on campus.	Never	Less than once a year	A few times a year	About once a month	A few times a month	Once a week or more
I have had my contributions minimised by my colleagues because of my  …
Gender:	32%	26%	26%		16%
*Race:	20%	27%	13%	20%	7%	13%
I have felt excluded on my campus or in my department because of my  …
Gender:	32%	26%	26%		16%
*Race:	14%	21%	29%	7%	7%	21%
Experienced negative and insulting comments because of my  …
Gender:	45%	20%	30%		5%
*Race:	40%	13%	13%	13%	13%	7%
I have personally experienced sexism on campus or in my department	20%	45%	20%	10%	5%
**I have personally experienced racism on campus or in my academic department	29%	7%	21%		29%	14%

*All Black women at HEIs in the USA reporting occurrences of microaggressions have experienced this RIMA.

**All Black women at HEIs in the USA responding to RIMA questions have personally experienced racism a few times a year or more.

When asked if they have personally experienced sexism on campus or in their academic department, 39% indicated that the frequency has been a few times a year or more. Regarding personally experiencing racism on campus or in academic departments, 62% reported a frequency of a few times a year or more.

In addition to experiencing RIMAs at greater frequency, 71% of Black women faculty at universities in the USA report that they have never experienced sexism on campus or in their academic departments or experienced sexism less than once a year. Conversely, of those reporting, 100% indicated experiencing racism in these spaces a few times a year or more. An open-ended response describes this phenomenon well:

Gender and race are not separate for Black [women]. There are very few times in life in which maltreatment could be attributed to my gender [only]. – Colleague in the USA

Impacts of microaggressions on Black women faculty emotionally and physically

All Black women academics

Black women who experienced effects of racialised gender microaggressions reported feeling drained, subdued, and other deleterious impacts on their self-confidence, concentrating on their scholarship, and on their appetite approximately 40% of the time or more.

Impact of microaggressions on Black Women academics’ daily lives – USA

As noted in Table 5, most Black women (75% or more) serving in HEIs in the USA sustain a strong interest and investment in teaching, despite their experiences with microaggressions. Also, GIMAs are less likely to impact Black women in terms of concentrating on their scholarship, feeling subdued, or having trouble with insomnia, or reduced or increased appetite, relative to RIMAs. One-half or more of these Black women indicate that GIMAs impact these outcomes none of the time.

Table 4. Impact of GIMAs and RIMAs on Black women faculty emotionally and physically

Women in FEMDAC (South Africa & USA, n = 19)	GIMA	RIMA
As a result of microaggressions, how much of the time have you:	More than half the time**
Lost interest in your daily activities	21%	33%
Lost interest in teaching	16%	20%
Decreased energy and strength	47%	28%
Felt less self-confident	58%	47%
Had a bad conscience or feelings of guilt	26%	26%
Felt that this was not the right institution for you	11%	27%
Had difficulty in concentrating (e.g. when reading or writing scholarly/creative works)	47%	20%
Felt very restless	32%	13%
Felt subdued or slowed down	58%	26%
Had trouble sleeping at night	16%	20%
Suffered from reduced appetite	5%	13%
Suffered from increased appetite	37%	20%

 **Includes: Slightly more than half the time, most of the time, or all of the time.

Table 5. Impact of microaggressions on Black women academics’ daily lives, USA

Black women only (n = 7)	GIMA	RIMA
As a result of microaggressions, how much of the time have you:	None of the time
Lost interest in your daily activities	50%	25%
Lost interest in teaching	83%	75%
Decreased energy and strength	50%	25%
Felt less self-confident	33%	***
Had a bad conscience or feelings of guilt	50%	***
Felt that this was not the right institution for you	33%	***
Had difficulty in concentrating (e.g. when reading or writing scholarly work)	50%	25%
Felt very restless	50%	***
Felt subdued or slowed down	17%	25%
Had trouble sleeping at night	33%	***
Suffered from reduced appetite	50%	25%
Suffered from increased appetite	67%	50%

***All Black women in HEIs in the USA reported these impacts at least some of the time.

For those in HEIs in the USA reporting deleterious effects of GIMAs and RIMAs, RIMAs impact all Black women’s self-confidence, feelings of guilt, and restlessness, as shown by the responses marked *** in Table 5, whereas GIMAs did not affect these conditions among all Black women in the USA.

By and large, impact of GIMAs (such as lost interest in daily activities, lost interest in teaching, decreased energy and strength, difficulty concentrating) are less likely to affect Black women in the USA relative to RIMAs (with one exception, feeling subdued or slowed down). See Table 5 for results.

Feeling depleted and vicarious discrimination

As noted in Table 4, almost half of all women completing the online survey felt decreased energy and strength as a result of GIMAs and 28% felt these as a result of RIMAs. One colleague shares her experience:

I can’t explain it because it’s more of a feeling I get after interacting with my white colleagues. You feel depleted after meetings, you always have to over-explain your ideas. The institutional knowledge is also assumed to be only known by my white colleagues. – South African colleague

Another colleague speaks to the experience of vicarious discrimination:

I often experience the effects of discrimination vicariously through my students (under- and postgraduate) when I hear their stories of racism. For Black men it is often about how they are surveilled on campus, assumed to be criminals, for Black women how they are assumed to be loud, troublemakers and academically ‘underprepared’ and the eternal ‘development candidate’. – South African colleague

This comment is strikingly similar to the controlling narratives of Black women in the USA as loud and angry, as noted by Patricia Hill Collins (1990).

According to Gladden and colleagues (2022),

‘vicarious trauma’ [is] the often disruptive and painful psychological effects that therapists who work with traumatized individuals may experience. These effects can be due to the empathetic connection the therapist forms with the client or the witnessing of client narratives of trauma.

Relatedly, vicarious discrimination can also result in a heightened stress response (Jochman et al. 2019). Black women faculty may be overexposed to vicarious discrimination (Njoku & Evans 2022).

Feelings of vulnerability

Examples of sexual and gender-based harassment were offered by several respondents, largely those who work at HEIs in South Africa. One noted the following:

It was in the office of a male colleague, … commenting about my outfit, not the report I brought to him. … Nothing I said he ever took seriously. … It was very frustrating, I felt like a piece of meat ready to be devoured. The worst part, I could not avoid him because he was my … manager. – South African colleague

Some Black women academics are being viewed as sexual objects “to be devoured” and not holistically, as intellectuals with insights to offer. The following participant offers another example of being viewed unidimensionally by her male supervisor, in this case, as pregnant only:

I was working on my doctoral studies proposal. I got pregnant that year. My supervisor would not read any of my submissions. He slowed me down for at least 6 months … I asked [him] to please read my work so I can defend my study and apply for ethical clearance. – South African colleague

This colleague indicates that her supervisor’s lack of response to her dissertation proposal had a material impact on her ability to progress in her doctoral programme. Multiple participants indicated that a dominant gendered and/or racialised gendered microaggression is the simple lack of response, especially from male colleagues, in this case to a dissertation proposal, in other cases to reports, and even to Black women’s verbal contributions in meetings. Without interventions, this common strategy of not responding can also exert psychological effects and leave targets of this microaggression contemplating why the perpetrator did not respond appropriately or at all.

Ways in which Black women academics responded to microaggressions in their academic departments

Black women faculty and instructors teaching at HEIs in South Africa and the USA interrupt patterns of rumination and microaggressions in multiple ways. Here I discuss their agentic responses to RIMAs and GIMAs.

Environmental or institutional microaggressions are relevant to survey participants’ daily interactions. Some examples (as noted by Lewis et al. 2021) of these include:

▪	Published work in which the bibliography and content reflect a white Eurocentric perspective and/or do not include Global South, Black, and women authors;
▪	Mostly or all white and cis-male portraits in places of honour throughout campus and in academic departments;
▪	Environmental symbols like offensive mascots, monuments, building and street names; and
▪	Academic programmes of study, courses; committee, school/college/faculty; and departmental meetings, and the like that are populated largely by white colleagues and learners, often in which there are one or fewer Black faculty or students.

As noted in the discussion of the national context, Black women are often both a minority relative to white women and Black men (the latter, especially in the context of South Africa). Each of the institutions in which FEMDAC leadership and participants reside reflect the national landscape relative to the racial and gender composition of the faculty. In this context, Black women must be prepared to advocate for themselves and their Black/BIPOC students to survive. Their agentic responses work against environmental and institutional microaggressions.

When asked “How have you responded to incidents related to gender and race on campus or in your academic department?”, one respondent noted the following:

Thinking about my ancestors and what they experienced. Reminding myself that I'm standing on their shoulders. – Colleague in the USA

The majority of Black women academics worked with FEMDAC CoP to explore solutions and seek support. Similarly, many build a support network of friends, allies, and supporters. A majority responded to the perpetrators of GIMAs verbally. Many also indicated that they were strategic about responding to GIMAs and RIMAs (see Table 6). Black women at HEIs in the USA responded in similar ways as women in South Africa, except that they were more likely to dismiss or ignore incidents or respond emotionally. Other agentic responses were indicated but are not shown above, due to few responses to each. Several colleagues offered open-ended responses that will be discussed in the next section.

Table 6. Black women academics’ agentic responses to microaggressions

Responses to GIMAs (check all that apply):	GIMA	RIMA
Worked with FEMDAC CoP to explore solutions and seek support*	57%	52%
Responded verbally to the person	57%	33%
Decided to pick my battles (for example, and not respond verbally this time)*	52%	43%
Built a support network of friends/allies/supporters*	38%	33%
Thought about leaving the university	33%	24%
Dismissed or ignored the incident*	29%	29%
Made use of campus resources	29%	14%
Assumed that the perpetrator(s) were ignorant	24%	43%
Cried about the incident*	24%	29%
Relied on my faith, spirituality, or religious beliefs	24%	14%

*43% or more Black women in the USA indicated this response to incidents of RIMAs.

Feminist Decoloniality as Care operationalised by participants in their agentic responses to microaggressions

FEMDAC participants indicate that they find it liberating and a great source of relief when they are able to share their experiences with other Black women academics. This result is consistent with the concept of deploying sister circles for mutual support (Neal-Barnett 2003, 2020; McIver 2020, 2021). FEMDAC is operationalised by researchers and participants in four ways: 1) truth-telling about the impact of neoliberal institutions on the daily lives of Black women academics; 2) locating the source of GIMAs and RIMAs not solely in the individual behaviours of bad actors but in system-wide structural racism and sexism; 3) creating opportunities for women to see the similarities in their experiences transnationally and to recognise ways in which institutional structures marginalise them; and 4) providing mutual support, through a team mentoring approach, and reproducing Black excellence. These are exemplified below.

Locating the source in systemic racism and patriarchy

The FEMDAC CoP provisions a space for Black women faculty to examine their experiences transnationally. Strengthening participants’ understanding that the neoliberal institution of the westernised university creates comparable conditions in both South Africa and the USA, highlights structural constraints and exigencies over individual behaviour. For example, the following respondent notes that climate (written rules) is often vetoed by culture (actual expected and accepted standards of behaviour) at her HEI:

At my institution, it is not specific events or incidences, but it is everyday practices and norms at the institution and the way in which white people respond to Black people. – South African colleague

Here, the FEMDAC colleague’s comments are consistent with the lack of response to Black women noted in the discussion of vulnerability above. If colleagues do not interrupt and call attention to norms of lack of response and other disrespectful behaviours that target Black women academics, the everyday practices in HEIs will never change.

The following colleague points out the operation of patriarchy in her institution:

I applied for a dean’s position, and one of my senior colleagues told me that I am ‘too soft’: that I do not have what it takes to be in a senior management position. His view of university management was clearly informed by stereotypical patriarchal forms of leadership as dominance. – South African colleague

This respondent’s peer indicates in no uncertain terms that he holds a masculinised image of leadership. This may be implicit bias at play. As noted by Mabokela and Mawila (2004), and others, Black women are less likely to serve as full professors in HEIs in the USA or South Africa, and thus do not have access to promotional paths to deanships and other leadership positions. Counter-stereotypical exemplars are few, which just reinforces implicit biases about the need for leaders to exhibit masculine characteristics.

Another respondent noted the impact of an internal and internalised racism:

I experienced internal/internalised racism … when I was in a group project for a creative output. We had a rapturous interaction when I felt undermined by our … [Black] colleague. … She reminded me of my white colleagues. – South African colleague

By internal racism, she is referring to racialisation among racially minoritised groups, and by internalised racism, she is referring to the fact that the perpetrator was Black. She indicates that the perpetrator’s unsupportive words and actions reminded her of her white colleagues, and implies that the colleague internalised a negative stance to other Black women that has been socialised during her time in the westernised university.

Building and utilising mentoring networks

In the following example we return to the participant whose supervisor would not read her dissertation proposal. It is motivating to see the ways in which she advocated on her own behalf to exact a positive result:

… My supervisor would not read any of my submissions. … I decided to share my work with peers and received critical reading and comments and told my supervisor that I need him to prepare my proposal committee soon as I was also getting pressure from my scholarship. I went to defend without his reading of my work. – South African colleague

This colleague fortunately did not rely on her supervisor but instead activated peer mentors, which provided her with the opportunity to receive a “critical reading and comments” so she could revise and defend her dissertation proposal. This likely required additional labour from other Black women. As noted by Zerai and López (2023), “The work involved in supporting and mentoring students, legitimizing one’s research, and navigating racial [and gendered] microaggressions is part of the ‘invisible labor’ that most colleges and universities do not recognize in the tenure and promotion process” (Rucks-Ahidiana 2019; Zamudio-Suarez 2021).

Many participants noted that university-assigned mentors and supervisors practiced colour- and gender-evasive racism and sexism (denial or dismissal of participants’ reports of RIMAs and GIMAs):

In a departmental meeting I raised an issue of being bullied by my immediate senior who also happened to be a female. She would shut you down when you put forward an opinion, while she listened attentively to a male colleague. Matter was reported to DVC [of] T&L (teaching and learning), who was the immediate senior for our lady boss. When he came to the meeting he shouted at me, calling my name, saying our views are not welcome; our immediate senior is sent by him. We must take what she says, no discussion. – South African colleague

The senior supervisor of the individual who was bullying the FEMDAC participant was unwilling to hear and act upon the concerns of the participant. Unfortunately, confrontations by individuals who practice colour-evasive racism and gender-evasive sexism are real phenomena in the lives of Black women academics. Annamma, Jackson and Morrison (2017, p. 156) state:

… color-evasiveness as an expanded racial ideology acknowledges that to avoid talking about race is a way to willfully ignore the experiences of people of color and makes the goal of erasure more fully discernible.

Campus leaders who practice colour- and gender-evasive racism and sexism, i.e. who do not acknowledge that racism or sexism has occurred, are thus dismissing experiences of Black women faculty, and communicating implicit and explicit messages that they are not valued.

Reproducing Black excellence

While demographic diversity is not sufficient to bring about the work of decolonising HEIs, it is certainly necessary to bring in diverse voices of Black women academics to create greater inclusion for all. The following colleague explains her positioning as the only Black faculty member in her college and her efforts to increase Black representation:

We have very few faculty of colour in my college and I am the only permanent, credentialed Black [academic professional in my field] on campus; and I don't believe there has been any other permanent Black [academic professional in my field]. I hired two Black [academic professionals in my field] in term limit positions during my time here. – Colleague in the USA

Black women’s unique experiences and talents, honed despite possible cumulative professional disadvantages, result in the enactment of FEMDAC among those who hold a critical consciousness. Some of the ways that benefit HEIs generally, but that also result in reproducing cadres of decolonial Black feminists, include the following (Zerai 2023):

i)	Centering the works of intellectuals, activists, and practitioners from [Black] communities, [in] … syllabi to ensure that … students are reading the works of a wide variety of scholars;
ii)	Presenting materials that stimulate students’ critical consciousness and creativity [to] unlock new ideas for helping to dislodge intractable problems in academic disciplines;
iii)	Teaching to varied learning styles [to] promote growth mindsets and center Black and other … underrepresented students in [HEIs]; and
iv)	Exposing students to histories of Africana peoples in their disciplines to counter bias and encourage Black students to persist in their chosen specializations.

Finally, colour- and gender-evasiveness are countered by the FEMDAC CoP, who collectively brainstorm strategies and share stories of overcoming these challenges. These are vital interventions needed to sustain Black women academics. Since 2019, FEMDAC has mentored Black women who are thriving in their careers despite the setbacks of the COVID-19 era. These successes have included participants earning their doctorates, becoming tenured, promoted and, for some, recruited to different institutions into promoted positions.

Scholarly significance of the study and future work

RIMA research is a new area of study in South African universities, and GIMA is a new area of decolonial feminist scholarship analysing experiences among Black women academics globally. Understanding intersectional microaggressions, and their effects on academics adds to our knowledge of the mechanisms of secondary marginalisation for Black women minoritised in higher education transnationally. This work adds to the growing literature in FEMDAC. In addition to the scholarly contributions of this work, results will provide practical applications. Understanding intersectional microaggressions and creating resources for interrupting them has ripple effects not only on Black women faculty members, but on other minoritised faculty, graduate students, and even undergraduates. Lessons learned can help all faculty members to become more effective colleagues and mentors and thus improve the scholarly environment for scholars and learners in HEIs.

GIMA researchers are looking forward to leading workshops to guide participants in the practice of interrupting microaggressions. Tools for interrupting GIMAs promise to decrease microaggressions and bias (as found in Williams et al. 2020; Kanter, Williams & Masuda 2018). We look forward to revising the GIMA survey based on what we have learned from this pilot study, and administering revised versions to faculty, students, and staff at universities in South Africa. It is our hope that this scholarship and the interventions it inspires will further the work of decolonising the westernised university.

Acknowledgements

The FEMDAC project is supported by funding from the Andrew Mellon Foundation (2019–2023) and is led by Principal Investigator (PI) Relebohile Moletsane (University of KwaZulu-Natal), and co-PI Reitumetse O. Mabokela (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign).

Some of the questions in this project build from The Racial Microaggressions Survey by Stacy Harwood, Ruby Mendenhall, and Margaret Browne Huntt (2010) and from Zerai et al.’s (2021] Racial and the Racial and Intersectional Microaggressions Survey that were developed at universities in the USA.

The author wishes to thank FEMDAC colleagues and sisters: Professor Relebohile Moletsane, John Langalibalele Dube Chair in Rural Education at UKZN; Professor and Vice Provost Reitumetse Mabokela, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC); Prof. Ronelle Carolissen, Stellenbosch University; Dr Saajidha Sader, UKZN; Dr Cynthia Carol Nonhlanhla Mthiyane, Durban University of Technology; Prof. Teresa Y. Neely, University of New Mexico [UNM]; Dr Stephanie McIver, UNM; Ms Minnie Nokuthula Magudulela, UKZN; Ms Elsa Zawedde, UIUC; Ms Brandi Stone, UNM; and Ms Mariann Skahan, UNM – who help to sustain her decolonial Black feminist point of view. Special gratitude is also offered to Ms Mónica Jenrette, the UNM Qualtrics guru.

Also, thanks to FEMDAC faculty participants, to whom she dedicates this work!

An earlier version of this article was presented at United Nations CSW67 NGO & Sociologists for Women in Society Panel: Feminist Confrontations with Patriarchy in STEM, Education & Community Networks, New York, NY, 17 March 2023.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Assata Zerai

ASSATA ZERAI is a decolonial feminist scholar, whose research deploys Black feminist research methodologies to analyse achieving inclusion in complex organisations, just access to information and communications technologies, novel contributions of BIPOC women’s scholarship transnationally, and structural impediments to maternal and child health. She has published five books and numerous articles spanning these topics. While serving as Fulbright-Hays scholar in 2023, she is currently writing her sixth book, a monograph, Black Feminist Interventions in Decolonizing the Westernized University (under contract with Rowman and Littlefield, Lexington Books). Email: [email protected]

Notes

1 Black – “the term Black is used to refer collectively to Africans, Coloured, and Indians. It is a term that emerged during the Black Consciousness era of 1970s to refer to the oppressed peoples of South Africa” (Mabokela & Mawila 2004, p. 396). And in the context of the USA Black and African American are used interchangeably and include people of African descent.

2 The “westernised university” is a broad concept referring to HEIs in the Americas, Europe, Asia, most African countries, and elsewhere whose disciplines are centred largely on and privilege the epistemologies of “white men from four countries in Western Europe” (Grosfoguel 2013).

3 “Minoritzed communities are social groups” (e.g. racial, gender, queer, trans persons, persons with disabilities, and others) “who are marginalized or persecuted because of systemic oppression” (Oregon State University 2023). Minoritised groups may or may not be in the numerical majority.