Acting White: Black Women Series, Education and Attractiveness

Education, unlike hair, weight, waist-to-hips, and other estrogen-signaling attributes, does not show itself instantly. However, one could argue that its presence is still nearly immediate, once people meet. It’s hard to hide smarts.

Education shows in how we dress, speak, and behave. So with this, it is more than fair to consider education, its impact on attractiveness, and disparities in Black female relationships.

As I said, when I began this series, Black women have a hard way to go, and nowhere is this more apparent than with those highly educated. Researchers present that [educated] “Black women are increasingly less likely to marry and have children; if they marry, they are more likely than any other group to marry lesser-educated men; and if they have children, they are more likely to do so while still in training, with potential consequences for educational attainment and career formation.” (here)

No physical attribute can compete with the power of education. An educated Black woman is in the formidable position to tell any man harboring unappealing male-centered notions exactly where and how fast to go with those notions. Couple this with fewer available educated Black men, and Black women are left with limited choices for finding a mate.

Either she can marry a less-educated, working-class black man and hope that they can make it/keep it interesting and harmonious, or she can consider a non-black man closer to her education level, an understandably difficult choice for many. Lastly, she can go it alone, having and raising children as a single parent.

I am not really sure why Black women outperform Black men in education, except to consider that lesser versions of the same distractions that lead to high drop-out rates, incarceration, unemployment, violence, drug addiction, and other maladies in Black men, are also driving down performance in school and the resulting education attainment.

Just as political and economic power is an aphrodisiac for women, with respect to men; it can be a turn-off in the other direction because women with overt power are not congruent with evolution and the male status quo. Black men are adapting slowly, but in the meantime this leaves Black women little choice but to either look beyond them for mates, or go it alone.

James C. Collier

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