Adultification Bias: The Erasure of Black Girlhood

A Friends of the Pembroke Center Regional Event in Washington, D.C.

In 2017, the Center on Gender Justice & Opportunity at Georgetown Law released the groundbreaking study “Girlhood Interrupted: The Erasure of Black Girls’ Childhood.” The study revealed that adults view Black girls as less innocent and more adult-like than their white peers, including girls as young as five to nine years old. Known as “adultification bias,” this harmful combination of gender and racial bias plays out daily across the U.S. in inappropriate police treatment of children, widespread hypersexualizing of Black girls, and disproportionate school discipline—all based on stereotypes of Black women that are projected onto youth. The Friends of the Pembroke Center invite all alumnae/i to join us as we discuss the impact of this systemic trend that denies Black girls the innocence of their childhood. Rebecca Epstein, Executive Director of the Center on Gender Justice & Opportunity at Georgetown Law and the report’s lead author, will present on the study’s findings; Logan Green, the Center’s Youth Storyteller, will perform an original spoken-word piece; and then Logan will be joined by a panel of Brown alumnae experts who will share their perspectives in a moderated discussion.

Speakers include:

Rebecca Epstein ’92, Executive Director, Center on Gender Justice & Opportunity at Georgetown Law
Diane Graves ’89, Professor and Assistant PsyD Program Director, Institute for the Psychological Sciences at Divine Mercy University
Logan Green, Inaugural Youth Storyteller, Center on Gender Justice & Opportunity
Ayo Magwood ’89, Founder/Consultant, Uprooting Inequity
Kiana T. Murphy, Assistant Professor of American Studies, Brown University