Structural Heteropatriarchy, Sexuality, and Cardiometabolic Risk Among Black and White Young Adult Women

Recent literature shows structural heteropatriarchy (SHP) is a determinant of women’s reproductive health, and that its associations with health are patterned by race/ethnicity and sexuality. Still, little is known about the role that SHP plays in shaping stress-related health outcomes among young adults, particularly for population subgroups of women. Using Waves I, III, and IV of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (N = 4,696), race-stratified analyses explore the relationship between SHP and stress-related physiological regulation—measured by an index of cardiometabolic risk—for young adult Black and White females, while also focusing on differences in the association by sexual minority status. Results indicate higher levels of exposure to SHP during adolescence and early adulthood are positively associated with cardiometabolic risk during young adulthood for both Black and White women. Findings support effect modification by race/ethnicity and sexuality. SHP is more strongly associated with cardiometabolic risk among White sexual minority young women than among White heterosexual young women. There is no evidence of effect modification by sexuality among Black women. This study advances the sociology of women’s health by developing our understanding of the ways that social inequality manifests in the bodies of multiply-marginalized women.