The presumed sisterhood between young black women in the United States doesn’t exist between the different classes. In fact, a tense relationship is actually par for the course between poorer black women and their more affluent counterparts, with those in the middle and upper classes feeling like shunned “stepsisters.” Young middle-class black women feel “different” or even isolated, and this also applies to women who grow up in biracial families or are adopted by a white family. Their connection to the white community alienates them even further from other young black women, reports Colleen Butler-Sweet of the Sacred Heart University in the US, in a study published in Springer’s journal Gender Issues.