Many Black women consider learning and educational access an essential part of their personal growth, professional aspirations, and in some cases, their freedom. Examining freedom by centering on Black college women's perspectives may encourage scholars to reimagine what is possible, useful, and necessary in how we approach the purpose and desired outcomes for students in higher education. In the present study, we used Black feminism in qualitative inquiry (Evans-Winters, 2019) and analyzed semistructured interview data from 26 Black women (18-22 years) enrolled at predominantly White institutions in the United States. We identified two broad themes during the coding process: (a) fostering freedom in community with others and (b) finding freedom within themselves. Our findings highlight how Black college women prioritize freeing self-definitions amidst identity-based expectations and pressures at their institution and in broader society. The authors discuss how institutions of higher education can support Black women's freedom, as well as the implications of the women's narratives for frameworks of identity development.

How does secrecy shape narratives of militarized hegemonic masculinity? This article assesses a gap at the intersection between theories of masculinities and organizational secrecy. Supported by 15 interviews with current and former male workers of a covert section of an Israeli national security organization, it argues that secrecy is experienced as both an external hurdle and a central component to the way that men internalize masculinity. Unable to access social capital outside the security organization, the respondents of the study construct a social field inside it through which they can assert their masculinity. They do so by conceptualizing their jobs, themselves, and the organization through a prism of sacrificial warriorhood, and actively incorporate secrecy’s constraints into a narrative of “super-men”. This study thus examines secrecy in the context of a militarized environment, showing the experience of masculinity and a perceived lack of power-access among members of a dominant group.