𝑊𝘩𝑦 𝐼 𝑛𝑜 𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑔𝑒𝑟 𝑤𝑎𝑛𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑏𝑒 𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑑 𝑎 ‘𝑆𝑡𝑟𝑜𝑛𝑔 𝐵𝑙𝑎𝑐𝑘 𝑊𝑜𝑚𝑎𝑛’
At twenty-three years old, I’m realising that I actually cannot recall a single time that I expressed my feelings to someone, whether it be a family member, a friend, a partner or even a colleague without somehow being reminded that I am a ‘Strong Black Woman’ and I am officially tired.
For hundreds of years Black women have been commended and saluted for their resilience and how ‘strong’ we are, how easily we combat the situations we’re faced with and how there’s not a single trial or tribulation that could possibly destroy us. It’s like this mask, this persona that we’ve been forced to put on our entire lives despite how unfair, unrealistic and damaging it truly is, especially for our mental health and frankly it needs to die; not end, it needs to die.
It’s not a compliment anymore, honestly, it never was. What’s more outrageous and trifling about this ‘Strong Black Woman’ trope is that it’s honestly just not true, not like it was when it first came to fruition. I’m sure decades before the Civil Rights Movement, Black women were called strong of course, but it was during this period of racial discrimination and constant prejudice that the ‘Strong Black Woman’ narrative was magnified but newsflash, we’re not living in this world anymore, yes - racial prejudice is alive and well as we know all too well but we are no longer fighting segregation and apartheid every single day and yet the ‘strong Black woman’ narrative lives on?
Because, the ‘Strong Black Woman’ schema is an archetype an, identity that most Black women assume unconsciously, it’s passed from generation to generation and we’re encouraged to wear that identity like a badge of honour; much like the ‘work twice as hard as everyone else to succeed’ notion. It’s simply another part of 'Black Womanhood'.
This narrative has three main components; emotional restraint, independence, and worst, worst, worst of all self sacrifice - where we as Black women are encouraged to put everyone else’s needs before our own, partners, children, friends even employers, we’re celebrated for putting everything and everyone else first and ourselves, last.
Admittedly, when I was younger, maybe ten or eleven years old, I used to love being called a ‘strong Black woman’. It made me feel like a superhero, I felt like Wonder Woman, it was a beautiful title to me, with beautiful connotations, it made me feel indestructible and powerful; like whatever the world threw at me, I’d be able to survive it and it made me feel somehow much more bonded to all the incredible Black woman in my life, I felt such a profound sense of sisterhood and community. It was only as I got older, in my early teens that I began to question it and question how it made me feel, I would watch the Black women in my life experience hardships and simply keep moving, despite the fact that I could see their suffering, I remained in awe, my admiration and love for Black women continued as did my pride in them for remaining ‘strong’ even when I knew how difficult things were for them. In all of this pride and admiration I had for the Black women around me, I also remember feeling such a huge sense of disappoint and shame in myself for how short I seemed to fall from this title, this ‘badge of honour’ I started to feel so undeserving, like the pain and sadness that I felt somehow made me weak, that I was somehow failing at being a Black woman.
The turning point for me has been quite recent, and I’ve realised that it’s coming from a place of frustration, sadness and anger. It feels as though everywhere I look, particularly on social media but even in movies and television this hugely detrimental stereotype is still being perpetuated. It promotes this rather dangerous ideology that the very nature of Black womanhood is to remain ‘strong’ and ‘capable’ through everything, all trauma, all pain, physical and emotional. These micro-aggressions are harmful in so many ways; they minimise the severity of Black women’s issues, and this idea that we are better at ‘managing’ and ‘coping’ discourages Black girls and women from speaking up when they need to seek help from support services.
Having been diagnosed with depression and anxiety at multiple stages of my adult life left me with feelings that I absolutely shouldn’t have had because of this archetype. I felt like a failure, as though the state of my mental health somehow made me less of a Black woman because we’re inherently resilient. I’m expected to have my ‘little moment’, cry it out, scream, and then go back to being this monolith, and to maintain this strong maternal, nurturing, confident persona once again because I am ‘strong’. When in reality, all I want is to be validated, to be reassured that it’s okay not to be strong all the time and that I don’t need to have it together every moment of every day and to be told I’m not going absolutely mad (typically after a series anxiety attacks and sleepless nights.)
If that’s not enough - cue the depression! That long period that feels like an eternity in your mind where you’re feeling at your lowest because by simply feeling just a little bit of human emotion, for not existing as this monolith and figurehead of strength and determination, you’re falling short of what society demands you to be. It’s guilt, shame, embarrassment, loneliness and isolation all mixed together and hitting you all at once. You start to blame yourself because it’s your brain. You start to wonder, why am I not strong enough to just ‘snap out of it’? Maybe I’m just weak, a snowflake. Imagine every possible self deprecating thought a human being could possibly have and it’s all because we’re feeling more than society tells us we should.
This stereotype puts tremendous and completely unrealistic expectations on Black women, and little girls from very early on. How can anyone expect a Black woman to be constantly nurturing and maternal but to not lose her identity, to be sensual, but still not a whore, to be strong but still maintain a sense of cuteness and femininity, to be independent, self-sufficient but still submissive and ready to be led, confident but still shy in a hyper feminine way that makes men feel 'manly'. It’s virtually impossible to be a woman in general but women of colour carry this burden on a much more damaging scale because we’re not given the room to be weak, to experience vulnerability without consequently being a failure, unable to live up to her expectation as a ‘Strong Black Woman’.
I know I speak for a number of Black women when I say that what we need is to be listened to, to be heard but ultimately and most importantly, we need others to be strong for us, for once. Truthfully, in my experience, it is the most draining experience in the world feeling you need to exist as a ‘Strong Black Woman’, one that reaps absolutely no rewards.
We need to be given the space to be vulnerable and soft, we require the same capacity to have a full range of human emotion as other humans do, including anger and we especially need to be able to experience and voice this anger without facing another multitude of stereotypes such as ‘angry Black woman’ or micro-aggressions such as ‘sassy’ and ‘ghetto’.
