Why the "Strong Black Woman" Stereotype Does More Harm than Good

As a Black woman in today's society, I feel pressure from everywhere. As a child, most Black women are taught to be strong and not depend on anyone for anything. You can imagine how this is problematic. Some Black woman are even taught to be totally independent, and this causes problems when it is time to settle down to be in a relationship, because psychologically the Black women has to reteach herself that it is okay to depend on someone else than herself. This is not the only pressure that Black women face in today's society. We face having to smile despite everything NOT being okay. We are also required to hold the family together, and to never break or get tired. We are practically supposed to be superwoman, but this is not realistic. Why are Black women taught to be strong and hold all the pieces together from falling apart? I ask this because culturally we do not require this from our White women counterparts. For whatever reason, they are allowed to feel, be fragile, and require more help if they feel things are spiraling out of control. They are not held to this high standard to not feel. They are not required to be the main source of holding their marriage together, and to put everyone's s struggles on their backs. This concept that Black women must be strong no matter what has to stop. I am sure that this is how it must have been during slavery as well. Black women were being raped, beaten, and impregnated by their masters, but had to still get up everyday and labor for free without shedding a tear. Tears were the enemy, because tears may have been what caused you to become killed. Black women were groomed to just deal with whatever life gave them, and pray for better days while holding trauma, hurt, and pain deep inside. This was not realistic back then, and it is not realistic now. 

In an article called: Let's End the "Strong Black Woman Stereotype" Can't We Be Vulnerable and Emotional Too? by the Huffpost it states, "We black women have wholeheartedly embraced the "strong black woman mantle. We're exceptionally good at pretending- why, sometimes I even fool myself. You might ask then, what's the issue with being called strong? It's a compliment, isn't it? Well, there's a serious side: being labelled as strong renders us less able to show our true emotions and therefore to treat ourselves with the self-compassion that goes hand-in-hand with sound mental health and well-being".  This article explains why taking on the "strong" persona can do more damage than good so well. If your constantly trying to convince yourself that you are strong and can handle anything that life throws at you (which can be a lot for a woman of color), you do not allow yourself to be vulnerable and embrace that sometimes help outside of yourself is totally okay. This is why the mental health problem in the Black community is never talked about, because we are taught to not talk about our problems, and this can be very very toxic. In the same article it states this, " To put the problem into context, consider the fact that Black women are much more likely than White women in the UK to suffer a common mental health issue such as depression or anxiety. In reality, behind closed doors some of us are crumpling under the weight of this bald generalization. We're constantly expected to present to the world a superhuman-like strength when in reality our "game face" is not more indicative of our authentic self as anyone else's". My beautiful powerful Black women out there, it is okay to not be okay. Why must we hide behind our own strength, when deep down inside the pain is killing us? Why should we decide to not see a therapist because it is seen as being weak, when deep down inside it feels like we are dying? This has to stop. Vulnerability is what makes us strong, because we then can take care of our mental health and loving ourselves unconditionally. 

Black women have had to be survivors due to our horrific past. We have had to be the mother and father when our Black men are thrown in jail. We have had to deal with racism in our society, and being told that because of the color of our skin we will never be enough. We have had to pretend that we agree with everything on our jobs and smile so that we are not seen as the "angry black woman", because somehow when we have an opinion we are angry. This world we live in is surely unbearable at times, but to pretend that everything is okay because you were raised to believe that you must be that way is not helping anyone. In order to raise generations of Black women who see vulnerability as strength, we must raise our children differently, and realize that strength is knowing that help is okay, because no-one is capable of doing everything in life on their own.