Self-Defining a Strong Black Woman

In this essay, I discuss my personal journey with the Strong Black Woman schema and how basing my self-worth on what I could accomplish was detrimental to my personal development.

In 1982, Audre Lorde attended the Malcolm X Weekend at Harvard University and delivered her address, “Learning from the 60s.” Lorde’s address has since been quoted several thousands of times, and one phrase, in particular, stands out amongst others in my copy of Sister Outsider: “If I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies of me and eaten alive.” 

As a Black woman, self-definition is paramount. Historically, images of Black women have been reduced to negative stereotypes like the Mammy, the Jezebel, and the Welfare Queen, all of which have negatively impacted Black women’s perceptions in the real world. For women of my generation, the Superwoman or Strong Black Woman archetype has arisen to combat these images. Compared to earlier images where Black women were portrayed as being docile, lazy, and promiscuous, the Strong Black Woman is a do-it-all, resilient, reliable, and invulnerable Black woman who makes little-to-no mistakes—like the strong Black female leads in films like Hidden Figures and shows like Scandal. Although the trope appears to heal the harm done by earlier portrayals, for many Black women, it has also established an unreasonably high standard. 

Before I unsubscribed to the notion of being a Strong Black Woman, I was constantly over performing and exhausting myself in attempts to meet the expectations that other people had for me. When I went to college, what I really wanted was to study African-American literature and actualize the long-running joke among my friends that I would become a librarian; feeding my passion for literature and learning about African-American culture seemed like a much more enjoyable life path than anything else that was proposed to me. However, I chose to major in Journalism because I was told it would be a more reliable pathway to success, and I—like most first-generation college students—had big expectations for my future. The weight of those expectations multiplied because I also became a representation of potential amongst my family, whose idea of college meant attending class for a few more years and then graduating to secure an abundant, stable lifestyle. As a Black woman entering the professional world, you also notice that successful, first-generation, Black, femme college students were those who seemed to extend themselves as far as they possibly could and made little-to-no mistakes—performing well academically, securing multiple internships, joining several pre-professional organizations, and owning/operating a business or two. 

During my sophomore year of undergrad, I fell in love with Insecure and the main protagonist, Issa Dee. At first, I connected with Issa because she, too, felt dispassionate and overwhelmed, and she couldn’t seem to get a grasp on her life; once the series ended, I realized that she was also struggling with the Strong Black Woman archetype. Although the chaos and uncertainty of the first few seasons were undesirable, I admired Issa because she had realistic, challenging experiences and she didn’t always handle them with grace—more often than not, the situations handled her—but she survived and thrived nonetheless. Seeing that her world didn’t end when she struggled professionally or had faulty relationships, and witnessing her emotional vulnerability gradually mended my perception of what a successful Black woman should be like. By my junior year, the series neared its end and I was no longer obsessed with meeting the standards that the Strong Black Woman schema had set. Much like Issa, I felt encouraged to pursue what really fulfilled me professionally and personally.

During my junior year, I changed my major to English. I took a course with a professor who encouraged us to write in our authentic voices. While working on an assignment to write a personal statement, I recalled the aforementioned Audre Lorde quote. Combined with my new Insecure-inspired outlook on life, the quote validated my choice to pursue my passions. It led me to vow to myself to self-define and create the life I wanted to live, free of unreasonable and irrelevant expectations.

Process

I wanted to write a personal statement because I struggle with writing about myself and my experiences, and I wanted to challenge myself to step out of my comfort zone. I decided to write about the Strong Black Woman trope because I’m currently working on a thesis that explores how the trope inhibits Black women’s personal wellness and healing journeys, and I wanted to use this piece to set a foundation for my longer personal narrative. I worked on this piece in a community studio devoted to writing and editing a piece of our choice, and I think that having that time to work “with” my peers was very encouraging and helped me get a lot of my ideas out. Writing this personal statement has made it much easier to write my introduction and personal narrative for my thesis because I can develop the thoughts that I’ve already shared here.