It’s July Bebe Moore Campbell Minority Mental Health Awareness Month.
At 36, Chajuana Mayes had reached her limit.
She had moved to a new state with her daughters and new husband and was struggling to balance the expectations of mother and wife while holding down two jobs and taking care of the home. She also dealt with guilt – she had taken her daughters away from their fathers and worried about how they would cope.
Mayes said she began binge eating and drinking to manage the stress, leading to excessive weight gain, other physical health problems and exhaustion.
“Every day I would get up, look in the mirror, cry and say to myself, ‘This can’t be my life. It can’t be just that,” he said. “I was creating so much unnecessary pain because I thought I had to be everything to everyone once I became a wife and a mom.”
While Mayes’ story is common to many women in or nearing middle age, her physical and emotional exhaustion had an extra layer. From the examples set by the women in her family and the cultural representations of black women in the media, there was an unspoken understanding that her efforts were expected of a strong black woman in America.
Cheryl L. Woods Giscombé, Ph.D., RN,professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, developed the commonly used framework for the Strong Black Woman (SBW) figure.noting the Black women she studied characterized her “Superwoman” role. into five main ideas: the obligation to display strength, the obligation to help others, the obligation to suppress emotions, the pressure to resist being vulnerable or dependent, and the need to show determination to succeed despite limited resources.
The duality of the Strong Black Woman figure
There is often a paradox within the SBW scheme. In some cases, it can encourage a sense of positive self-esteem and pride. A study in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences found that even when black women felt they had to project strength and resilience in the face of adversity, the schema offered a protective impact against the negative health effects of chronic racial discrimination. However, the more damaging aspects of the SBW scheme can put it at risk Black women’s physique and mental health and well-being.
Taisha Caldwell-Harvey, Ph.D., licensed psychologist and founder of a therapeutic practice The Black Girl Doctorworks regularly with women who manage the duality of the SBW schema.
“In practice, she looks like a woman who is the emotional, financial and spiritual backbone for everyone around her, but has no socially acceptable space to be soft, tired, sick or needy,” Caldwell-Harvey said. “At the same time, it is important to say: for many of us, this is not just a pattern of behavior, it is an identity. In my work with Black women, I refer to this as both cultural pride and survival strategy. I also invite us to look honestly at what it costs.”
In conversations with patients, Caldwell-Harvey said she sees three manifestations of the negative side of the SBW regimen, which affect the physical and mental health of black women.
Hyper-independence and overwork can lead to “Black women feeling compelled to carry everything on their own, working ‘double as hard’ at home and at work and never feeling ‘enough,'” she said.
There is emotional suppression, which includes “a difficulty naming sadness, fear, or trauma because ‘I’m supposed to be strong,’ which delays seeking help until crisis.” Then there are physical and maternal health risks of “submitting pain, minimizing symptoms, and dismissing health care providers who assume that black women can tolerate more, contributing to dangerous gaps in treatment and to black maternal morbidity and mortality.”
Data from KFF 2023 Survey on Racism, Discrimination and Health: Experiences and Impacts in Racial and Ethnic Groups illustrates some of these possible connections.
Among black adults, women were more likely to say they had been treated unfairly by a health care provider because of their race or ethnicity (21% to 13%). Black adults said they were more likely than white adults to find a provider who could understand their background and experiences (46% to 38%), and 24% of black adults reported negative experiences with providers who made assumptions about their lives without asking, blamed them for a health problem, refused to prescribe pain medication, or ignored direct requests and questions.
Vanessa Anyanso, Ph.D.who earned her doctorate in counseling psychology at the University of Minnesota, studied the positive and negative mental health outcomes for Black women associated with the SBW regimen for her dissertation. As a descendant of Nigerian immigrants, Anyanso also wanted to examine the experiences of Black women with more recent family histories of immigration and found that they had similar perceptions of the SBW schema within settings familiar to their cultures.
“They all had such a complicated relationship with the SBW regimen,” Anyanso said of the women in her study. “They spoke of high achievement as positive and something that motivated them to be successful. Many women took pride in being able to provide for their family and wider community and to be a leader. They saw resilience as a positive thing, an understanding that they could overcome and do whatever it took.”
At the same time, interviewees talked about the mental and physical impact of meeting the expectations inherent in the SBW trope.
“They say it’s like a mask … something they have to wear and the pressure of living up to it is exhausting,” he said. “There is a sense that they have to hold back emotions and suppress needs because they have to complete whatever big project they have to do or care for others.”
Making the SBW Scheme Work for You
Seeking culturally competent mental health counseling may also help working Black women cope with their relationship with the SBW schema. In her practice, Caldwell-Harvey said she doesn’t just tell black women to “stop being a strong black woman,” but teaches them to treat it as a choice, not a mandate.
“I’ll say, ‘Let’s talk about this Strong Black Woman thing,'” she said. “You’re allowed to pick it up when you need it and put it down when you don’t. We get very specific about what ‘putting it down’ looks like: asking for help, saying no, delegating, resting without guilt, or letting someone else be the one to trust for a change.”
When Mayes recognized that her physical and mental health would only deteriorate if she continued to push herself beyond her limits, she was ready to make a change. She started with smaller steps after her own breaking point, such as saying “no” more often at home and thinking of ways her family members could help around the house. She made time for self-care, which she said made her a stronger and healthier wife, mother and employee.
Mayes, now 47, channeled her energy into starting a health and wellness coaching business with the mindset of helping herself and others create personal change.
“I’m no longer in a space where I’m living my life on autopilot based on a belief system that’s not even my own,” Mayes said. “My life now is about what serves me best, even if someone else disagrees with my decisions. This allows me to truly be me and live a life I enjoy.”
Caldwell-Harvey sees a generational shift in how black women approach the SBW regimen. While older generations may identify more strongly with the idea, she said more younger millennials and Gen Z women see the shape as a burden and more actively reject it overall.
“That tells me that the culture is ready to honor what this archetype gave us and to imagine more humane ways of being black and female,” she said. “You can be strong, soft, reserved, angry, happy, exhausted or in deep need. These are all legitimate ways to be a black woman.”
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