Recovering from the Superwoman/Strong Black Woman Role
Warning: If you are a Black woman, this may make you say “ouch”.
The Superwoman Role has been adapted by Black women in order to combat historically negative stereotypes that perpetuate the racial, gender, and socioeconomic discrimination that they experience on a daily basis. It also protects Black women who wear multiple hats like mother, father, breadwinner, and nurturer.
The Superwoman schema is actually a framework developed by Dr. Cheryl L. Woods-Giscombé that conceptualizes the complex attributes possessed by African American women that include high levels of strength and resilience despite societal and personal adversities. The framework includes characteristics like the ability to manifest strength, suppress emotions, the obligation to help others, and resistance to being vulnerable or dependent.
Sound familiar?
This Superwoman role is a complex set of adaptable traits because it both positively and negatively affects those who actively endorse it. Benefits of adopting this role include preservation of self, the African American family, and the greater African American community. However, the liabilities in this framework include heightened psychological distress and harmful physical health outcomes like heart disease, obesity, lupus and adverse birth outcomes.
Bottom line: Black women have been dealing with a lot, and how we have dealt with it has made us and the greater African American community progress, but it’s come at a great personal cost.
So how do we maintain the benefits of our strength and resilience without the often accompanying negative impacts of how we deal with stress?
The key is adjusting how we cope.
There are generally two types of coping strategies that are employed by Black women who endorse this Superwoman role - avoidant and approach. Avoidant coping strategies are more dismissive of stressors in an effort to escape the situation, but do not confront or attempt to eliminate them. Approach coping is a more positive set of strategies that work towards resolving life stressors. Studies have shown that Black women tend to have an overreliance on the former rather than the latter.
So how can we as Black women employ more positive coping strategies?
Raising awareness of your current state is always a great place to start. Recognize that you may have silenced yourself or diminished the full impact of life situations. And then begin to work on reconciling with the reality of this, because at a certain level, it is an effective survival strategy!
Acknowledge the connection between mind, body, and spirit through practices that can address these areas. Practicing mindfulness, engaging in culturally relevant psychotherapy, and making space for spiritual exploration are great ways to begin to rewire our thought processes to honor our raw emotions in a non-judgemental way.
You’ve gotten yourself far for what you have had to handle. If you are reading this and identify as a Black woman, then you know you come from a line of superwomen who did what they needed to do to survive. Now, give yourself and your bloodline permission to do more, and thrive.
Thanks for getting A Little Mental with me.
(Image Source)
