Black women are more likely to be seen as not needing mental health assistance due to various tropes, which is one of the reasons Weary, is so important. This section begins to unpack the unrealistic tropes Black feels like they have to live up to, including the Strong Black Woman (SBW), The Angry Black Woman, The Superwoman Schema, and the Jezebel. As stated in J Camille Hall, Kyrie O’Connor, and Kimberly Jones’s (2001) research, the SBW ideal gives Black women a blueprint on how to act amid the pain. This leads many Black women to believe that they must portray survival and strength, frequently preventing them from expressing psychological distress. As Liao, K. Y.-H., Wei, M., and Yin, M. (2020) research shows, the Strong Black Woman trope is associated with adverse psychological outcomes; they found evidence that this archetype can lead to various things, including depression, anxiety, and loneliness. In Jasmine A. Abrams, Ashley Hill & Morgan Maxwell’s (2018) study, research was conducted on 194 participants who identified as SBWs. The study concluded that Black women have an unrealistic expectation to show/have strength when Discrimination in mental health and higher levels of SBW Increased the power of the relationship between stress and depression. According to Natalie Watson & Carla Hunter’s (2015) study, the SBW trope promotes Black women to rely on self-reliance and self-silencing techniques when struggling with mental health. Within the study, they hypothesized that the coping strategies that the SBW mindset produced led to higher rates of anxiety and depression and whether this connection affected Black women’s ability to reach out for professional help. As they did not find any relationship based on if the SBW trope involved Black woman’s help-seeking skills, they did find that SBW was associated with psychological openness and help-seeking propensity. The SBW trope goes hand in hand with the Superwoman schema. According to Knighton, J. S., Dogan, J., Hargons, C., & Stevens-Watkins, D. (2020), the Superwomen schema was developed when Black women during slavery had to take on the role of mother, nurturer, and breadwinner. Their research concluded that the idea Superwomen schema ideas are possibly associated with increased symptoms of anxiety and depression while having lower availability of emotional support and less-perceived need for medical and mental health assistance. Seeing Black women as sexual beings bring along the Jezebel trope and the belief that Black women are promiscuous beyond their years. As we have seen in the media, the way, Black girls act is constantly being monitored and deemed “too grown,” while their White counterparts act the same way. With this idea that Black girls are “too fast,” or “too grown,” for a hairstyle or outfit choice, there becomes a struggle within the community to reinforce ideas that have been solidified by men and control the narrative of Black girlhood and womanhood. Since this trope was birthed during slavery to justify White masters raping Black enslaved women, this same trope is still being used today to justify Black Women and girls not exploring their sexualities in a way that can be harmful mentally.

Sources:

Jones, K., Connor, K. O., & Hall, J. C. (n.d.). The Strong Black Woman versus Mental Health Utilization: A Qualitative Study. Academic.oup.com.

LIAO, K. Y.-H.; WEI, M.; YIN, M. The Misunderstood Schema of the Strong Black Woman: Exploring Its Mental Health Consequences and Coping Responses Among African American Women. Psychology of Women Quarterly, [s. l.], v. 44, n. 1, p. 84–104, 2020. DOI 10.1177/0361684319883198.

Abrams, J. A., Hill, A., & Maxwell, M. (2018, September 10). Underneath the mask of the Strong Black Woman schema: Disentangling influences of strength and self-silencing on depressive symptoms among U.S. black women – sex roles.

Watson, N. N., & Hunter, C. D. (2016). “I Had To Be Strong”: Tensions in the Strong Black Woman Schema. Journal of Black Psychology, 42(5), 424–452. https://doi.org/10.1177/0095798415597093

Knighton, J.-S., Dogan, J., Hargons, C., & Stevens-Watkins, D. (2020, September 15). Superwoman schema: A context for understanding psychological distress among middle-class African American women who perceive racial microaggressions. Ethnicity & health.