Intellectually, I'm aware of the "Strong Black Woman" stereotype, but of course I can't experience or internalize it, but increase my awareness. Remember the book "The Myth of the Black Superwoman"?
That was my introduction to this concept. Look at this 3 year old Ms. Magazine article about THAT particular book. That the book was book was controversial is an understatement.
Black History Month: The Myth of the Black Superwoman, Revisited
In January 1979, you might have walked past a newsstand in New York City and noticed the piercing brown eyes and free-flowing hair of Michele Wallace staring you down from the cover of Ms. “Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman … the book that will shape the 1980s” read the cover, in stark white text.
In the magazine’s excerpt from the then-about-to-be published book, Wallace explained the myth of the Black Superwoman: A woman who has “inordinate strength” and is “stronger emotionally than most men.” The Black nationalist movement, she said, viewed women as “one of the main reasons the black man had never been properly able to take hold of his situation in this country” and how “the black man has not really kept his part of the bargain they made in the sixties” during the fight for equality. The book, Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman, went on to include a separate essay on “Black Macho,” a term that encapsulated the anti-intellectual impulse within Black Power rhetoric.
Back in 1979, you probably would have been stunned by this text, and you wouldn’t have been the only one. Wallace’s book led to debate about the role of Black Macho, the relationships between African American men and women and the place African American women held in the fight against racism and sexism. In honor of Black History Month, this groundbreaking book and the aftermath of its publication are well-worth revisiting.
In a 2009 post on Wallace’s blog, she explained the circumstances behind the publishing of the excerpt and book. On one side stood her anti-feminist, but otherwise supportive, editor at The Dial Press, Joyce Johnson, who “all but breastfed [Wallace] through every stage of the writing and the completion of the book for publication.” Wallace explains:
She and the others opposed the use of the word feminist in connection with the book, on the publicity materials, on the book jacket, and in every aspect of the packaging or promotion of the book. Feminism they said would kill the book because feminism was finished and done with.
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