Is ‘Soft Life’ a Privilege or a Necessity for Black Women?
BY KISHARA JOY GRIFFIN, MSW
According to a study titled Black Women and the Wage Gap, the median wage for Black women living in America is $36,303 a year (National Partnership for Women and Families, 2022). This study reports Black women are paid 67 cents for every dollar paid to a white, non-Hispanic identified woman (National Partnership for Women and Families, 2022). Other findings from the study would suggest that our nation’s relationship with sexism and racism has been closely associated with the attitudes toward the undervalued labor of Black women. These findings imply racism and white supremacist values significantly influence the ever-increasing disparities found in this country's economic market because of the impacts of slavery (National Partnership for Women and Families, 2022). With these being factors, white supremacy remains a dominating force in our economic market, maintaining its position as the invisible hand determining the quality of life for Black women. It has influenced even Black cultural movements like “soft life,” engrafting itself into the movement and leading us to believe that softness equates to privileges afforded by socioeconomic status.
Howard University Assistant Professor of Sociology Nicole Jenkins shared with Insider that “Living a soft life is unapologetically prioritizing self-needs,” later implying the over-glamorization of being “flewed out,” engaging in fine dining, and the accumulation of “bags, bottles, and bundles” are not requirements to participate in the soft life trend. Soft life via social media has been highlighted in recent times through the glorification of status symbols for high-achieving Black women. Through this trend, they are abandoning the strong Black woman narrative to reclaim their humanity and redefine the Black woman experience. Seeing this new wave to redefine Black womanhood outside of the age-old narrative has been a thought-provoking journey. Nonetheless, it has also been an anxiety-inducing one for me to witness.
With the intended messaging of soft life being overpowered by the most visible messaging, it leads me to believe there is a disconnect between prioritizing self-care and the hype connected to exploring status symbols. How did we shift soft life from prioritizing self-care (rest, self-love, and honoring your needs) to displays of self-care and self-worth through materialism? This question often challenges me to think about the generational experiences forced on Black women — the denial of our humanity and the denied access to engage and receive softness (as mentioned, rest, love, and honoring our needs) in this world, though let’s not forget wage disparities. We turn to practicing materialism, and through acts of consumerism, we continue questioning our value when we are unable to afford the luxury highlighted in the soft life trend. These assumptions likely dredge up questions such as how can one attain a soft life when systematic oppression and economic inequalities become the barriers to do this?
This question brought me back to a saying my grandmother used to tell me: “I ain't got a dime in that dollar.” This was her way of opting out of conversations she wanted no part in as she didn’t feel like it was her place to participate or couldn’t relate. As I think back, it reminds me of how many of us average-earning Black women see social media influencers promote the soft life trend and back away from softness altogether. We tend to view experiencing soft life as a luxury and privilege instead of making meaning into what a soft life means for us as individual Black women living within the average income range in American society. When softness is standardized through the lens of how well we speak to ourselves and care for our bodies, it can shift how well we are prioritizing our rest and relaxation in unconventional ways as we escape the blows of white supremacy on the economic front.
Author Tricia Hersey of Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto encourages readers to not allow their lack of money and possessions to make them feel negative about their worth as human beings (Hersey, 2022, p.152). She asserts the idea of engaging rest, silence, and pausing [from life tasks] as being a luxury or privilege is a lie (Hersey, 2022, p.152). Prioritizing self through rest is not to be seen as a reward for hard work but a necessity for the human experience, and one's right to rest is not contingent upon their accumulation of wealth. In the context of soft life, the limits placed on the trend through the extravagance of high-earning Black women marginalize Black women who are average earning. We must dismantle the conditions placed on us and determine how rest, ease, and idea of a soft life can move away from the exploration of status symbols and contextualize it for the everyday Black woman through care and consideration of self. We can contextualize softness through reconnecting to our environments and finding pockets of joy among the laughter of loved ones. We can pull away from the strong Black woman narrative every day without breaking the bank and removing the self-shame through honoring our needs in the present.
The soft life trend has single-handedly opened the Black community up to deeper conversations about considering the humanity of Black women; it has also allowed white supremacist values around consumerism and materialism deem high-achieving Black women worthy of softness, while making this notion appear unattainable for the average Black woman. Therefore, those of us making average bread forget we are deserving of softness, too. That being the case, if we are only viewing softness through the lens of the exploration of status symbols, we will miss the beauty found in rest and through acts of prioritizing ourselves. We must remember in our humanity, regardless of socioeconomic status, WE still deserve to embrace softness in our lives.
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Kishara Joy Griffin, MSW, (she/her) is a therapist for the Sister Circle program who earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in political science and minor in sociology from the University of Maine Farmington. She later received her master’s degree in social work from Boston University. Kishara is trained in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), along with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). She is passionate about social equity, woman empowerment, and navigating religious trauma. Kishara encourages individual and collective healing through sustaining safe, judgement-free, therapeutic spaces for clients.
REFERENCES
Hersey, T. (2022), Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto, Little, Brown Spark.
Holt, B. (2022). How Young Black Women are Manifesting a Soft Life. Insider. https://www.insider.com/how-young-black-women-are-manifesting-a-soft-life-2022-12
National Partnership for Women and Families (2022, October). Fact sheet. Black Women and the Wage Gap. https://nationalpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/african-american-women-wage-gap.pdf
