Joy Keys chats with Author Tamara Beauboeuf-Lafontant

A synopsis states, "The defining quality of black womanhood is strength, states Tamara Beauboeuf-Lafontant in Behind the Mask of the Strong Black Woman. But, she argues, the idea of strength undermines its real function: to defend and maintain a stratified social order by obscuring black women's experiences of suffering, acts of desperation, and anger. Interviews with 58 black women explore the restrictive myth of the 'Strong Black Woman.' In particular, Beauboeuf-Lafontant highlights the physical and emotional toll of this performance of invulnerability, which leaves many black women suffering from eating disorders and depression.

 

Drawing on black feminist scholarship, cultural studies, and voice-centered research, Behind the Mask of the Strong Black Woman traces the historical and social influences on normative black femininity. This provocative book lays bare the common perception that strength is an exemplary quality of 'authentic' black womanhood, maintaining that the expectation of strength creates a distraction from broader forces of discrimination and imbalances of power."