The 'Soft Girl' Lifestyle and why Black Women struggle to embrace their inner softness.

For once, I want to know what it feels like to be a soft girl. You know, the kind that wears pretty pink dresses with hair bows and stockings to match. The kind that bakes cookies for all her friends and always has a smile on her face because she’s just so damn HAPPY.

How do I become her? Because it feels anatomically impossible to be soft when you’re a black woman. That word is rather foreign to our DNA structure.

A long time ago, I remember casually hanging out with my boyfriend and his male friends. Naturally, I was the only girl in the room at the time. As we were all talking, the conversation shifted to one of his friend’s speaking openly about their female dating preferences. He identified as a Hispanic man and so naturally he said that he prefers to date Hispanic women. He also said that he would be open to dating Asian women because they’re submissive and docile, everything he feels a woman should be.

This friend proceeded to say that the one race of woman he would NEVER consider dating is black women. His words verbatim, “Black women are just not cute”. And the reason why we don’t meet his standard of attractiveness is because we’re too masculine.

How I should have exited that conversation but younger me was a crippling people pleaser and wanted to be ‘understanding’ of other people’s opinions. Girl please.

Looking back on this conversation got me thinking about black women and femininity, particularly how the two correlate in today’s cultural landscape. I feel like the standard and meaning of femininity is something that is constantly fluctuating. It is also something that I’ve noticed has become heavily influenced by social media trends.

Tik-Tok has popularized so many different standards of beauty and femininity for women in recent years. First it was the clean girl/minimalist aesthetic where women do less in order to look more feminine and desirable. Recently, I’ve witnessed the rise of the cottagecore/soft girl aesthetic which is exactly what I described earlier. Tea party dresses, frilly hair bows, stockings, and pink ribbons. However, this soft girl aesthetic actually extends deeper than clothing and fashion sense alone, it’s manifested itself into a life-style goal for women.

The idea of the soft-girl era is rooted in trying to reject girl-boss culture as we know it today.

That means setting healthy boundaries and prioritizing our mental/emotional well-being over anything else. It is also living in luxury and showing up as the most feminine version of yourself both internally and externally. So, more self-care sundays, sweet treats after dinner, getting your nails done, and finally booking that trip.

And while I will never be against any of these notions as I see how essential it is for women, especially living in a capitalist society that glorifies hustle culture. Women should absolutely be able to reject the idea that we only have value when we’re overexerting ourselves to be more productive.

Except, I just can’t help but notice the privilege in being able to live the lifestyle of a soft girl. A privilege that I don’t necessarily have as a black woman.

Black women experience a myriad of disadvantages in life that prevent us from being able to live peacefully. Not only are we severely underpaid and overworked, but we’re under constant pressure to sacrifice ourselves in order to serve the well-being of others. Since the days of slavery, the world has already decided that black women are inherently strong-human beings. You know, the whole ‘strong independent black woman who don’t need no man' stereotype. There is nothing that a black woman cannot handle.

Since my childhood, my mother has always relied on myself and my older sisters to help take care of our household. Whenever the house needed more groceries, guess who my mom always sent to do the shopping? I remember my sister and I having to walk just under a mile back and forth to the grocery store, IN THE MIDST OF A SNOWSTORM, just so that my family could have dinner for that week. When the house needed cleaning, my sister’s and I were tasked with the chores. On top of that, I was expected to help with babysitting my younger siblings and my infant nephews when I was still just a child myself.

As much as I love my family, living with them for eighteen years of my life did not bring me a lot of inner peace or softness. I am grateful to say that for the past five years I have been able to live on my own. However, that doesn’t stop my mom or my younger brother from calling me (all the time) in order to help out with something.

The other day I actually took my younger brother to get an eye exam and new glasses, only to find that his eye insurance was no longer active, something my mother failed to tell me. Of course, I had to be the one to cover the cost of his glasses. Not only that, but I also had to take time away from focusing on my own grocery shopping in order to do hers. Her shopping cart was so full that I just had to ditch my own and focus on checking out all of her things; just to circle BACK inside and finish my own shopping. I was probably at the grocery store for over three hours that day.

I just want to make it known that I don’t mind helping out my family when I can. This post is not about me trying to bash my family for relying on me, I know that they need me, and I am willing to be there for them.

I know some people may be thinking well, can’t you just say no? And I mean you’re not wrong, I could say no. As a recovering people-pleaser I’ve had to become more comfortable with that word in order to retain what little piece of mental sanity I have left.

But I also know that part of being a soft girl is being more selfish about your time and energy. So, how can I be a soft, selfish girl when my family depends on me? Without my help today, my family would not have dinner on their table and my little brother would still be walking around like a blind bat.

Black women are not born with the luxury or the privilege of saying no. We are the glue holding everything and everyone together, so it doesn’t fall apart. I’m not sure flowers and self-care days can undo a generational cycle of trauma and hardship.

And while we’re on the subject of generational trauma, I recently binge- watched the HULU television series, Queenie, based on the novel by Candice Carty-Williams. The show features a black female protagonist and her struggles to navigate black womanhood, generational trauma, and self-love.

It’s a phenomenal show by the way and I highly recommend watching!

There is one particular scene in the show where Queenie’s mother, Sylvie, and her Aunt Maggie are having a conversation about Sylvie’s growing concerns regarding Queenie’s current fragile mental state. Maggie reassures her sister that Queenie will be alright because she’s a brave girl. To which Sylvie replies,

“She can be brave but that doesn’t mean she’ll be alright.”

To me, the words brave and strong are practically synonyms. And I know that to be called brave or strong are often used as words of encouragement from one black woman to another, but frankly I think I have heard just about enough of it.

I don’t want to be the STRONG woman all the time. I want to know what it's like to not constantly live in survival mode and sacrificing my needs in order to please others. I want to know what it’s like to be soft. To exist in this ultra-feminine, luxurious lifestyle where I’m being treated like a human being with feelings and not a superhuman.

There is actually a moment in the show where Queenie has a break-down during a therapy session about the burdens she carries as a black girl. She talks about how the world treats her like she does not matter and yet she is still expected to be strong and keep pushing through. Her own grandmother scolds her for going to therapy and accuses Queenie of being ‘too soft’, and that she needed to have thicker skin.

How can black women embrace their softness when the world has already decided that we are not meant to? To be soft as a black woman is a major character flaw, a glitch in our genetic make-up.

We’re not the soft, docile, feminine beauty that men often desire. Instead, we’re bitchy, aggressive, loud, masculine, and just “TOO MUCH DRAMA”, a direct quote from Queenie’s (white) ex-boyfriend. Mhmm.

It’s like no one ever stops to wonder why we come with so much ‘drama’?

For once we just want someone to see things from our point of view. To validate our feelings and experiences instead of accusing us of being angry all the time.

Being vulnerable is not something that comes naturally to me as a black woman. All I know is to never show weakness, to keep my chin held high, and keep on surviving through the pain. Black women don’t cry.

But what if I really want to? What if I need to?

There is one final scene from the Queenie series that really spoke to me. Queenie’s grandmother tells her that she is a strong girl, but not just because she can get through anything, but because she has enough strength to know that she is delicate and needs to be handled with care.

I am realizing that maybe strength and vulnerability are not two traits that have to be mutually exclusive. It actually takes a lot of courage to be sensitive and emotional, to admit that underneath that tough exterior is a woman who is fragile.

Maybe black women aren’t soft by nature, but I think we can learn to be with time.

It may be easier said than done, but I can only hope that one day I will get to a place where I’m not afraid to show the world my soft side. And not only that, but that others will be more empathetic and understanding when black women are showing their vulnerability. Because society is far too detached and desensitized when it comes to a black woman’s trauma and feelings.

Just think of Megan Thee Stallion and how the world ridiculed and gaslighted her for simply being brave enough to speak up about the pain she endured. It’s not that black women can’t feel pain, we’ve just learned to become masters at hiding it. Because somehow that seems better than to open up about our suffering, only to have our feelings be dismissed in the process anyway.

But we really owe it to ourselves to FEEL. To release our pent-up anger and resentment (which is all valid by the way) and just feel. After all, we are human. We bleed, bruise, and cry just like the next person. And that deserves to be validated and taken seriously. Period.

Maybe I’ll never be the girl with her head in the clouds who bakes cookies all the time and keeps a smile on her face. But I can work towards becoming the woman that isn’t afraid to cry in front of her friends and admit that I need help. The kind that sets more boundaries and says no without feeling guilty about it.

It may take some time, but I’m looking forward to becoming her.