One day in mid-November, I followed a crowd of teenagers from Trump Tower to Washington Square Park in the pouring rain. They were protesting President Trump’s election and I was writing about them. In order to talk to as many kids as possible, I kept running ahead in the protest, falling behind as I walked with a group, then running ahead again. By the time I reached the park I was wet to the skin, but I could’ve run fifty more blocks. I was happier than I’d been in weeks.

Since the election, a debate has emerged on the left over the meaning of self-care. As the writer Jordan Kisner notes in a recent essay at The New Yorker, the term in its current form originated in communities of color and queer communities, its usage exemplified by Audre Lorde’s statement that “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” Now, especially in the runup to and aftermath of the recent election, self-care has entered the mainstream, as those who previously felt relatively comfortable in America suddenly feel anxious and in need of comfort. A variety of companies have capitalized on the cultural moment, using the term to sell luxury products, primarily to white women. Ms. Kisner quotes a recent sponsored Instagram post extolling the virtues of papaya: “I rub the skins on my face every morning and I have noticed a HUGE improvement in my complexion. #selfcare.”

Unlike messages of self-care that come from activist or mental health communities, which often encourage social connection and attendance to basic needs, corporate self-care messages of the kind Ms. Kisner cites generally promote forms of relaxation. Baths are big, as are candles, blankets and lying down. The most work you’ll do as part of a modern-day, mainstream self-care regimen is rubbing those papaya skins on your face.

It should come as no surprise that self-care, as coopted from black women and marketed largely to white women, has come to be synonymous with idleness. For white women, taking care of oneself has historically meant abstaining from work. When Charlotte Perkins Gilman experienced post-partum depression, her doctor prescribed the now-infamous “rest cure.” She was to “lie down an hour after each meal. Have but two hours’ intellectual life a day. And never touch pen, brush or pencil as long as you live.”