From Olivia Pope’s iconic “it’s handled” line to real-world examples about how black women continue to “save America,” the strong black woman trope is real and prevalent. When Congresswoman Maxine Waters (aka Auntie Maxine) proclaimed that she is a “strong black woman,” we rejoiced and celebrated her. She was right. Just like so many of us in the face of oppression, she didn’t back down.

But this loaded label can also promote this perception of unwavering strength, while simultaneously dismissing the presence of pain or struggle for black women who are strong and resilient. I’ve felt this firsthand.

Like many black women, it has taken me some time to realize it’s OK to take off the cape and ask for help.

Grieving the death of my father and later finding myself without a place to live in a city that didn’t feel like home a few months after completing grad school in 2017, I finally fell apart. I felt discouraged, sad, afraid, and insecure. Still, I’d grown up admiring the images of strong black women, with aspirations of growing into one. I was under the impression that those women don’t complain or fall apart. They didn’t need help.

Cheryl Woods Giscombe, Ph.D., a nurse and social health psychologist at UNC Chapel Hill, observed this exact mentality among black women through her academic studies and in her day-to-day life, prompting her to author the Superwoman Schema study back in 2010. The goal of her research was to examine the relationship between stress and health among African-American women. In order to explore this, Giscombe conducted eight, hours-long focus groups with a total of 48 African-American women from various cities and ranging in age from 18 to 60s.

In each interview, she asked the women questions pertaining to their perception of stress, how they manage stress, and what they felt was expected of them when it comes to stress management. Questions included things like, How do you cope with stress, and how did you see the women in your life cope with stress? Have you ever heard the term “strong black woman” or “black superwoman,” and what does that mean? How does a woman develop those characteristics?

Using the data and feedback she gathered from these conversations, she identified the superwoman schema as a framework that has five key characteristics (as described in the study text): an obligation to manifest strength, an obligation to suppress emotions, a resistance to being vulnerable or dependent, a determination to succeed despite limited resources, and an obligation to help others.

This way of thinking is the result of black women’s experiences throughout history.

Black women are frequently assigned a “caregiver" stereotype (in addition to many other harmful representations). We have taken on that role, and often times been forced into that role, from the days of slavery to today.

Until the 1970s, domestic caregiving work was what was available to black women. Today, in 2019, employment opportunities have broadened for black women, but we’re still more likely to work service jobs than white women (nearly one-third of black women are employed in service jobs compared to one-fifth of white women).

In addition, this reality has been deeply ingrained into the American psyche, from the construction of the “Mammy” caricature (an offensive stereotype of the black women who were domestic workers in the homes of white families) to the continuous on-screen representation of black women in caretaking roles, such as Hattie McDaniel’s portrayal of a maid in Gone With the Wind (which made her the first black woman to win an Oscar) and Octavia Spencer’s Oscar-winning performance in The Help.