Last week I saw a really cringy interview with Drew Barrymore and Vice President Kamala Harris (USA) where she was asking her to be the county’s ‘Mamula.’ It was clearly giving, ‘be the black mammy’ vibes and there were a lot of us on social media saying how tired they were of having this stereotype projected onto them at work.
The Black Mammy stereotype is deeply rooted in chattel slavery where we were expected to be nurturing, self-sacrificing, and grateful for having the primary role of caring for their white enslavers. This stereotype continues to be used in the workplace to exploit, dehumanise, and subjugate Black women, recycling harmful stereotypes and reinforcing racist power dynamics. How does this play out at work?
- Expectations of Caretaking: Black women are expected to take on caregiving roles, such as providing emotional support or managing conflicts, often without receiving proper recognition support or appropriate pay for the role.
- Devaluation of Skills and Expertise: Black women’s professional skills and expertise are devalued by emphasising their perceived natural inclination towards domestic and caretaking roles. Consequently, we face barriers to advancement and are often overlooked for leadership positions as a result.
- Emotional Labour and Burnout: The emotional labour heaped on Black women to cape for everyone else often results in burnout as we codependently deny our own emotions to keep the peace at work.
- Difficulty Setting Boundaries: The Mammy stereotype portrays Black women as selfless and accommodating, making it challenging for us to set boundaries or advocate for our needs in the workplace. This inability to prioritise our wellness at work inevitably feeds a cycle of codependency, exhaustion and resentment.
- Enabling Racist Hierarchies: Black women may internalise this stereotype and believe racist messages that their identity and worth is dependent on their ability to meet these caregiving roles for others. Accepting these projections enables the system and keeps the power dynamics firmly in place.
Challenging this stereotype is essential for dismantling the oppression systems ingrained in so many corporate organisations. If you identify with these characteristics, recognise yourself as the workplace mammy or struggle with chronic people pleasing, join the email list to get exclusive access to a webinar on understanding and setting racial boundaries at work on 23 May 2024.