Welcome to the Black Girl Burnout podcast, and we are closing out our week on opting out of being a strong black woman.

Today we are looking at where this manifests in our personal

life, where this myth can really take a toll on us in our professional lives. I'm definitely

recovering from being a strong black woman in the workplace. It has taken years of unlearning to get here. And part of what I was

able to understand and bring into my life has to do with what we're going to anchor this episode in,

which is in redefining strength. Historically and culturally, work has been a white man's space. And when I say work, I mean

meaningful, prosperous, stable work has been a white man's space. We look in historical context,

and we see that there have been certain waves in which there has always been

labor. People have always been working, right? In America, though, there's been a lot of free labor

and exploited labor. That is the history of America is basically exploitation of labor.

It doesn't matter unless you are a straight up and down white man, every single

other group has been exploited in some way or directly made to do free labor. We look around the

world, it's an ongoing problem that labor continues to be exploited. I mean, it's an ongoing problem in the states,

too. But as far as free labor exploitation, sweatshops, cruelty to laborers, this has always been

a part of our history. But for every story of exploitation, and there are many valid stories of struggle, there's also

been just going back to the root of work, the nature of work. We look at African tribal life

and the way labor is allocated. We look at Native American life and the way that labor is allocated.

There seems to be more of a division of labor and labor is tied to values. Like, it's tied to

with native folks, a relationship with the earth and knowing the balance between how much

to farm or hunt with a role of women in that process as well as

child rearing and how that all happens. In African culture, it's very similar that we see

that work has been done culturally in relationship to family and prosperity. it's very much value anchored.

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