Battle Cries. Hillary Potter
abusive relationships. In a sense, they began to listen to their own rants, which was the foundational stage of providing them agency in taking action against the abuse.
The majority of the women depicted the qualities and consequences of the Strong Black Woman in an optimistic way. However, some women, including some who attributed some positive aspects to the Strong Black Woman classification, identified the negative facets of being a Strong Black Woman. As Harriet’s anecdote illustrates, other women also spoke of viewing the strength of Black women in a negative manner and talked about how it may affect their ability to establish heterosexual relationships with men who believe the women are too strong-willed. In trying to determine why she was abused by her intimate partner, 36-year-old Gloria retrospectively reflected, “Maybe I was too controlling or something.” Some women also contemplated this view during their abusive relationships. Sadly, there are individuals who rationalize that if a woman is outspoken with her male intimate partner, he essentially has a right to aggressively correct her behavior.18 Some of the women’s comments regarding Black women’s strength appeared to blame the women’s strong qualities for the abuse by men. Jade described how she repressed her self-assured personality in order to attempt to transform her abusive relationship into a nonabusive one, because she thought her strong and independent qualities exacerbated her husband’s behavior: “I was a strong woman.… I wasn’t one to really invest myself into men and feel like men made me complete or anything like that. But it was like, OK, I really want to try this. His parents never got divorced and I came from a divorced situation. He made me feel ashamed of that.”
Thirty-seven-year-old Naomi, whose mother was not identified as a Strong Black Woman, spoke of how certain women (of any race) and a number of Black men perceive Black women and also discussed the effect of embracing this image on speaking publicly about abuse:
The Black men say, “I’m not gonna date a Black woman because they’re mouthy or aggressive.” You’re expected to be a certain way. You’re expected to be strong as a Black woman. Most women expect Black women to be very strong. They wouldn’t think a Black woman would put up with [abuse]. You’re trying to keep that, so people can think I’m strong. I honestly think that. I don’t know any statistics, I haven’t talked to anybody, but that’s what I believe. Because people look at me like, “You put up with it?” I think that’s why a lot of Black women aren’t coming out, except for the extreme stuff.
Naomi’s assertion is supported by Patricia Hill Collins’s argument that the “matriarch or overly strong Black woman has … been used to influence Black men’s understandings of Black masculinity. Many Black men reject Black women as marital partners, claiming that Black women are less desirable than White ones because we are too assertive.”19
Wanting to be seen as a Strong Black Woman, even by those individuals closest to the women, interfered with their ability to be completely honest about their limitations, thus making them vulnerable.20 Twenty-eight-year-old Isis discussed why she had not disclosed her previous abusive relationships to her current, nonabusive boyfriend:
He knows about them because of the kids, but he doesn’t know about all that stuff. Sometimes I just don’t want to open those flood gates. Like I’m crying now, but I don’t want him to see me that weak. I don’t want him to ever see me being a weak person because of that. And he probably wouldn’t. And maybe if the time is right, maybe one day I will tell him. But I just haven’t found it necessary to even talk about it, because we talk about other stuff. I feel like I’ve built at least a strong exterior where I could deal with these things. I’ve dealt with them OK at this point. I haven’t been on drugs. I’ve never been arrested. All my kids are healthy.
Caretaking is a major characteristic of the Strong Black Woman. Women with children had first of all the responsibility of caring for those children. However, as many women are socially and culturally obligated to do, there were many other duties for which they were also responsible. These duties are multiplied for women who are unpartnered mothers. Bil-lie’s narrative described the caretaking facet of the Strong Black Woman. She realized, with the benefit of hindsight, that because of her custodial obligations at work, to her children, and to her current husband, Odell, she neglected herself:
I think because I got into health care and I was always helping somebody else, I didn’t have to worry about Billie. I was always helping somebody else, you see what I’m saying? As long as I was helping somebody else, helping Odell with his seizures and his [medical condition], then I don’t have to worry about me. Me will be fine. I’m supposed to be strong. I’m the strong one. I’m supposed to take care of this. This is my job.… Babies’ daddies were never there to help me and I never really depended on ’em, either. If I got pregnant, I was like, “Oh, well. I’ll take care of it.” God ain’t going to put no more on you than you can handle. I always felt that way. God don’t make no junk.
Keisha described the self-awareness process that occurred when she joined her mother, Leah, in a battered women’s shelter. Keisha went to the shelter for emotional support from her mother after Keisha was beaten by her boyfriend. Keisha shared the following about loosening the bind of the Strong Black Woman attribute in order to heal:
I’m strong about mine and there was no weakness ever shown in me. I never cried or anything. The time I broke down was when we were at a meeting [in the shelter] and we were all talking about our problems, and that’s when I broke down. I lost it. But it took a while for me to break down because I kept it inside, with a whole bunch of other stuff. I was just angry.
Even at the age of 18, Keisha had already developed the unyielding self-image of the Strong Black Woman, which was difficult to set aside in order to address the sources of her distress. Keisha’s autobiography, as she reported it to me, and the other life stories presented here demonstrate the damage to a battered Black woman who considers herself a Strong Black Woman influenced by the societal and cultural perceptions of Black women and the element of intimate partner abuse in their lives. Labeling one’s self and being labeled by others as a Strong Black Woman hindered the women in detecting the extent of the psychological consequences from the abuse, seeking mental and physical health assistance, leaving the relationship early on, and seeing themselves as “victims” or as a “battered women.” Obviously, many battered Black women are able to see the abuse for the destructive action it is, but they may not view it as a mental abscess that will only further infect the women’s overall well-being if not treated. Conversely, the espousal of the Strong Black Woman maxim did provide many of the women in this study with the strength to eventually leave the relationships and to cope with the lingering wounds of abuse. The characteristics that make up the Strong Black Woman effectively allow for a theoretical explanation—dynamic resistance—of battered Black women’s reactions to their abuse.
Dynamic Resistance
To this point I have regularly used the term “victim” to describe the women as they live through precarious situations in some of their intimate relationships. Yet, in Chapter 6, I expand on the women’s general inability to view themselves as “victims” or even as “battered women.”21 A review of the analysis provided at the start of this chapter of the women’s opinions of White women in general, and battered White women specifically, begins to offer an explanation for this pattern. The women viewed battered White women as passive or submissive, while seeing battered Black women as aggressive or assertive. They agreed that Black women can survive without a man better than White women. They asserted that, although heterosexual Black women enjoy and welcome stable heterosexual relationships, the problem—both perceived and real—of absent Black fathers and husbands in the Black community leaves Black women with the mindset that there may be an occasion when they cannot rely on these men for domestic assistance. In relation to this, the women believed that White women remain in abusive relationships—that is, tolerate these relationships—longer than their Black counterparts. The perceived passiveness of White women, according to many of the women, translated into the White women’s incapacity to verbally rebuke the batterers’ wrath. The women reasoned that talking back was much more prevalent among battered Black women, building on the stereotype that Black