Being High-Maintenance

I spent two decades running from that label. Now I'm running toward it.

Photo by Jernej Graj on Unsplash

This week I was listening to an episode of the Balanced Black Girl podcast (which happens to be on my wishlists of podcasts that I’d like to be a guest on). The episode was about how the host, Les Alfred, is redefining her personal style as an act of self-empowerment. I haven’t even gotten through the full episode because Alfred’s discussion of how she is learning to be high-maintenance sparked an internal dialogue about the impact of the term on my life.

“She sounds high maintenance.” Those were the words that my then-neighbor’s college friend used to describe me after hearing that I was working on my doctorate in clinical psychology. He warned my neighbor off. “You don’t want to date that girl, man.” I chafed when my neighbor shared his friend’s warning. “Tell your friend that as a Black woman with a PhD, I’ll be able to maintain myself, thank you very much.” I will refrain from offering commentary on the friend’s romantic choices. I will admit that he turned out to be right about one thing: my neighbor didn’t want to date me; he wanted to marry me.

In the nearly 30 years since I heard that comment, I’ve only seen that friend a few times. He’d never been one of my husband’s close friends. Their relationship likely would not have extended past college if not for the fact that they both moved to South Florida after graduating. But even though I’d cheekily rebutted his comment, it lived in my head rent free for years because it echoed a common stereotype of educated Black women: that we demand too much from men, whether that “too much” has to do with money or behavior. Kanye West’s song, “Gold Digger” didn’t become a number one just because of that hook by Jamie Foxx. It became a hit because it echoed a sentiment that a lot of Black men internalized about Black women: that we were primarily interested in them for their money. While West and Foxx didn’t name Black women specifically, the video imagery made it clear who they were primarily talking about. I’ll refrain from offering commentary on West’s romantic choices. But let’s talk about stereotypes of Black women.

In my book, Too Heavy a Yoke: Black Women and the Burden of Strength, I draw upon Patricia Hill Collins’ concept of controlling images to describe the way that Black women’s identities have historically been portrayed by three interconnecting stereotypes: the mammy, the jezebel, and the matriarch. On one side is the mammy, the doting, loyal, asexual, passive woman whose sole function (and source of joy) is caring for White families. On the other side, we have the jezebel or the matriarch, both of whom are depicted as controlling, manipulative, untrustworthy, and aggressive. The difference is that the jezebel utilizes sexuality to manipulate others, while the matriarch uses coercive power. Notably, these stereotypes are not specific to the United States; they are used globally to justify the subjugation and oppression of African women on the continent and throughout the diaspora. In fact, they’re not even limited to African women. As I discuss in my second book, I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation, White supremacy has also created variations of the mammy and the jezebel stereotypes for African, Asian, Latinx, and Native American women.

Stereotypes do not just exist in the minds of the privileged. They are internalized by the very groups that they are meant to control. Many Black women and girls are socialized to be afraid of being perceived as jezebels or matriarchs. I recall a female relative telling me that I would never find a romantic partner because I was too picky. Fortunately, there were other women in my family who encouraged me to keep being picky. But while I did that with my choice of partner, for years I felt guilty about being seen as too demanding after I’d found a partner. I didn’t want to confirm my husband’s friend’s belief that I was high-maintenance. I didn’t want to confirm the societal belief that middle-class Black women were high-maintenance, that we had unreasonable expectations and demanded more than we gave in relationships.

Before our engagement, my husband and I talked about how we desired an egalitarian relationship that was unlike the patriarchal marriages we’d both been exposed to. But that didn’t relieve the pressure I felt of trying to fit into my new family after we got married. They didn’t understand me and my feminist ways: I didn’t (and don’t) fix his plate; I was willing to disagree with him in the company of others; and he had told them that our decisions about where to live would be driven by my job prospects as an academic. So when his grandmother pulled me aside one day to ask if I was working, I realized that what she really want to know was whether I was pulling my economic weight or whether I was using him to subsidize my graduate education.

I did not want to be seen as a jezebel or a matriarch, so I did what Black women have often done to combat those stereotypes: I became a StrongBlackWoman. I tried to do it all. I raised my expectations of my own behavior and lowered my expectations of everyone else’s. Whether it was at home, in my graduate institutions, at my church, or on the job, I tried to be the woman who could take care of everyone else’s needs at the expense of my own. I tried to be the women who provided care to others, but never needed anything from anyone else. I tried to be the woman who never needed anything period. I prided myself on how little I shopped. I deprived myself of goods and services, even when I knew that I needed them for my health.

Actually, for the longest time, I didn’t know that I needed them for my health. I didn’t realize that taking care of myself would improve my mental and physical well-being, which would in turn improve my relationships with others. It took chiding from my rheumatologist’s PA (also a Black woman), who informed me that my “I bought shoes last year” attitude was contributing to my hip and back pain. “Girl, shoes are not meant to last five years,” she said. I still have difficulty accepting that it’s okay for me to have more than one pair of black or brown flats at a time. But I have learned that massages, pedicures, and water aerobics are non-negotiable parts of the family budget. I have learned that loving myself well teaches other people how to love me. I am learning to give myself the love and care that I’ve so readily doled out to others for so long. I’ve increased my expectations of what I need to be well, and I require everyone else to do the same. If that’s what it means to be high maintenance, then I wear the label proudly. Except I’m no longer insistent on just maintaining myself. That’s a communal affair.