Long before the pandemic inspired employees to embark on the journey of Quiet Quitting, Black women were already doing it. It first started when somewhere, somehow, Black women began to rally together to collectively “burn the cape” and denounce the title of “strong.” Unfortunately, Black women have been the face of struggle across vast branches of life for years. When Black women chose to burn the cape, they also simultaneously opted to put themselves first. This birthed the “soft life,” a movement that radically accepts the art of self-care, self-love, and acceptance. Before quiet quitting became a corporate American phenomenon, Black women decided that they would denounce the roles of being workhorses that had to work twice as hard for everything. For a long time, Black women believed they had to work twice as hard to climb the social ladder. The emergence of the soft life made Black women believe they could choose themselves first and ignore the expectation that they had to do backbreaking work to be worthy of respect and appreciation. This means that Black women have also been quietly quitting their stressful lifestyles to embrace the soft life unapologetically fully.

Quiet quitting