Before quiet quitting took corporate America by storm, Black women were quietly quitting their arduous lifestyles.
They dubbed it the soft life: An online aesthetic movement that emerged in 2021 that called for Black women to let go of the astronomical expectation that they do it all. Rather than live a life of stress trying to be a career mogul, a style icon, and someone who’s emotionally available to friends and family 24/7, Black women called for those who have been working way too hard to take a softer approach.
Unlike quiet quietting, the soft life isn’t confined to scaling back your career efforts. Instead, the movement is about seeking peace first in all life aspects — which can include quitting your job, or giving less of yourself professionally. When explaining it to others on the internet, many creators will call back to the Urban Dictionary definition, which reads:
« Opposite of hard life. Where you make decisions that leave you feeling stress free and vibrating higher. Less about wealth (though it helps) and more about making good choices. »
The idea of the soft life is thought to have originated in the Nigerian influencer community before migrating to Western internet corners. The tag #softlife on TikTok harbors 282.2 million views and counting, and almost every video under it features Black women offering their advice on how to achieve a life free of tension.
At a glance, the soft life looks like one of luxury: fancy meals and pretty dresses, elaborate trips and shopping sprees. And for some people, the soft life absolutely can be luxurious in practice. But its biggest proponents always call back to the mindset behind it.
« [Soft living] is about denouncing hustle culture, it’s not about luxury culture, » said creator and businesswoman Kimora Brown in her video. « Capitalism is not soft living. It’s actually anti-soft living. »
For lifestyle creator Elicia Goguen, the soft life is about living life with ease. « It’s to have a life that allows you to reclaim and step into your feminine energy, to connect with the parts of you that you’ve had to push to the side due to your life circumstances, » said Goguen to Mashable.
Many soft life creators reference this idea of masculine and feminine energy as a key aspect of the lifestyle. The concept calls back to spiritual practices and yin and yang energies in Chinese medical theory.
Though gendered in name, feminine and masculine energy is not constrained by gender identity, and as author and soul coach Sylvia Salow explains via Medium, it refers more to the types of energy that dominates someone’s personality and approach to life. In spiritual communities, both energies are believed to be a part of everyone, regardless of gender identity.
Feminine energy is « flowing and dynamic, » and someone who leans more towards a feminine energetic approach is more open to vulnerability, creativity, and moves through time non-linearly. Conversely, masculine energy is more « stable and predictable, » focusing on willpower, clarity, and focus. For the Black women who seek out the soft life, many feel that their lives have been too dominated by masculine energy, with life circumstances forcing them to turn away from their own vulnerability and emotional health to prioritize more extrinsic goals and others around them.
The soft life movement loosened expectations, while still letting Black women dictate their own boundaries.
While we are in an era where anyone can be anything, especially online, Black women have always been expected to be everything. In a study for The National Library of Medicine, Dr. Cheryl Woods-Giscombé examined the Superwoman Schema. It’s the do-it-all cultural ideal that many Black women find themselves striving to be.
The study found that to be a respected Black woman today, many feel the pressure to manifest strength, thereby suppressing emotions and vulnerability, resisting dependency, and projecting unyielding determination to succeed despite the circumstances. And they do this all while continuing to help others in their community, often putting their emotional needs last. The women in the study reported that playing this superwoman role can result in strained interpersonal relationships and tons of stress-related behaviors and health issues, like migraines, poor eating habits, and bad sleep schedules.
It makes sense, then, why the soft life was instantly alluring. Why sacrifice your health and well-being simply because that’s the way it’s always been for Black women? The soft life movement loosened expectations, while still letting Black women dictate their own boundaries. « My soft life looks like honoring the fact that I’m a woman and that I run on a hormonal clock, » said Goguen. « My soft life is about honoring my emotions, slowing life down, meditating, dancing, allowing love into my life, allowing myself to experience pleasure, learning how to unblock old subconscious beliefs to help me manifest my dreams, [and] becoming more aware of where I spend my money and what I spend it on. »
The relationship between soft living and quiet quitting
A soft life for many is about drawing boundaries, a social movement that’s become more popular than ever.
As Black women began consciously uncoupling from strife, that same mentality started largely reflecting in the corporate world’s quiet quitting movement. For young people in the workforce, their jobs’ expectations have taken over their entire lives, as it’s been for generations before them. But this generation of workers is watching wages continue to stagnate, inflation continue to rise, and workplace culture completely transform. Quiet quitters are logging on at 9 a.m. and logging off at 5 p.m. They’re meeting their job expectations but not going above and beyond them. They’re leaving time to cultivate hobbies and practice self-care and spend time with their loved ones. Sound familiar?
It shouldn’t go unsaid that in the case of the soft life, Black women recognized a need to take care of themselves and called for others to do the same — but it didn’t become a broader cultural concern until quiet quitting applied the same concepts to the workplace.
Though both movements seek a seemingly universal quest for peace, they both draw the same criticism: laziness. Black women trying to live a softer life are often hit with comments accusing them of wanting to take « the easy way out of life, » or « just wanting to be a housewife. » Quiet quitters are criticized for not wanting to put the work in or expecting to be paid for slacking off.
Women all over the world are starting to reclaim what they’ve lost, and I think the soft life is a reflection of that.
But what these critics forget is the essential nature of boundaries for mental health. It’s a well-studied subject, with professionals agreeing that personal boundaries are necessary in all aspects of life. By living a softer life, Black women are choosing to finally put themselves first in a culture that demands they constantly focus on others. By redefining work expectations, young professionals are prioritizing living a more fulfilling life over giving themselves to their jobs. Together, these lifestyle movements can help create a cultural mentality that comes a little closer to collective health than collective productivity.
« The soft life is definitely for anyone who realizes they’ve been out of touch with themselves, out of tune with their desires, disconnected from their emotions, etc, » said Goguen. « Women all over the world are starting to reclaim what they’ve lost, and I think the soft life is a reflection of that. »
