Andrea Lewis has been working since she was two years old, and at 41, after a PCOS diagnosis, she stopped treating the ability to push through as proof of strength.
“I’ve learned that just because I can push through doesn’t always mean I should,” Lewis said.
Lewis is an Ontario native who played Hazel Aden on Degrassi: The Next Generation, created and executive produced Netflix’s The Black Beauty Effect, and founded GlamCulture. She describes the habit she is putting down as a shared one.
“As Black women, I think we can become very accustomed to being the person who figures everything out,” she said. “I don’t think being a strong woman should require us to be in a constant state of survival.”
What changed is not the ambition.
“My ambition and my energy aren’t always going to match, and that’s okay,” she said. “I want my businesses to support the life I’m creating rather than require me to sacrifice my health to maintain them.”
She is clear that leaving the old arrangement did not buy her certainty. “I’ve essentially exchanged one type of uncertainty for another,” she said.
An estimated 610,000 Black women aged 20 and over were unemployed in August, seasonally adjusted, in federal labor statistics. The ground Lewis is arguing from is not comfort.
“We deserve to own intellectual property, create companies, employ people and build wealth,” she said.
