So you've got a job, and it pays the bills. You're not so concerned about being the best or getting promoted. You're just biding your time, giving the position just enough energy and attention to get by and keep it. Well, sis, this is a form of quiet quitting.
What To Know About Quiet Quitting
The term has made its rounds across the Internet, from TikTok to YouTube, to Reddit, to Lipstick Alley. But what exactly is it? How do you quit "quietly," and why is this something people are talking about?
With many becoming a part of that post-pandemic shift from the hustle mentality to the soft life movement, quiet quitting can be part of that journey.
What exactly is quiet quitting?
No, quiet quitting is not just never showing up at your job ever again, with no notice. And it has nothing to do with ghosting your company or shooting your manager a quick but politely written resignation email. It involves reducing your enthusiasm for doing your work and offering the bare minimum in terms of effort in completing tasks. It's not exactly slacking because you're fulfilling the duties your job requires, but there's no going above and beyond to be exemplary, innovative, or helpful other than doing the job you're paid to do and going home.
You've mentally checked out and just don't want to put in any extra effort toward thriving in your position or at your company.
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Why do people quietly quit?
The Great Resignation has led professionals to leave their jobs in record numbers during the aftermath of the pandemic, seeking more work-life balance, following their career dreams, and making more time for family and leisure, and those who might want to join that wave but can't for various reasons, are turning to quiet quitting. Researchers have found that the desire to quit or basically check out from even wanting to work for a company includes a "toxic" work culture as well as "failure to promote diversity," and "abusive managers."
Oftentimes, because of financial reasons, a quiet quitter won't actually leave their job. They simply can't just get up and walk out because they haven't yet found a better opportunity. They might also be pursuing a certain goal such as purchasing a home, financing a child's education, or supporting elders. They're building up their savings, using a job as a stepping stone, or simply aren't in a position to hit send on that resignation email.
Professionals have also expressed feelings of burnout, dissatisfaction or simply wanting to do other things, and they want to mentally focus on efforts to transition into a new job or lifestyle, so quiet quitting is also something they turn to in order to fill the gap while they're doing so.
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There's another side to quiet quitting as well: protest. Some professionals quietly quit because they don't feel valued and they want someone to know just how much value they actually dobring to the table. They withhold their best and no longer put in the additional work. It's like being in a lackluster relationship and refusing to do certain things you did at the beginning when your spouse seemed to cherish you. Instead of breaking up, you hold back, whether it's no longer sending those mid-day "I love you" texts, making homecooked meals, bringing them coffee in bed in the morning, or leaving little gifts around the house for no reason at all. In the case of a job, maybe you don't help that team member with the research for the next presentation, you're not coming in early, or you're literally clocking out at 4:59 p.m.
It may be a sign you need to actually...well, quit.
If you're finding yourself resenting your boss or job, coasting by with hardly any motivation, interacting with team members, clients, or customers with little to no enthusiasm, or finding ways out of even going to work, you might not want to quietly quit. It may be time to find another job or reevaluate what you want out of a career. The longer you stay at a job or in a position that's not advancing your intellect, skills, and life experience, the more disservice you're doing to your own mental well-being and career future.
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Today, that movement has turned into a wig uprising where Black women are able to experiment with colors, styles, and more without causing irreparable damage to our hair. It could even be said that we’ve arrived at a new level of acceptance: one that does not equate love of oneself to one’s willingness or lack thereof to wear her hair the way others deem acceptable. Not even other people who look like us.
However, as with Blackness itself, the issue of Black women’s hair is layered.
On the surface, it’s nothing more than a matter of personal preference. However, in a deeper dive, issues of texture, curl pattern, and of course, proximity to social acceptance, as well as other runoff streams from the waters of racism and patriarchy, rear their heads. The natural hair movement, though a wide-reaching and liberating community builder, also gave way to colorism and often upheld mainstream beauty standards.
Sometimes, favoring lighter-skinned influencers/creators with very specific hair textures, the white gaze leaked into our safe space and forced us to reckon with it. Accurate representations of natural hair in various states of being—undefined curls, kinks, and unlaid edges—are still absent from brand marketing. Protective styles, though intended to provide breaks from styling for our sensitive hair, have become a mask to help our hair be more palatable. A figurative straddle of the fence in order to appease the comfort of others in the face of our hair’s power.
And then there’s the issue of length.
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As a woman who has spent much of the last decade voluntarily wearing her hair in many variations of short hairstyles, from a pixie cut to a curly fro and a sleek bob, what I’ve gleaned throughout the years is that there is a glaring difference between how I am treated when wearing my hair short than when I opt for weaves, extensions or even grow it out slightly longer than my chin.
The differential treatment comes from women and men alike and spans professional and personal settings, including friends, coworkers, and industry peers.
What has become abundantly clear is that long hair is often conflated with beauty, softness, and any number of other words we relate to femininity in a way that short hair is not. That perceived marker of the essence of womanhood shows up in how I am received, communicated with, and complimented.
Even more so than texture, length has a way of deciding who among us is deserving of our attention, affection, and adoration. Whether naturally grown or proudly bought, the commentary around someone’s look or image greatly shifts when “inches” are present.
When it comes to long hair, we really, really do care.
In an effort to understand whether I had simply been misinterpreting the energy around my hair, I decided to take my findings to social media. I began with two side-by-side photos of myself. In both pictures, my hair is straightened; however, in one, I am wearing my signature pixie cut, and in the other, I am wearing extensions.
I posited that treatment based on hair length is a real thing, and what followed was confirmation that I was not alone in my feelings. “Long hair, like light skin, button noses, and being thin are all forms of social capital,” one user commented. “Some Black women enforce the status quo too, why wouldn’t we?”
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This also brought to mind the many times celebrity women (like most recently Beyoncé's Cécred hair tutorial) have done big reveals of their own natural tresses in an attempt to silence any doubt that Black women are able to grow their hair beyond a certain length. Of course, we all know that to be true, so why do we still feel the need to prove it so?
The responses continued to pour in from women of all skin tones, who felt that hair length played a role in people’s treatment of them. “When I have short hair I always feel like people don’t treat me like a woman, they treat me like a kid,” another user commented. “When my hair is long I get a lot more respect for some reason.”
From revelations about feeling invisible to admitted shifts in their own perceived beauty, Black woman after Black woman poured out her experience as it relates to hair length. Though affirmed by their shared realities, knowing that reactions to something so trivial have become yet another hair battle for Black women to fight was disheartening. Though we continue to defy gravity and push the bounds of imagination and creativity by way of our strands, will it always be in response to the idea that we are, somehow, falling short?
Unlike more obvious instances of hair discrimination, the glorification of longer length is sneakier in its connection to Eurocentric beauty standards. Hair commercials, beauty ads, and even hip-hop music have long celebrated the idea of gloriously long tresses while holding onto the ignorant notion that it is inaccessible for Black women.
Even as we continue to fight to prove our hair professional, elegant, and worthy in its natural state to the world at large, we’ve also adopted harmful value markers of our own as a community. It’s evident in how we talk about who has the right to start a haircare line and which influencers we easily platform. It’s evident in the language we use to identify those with long hair versus short hair. And it’s painfully obvious in how we treat one another.
It makes me wonder if India.Arie’s brave rallying cry, almost two decades old in its existence, will ever actually hold true for us. Or will we just continue to invent new ways to uphold the harmful status quo?
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