Welcome to a special collaboration between Black Women Get To Be and The Mediocre Black Woman! I’m Theadora, joined by Qubilah, as we dive into Severance, a dystopian series that eerily reflects Black women’s workplace experiences.
First, let’s acknowledge something: we butchered several character names. And honestly, that says a lot—because if they had made a real impact on us, we would’ve remembered them. That alone speaks volumes about the roles Black women are given in this series.
In Severance, Black women exist primarily in supporting roles—either as caretakers, enforcers of the system, or part of the resistance. That raised two major questions for me: Are Black women perceived as too aware to opt into something like the severance procedure? Or is our absence simply a reflection of who’s in the writer’s room?
Either way, while the show itself is intriguing, we can’t help but wonder—how could these stories truly include us? Where do we fit? One of my favorite moments in this conversation was imagining a different version of this world—one where Black women’s presence is fully realized. What would it look like if we were severed? And more importantly, what kind of workplace freedom would we create for ourselves?
Let’s explore that together.
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