Black-ish star Tracee Ellis Ross talks Being Empowered on the Cover of Good Housekeeping’s May Issue

“We are the first generation of women who can choose the lives we want to live in,” Good Housekeeping cover star Tracee Ellis Ross says when asked how she finds meaning.

The star talks about her personal style, what her definition of beauty is, the importance of her role in hit TV show Black–ish and why her mum inspires her.

Read excerpts from her interview;

My style motto

I wear what makes my heart sing. I can come to work at 5 in the morning in a fabulous outfit because it’s what makes me happy. There’s always an element of comfort and an element of glamour. I’ll wear sweatpants with a tuxedo jacket or a wide-leg tuxedo trouser with a pair of sneakers and a sweatshirt. I love an Adidas Stan Smith.

How to find meaning

I feel that to a certain extent, we are the first generation of choice for women, who have had the opportunity to actually choose the lives they want to live…. The cultural expectation for women that they are meant to be mothers and married and that is almost what makes their lives valid creates a scenario that I push up against in general. There are many places where that happens in our culture that I think are very limiting for women in terms of finding meaning in their own lives.

The importance of her role on Black-ish

I think that as a black woman, my beingness is a form of activism in and of itself. The fact that I am on a show called Black-ish, that I’m playing a woman who is both a wife and a doctor, a mother and a person, a partner and an individual, and that I am playing a joyful black woman on television who is not just surviving but thriving is by definition a form of activism. If I take that and ripple it out further in an amplified way, I can’t help, from my beingness, to not be a form of activism, because that is who I am.

Why my mum inspires me

My mum has an amazing work ethic. To her, ‘on time’ is 10 minutes early. I’ve never heard her complain. She was busy going to the supermarket, waking us up for school, sitting with us during dinner, recording while we were sleeping, never leaving for longer than a week so she wouldn’t be away from us. Whether she was about to go onstage or busy having a meeting, she never responded with “Not now, I don’t have time.”

On plastic surgery

I don’t have a judgment about anybody who decides to wear contour or to alter her face or her body. My whole thing is if you’re going to go do those things, from acupuncture to plastic surgery, from a place of being empowered, know what the context is and know why you’re making the choice you’re making, and then make an informed choice.

Full Interview will be in Good Housekeeping May 2017 issue.

Photo Credit: Good Housekeeping