For generations, being a good woman meant making yourself smaller. Be agreeable. Be accommodating. Put everyone else first. Do not be too loud, or too ambitious, or too sexual, or too angry, or too demanding, or too sure of yourself. Most of us have been told that we are too much, too emotional, too bossy, too difficult. We learned to read the room and make ourselves fit it to belong, to trim the edges off ourselves so nobody would be uncomfortable. And there are no little spikes sticking out that would make someone uncomfortable. And we were rewarded for it. Praised for being lovely, and easy, and good. And when we stepped outside the lines, we were punished, sometimes with a look, sometimes with much greater consequences than that. I have talked before about a funeral I went to, for a lovely young woman, a mother of small children, taken far too soon by cancer. And as person after person stood up to speak about her, the same words kept coming back. She never said a bad word about anyone. She always put everyone else first. And I remember sitting there, feeling more and more frustrated that all the eulogies were focused on her selflessness. That she asked for nothing. That she put herself last. Even now, even here, that was the highest praise we could find for a woman. I am not criticising the way this woman lived nor the people who loved her. It is just the swamp of needing to be good that we are all swimming in. If being good means being selfless right to the very end, no wonder so many of us have spent our whole lives making ourselves small. It is human nature to want to belong to the tribe and to fit in. And to do that, we have had to be good For most of history, women had fewer legal, financial, and political rights than men. We could not vote (and for many indigenous or women of color, they had to wait even longer for their right to vote). We could not own property. We could not always keep our own wages, or our own children, or make choices about our own bodies. There were recent times where a women could not work if she was pregnant or had children. When did women get the right to vote? Women’s suffrage didn’t happen at the same time everywhere, and in several countries, the first women to gain the vote were white women. New Zealand — 1893: All adult women gained the vote, including Māori women, making New Zealand the first self-governing country to enfranchise women nationally. Australia — 1902: Most women gained the federal vote and the right to stand for Parliament, but most Indigenous women were excluded. All Indigenous Australians gained federal voting rights in 1962. Canada — 1918: Many women gained the federal vote, but racial exclusions remained. Asian Canadians gained federal voting rights in 1948, Inuit Canadians in 1950, and First Nations people gained the unconditional federal vote in 1960. United Kingdom — 1918: Some women over 30 gained the vote. In 1928, women gained voting rights on the same terms as men. United States — 1920: The 19th Amendment prohibited denying the vote based on sex, but many Black women and other women of color continued to face legal and practical barriers. Native Americans gained US citizenship in 1924, although some states continued to prevent them from voting. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 removed many of the barriers used to disenfranchise Black voters. And even as the laws slowly changed, the expectations did not vanish with them. They lingered. They got passed down, mother to daughter silently and without argument, in a thousand small lessons about how to be acceptable. We are still carrying some of them right now, without even realizing. And many of us are carrying internalized misogyny (an idea for a future episode). And this is not just a feeling. The research backs it up. Women get judged more harshly than men for the very same behavior, the moment that behavior is assertive, or ambitious, or powerful. A man is decisive, a woman is bossy or a b***h (there word b***h is always assigned to a woman). A man is driven, a woman is too much. So if you’ve felt the pressure and the judgement, the rules are different for men than us. The rules really are different, and we really do get punished for stepping outside them. When I worked in corporate in a large multinational consulting firm, I could make a suggestion, and it would get ignored. A guy on my team, would then suggest the very same thing and he would be praised for his idea and contribution. So, thank goodness for the women who were willing challenge the status quo and be bold, and brave, and speak up, and be true to themselves. The ones who spoke when women were meant to stay quiet. Who demanded an education. Who fought for the vote, and property rights, and equal pay, and the right to their own bodies. In their day, they were called difficult, and unnatural, and dangerous. Some of them lost everything for it. Some of them were locked up for it. We all know how women were called hysterical when they were angry, regardless of how reasonable that anger was. We have seen how predominantly women’s health issues, like fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue, were initially dismissed as being psychological. As someone who had chronic fatigue from a young age after having Epstein Barr virus when I was 18, I can tell you, I have faced dismissive doctors who told me it was all in my head, and yet, I could barely lift my right arm to dry my hair and had to have a rest afterwards. Every freedom I have, I have because a woman before me was willing to be bad enough to fight for it. I get to vote because of a bold brave woman. I get to own my home, and run my own business, and keep my own money, because of bold brave women. I get to stand here and say all of this out loud because of women who were punished for saying far less. So maybe being a good woman today means something completely different from what we were taught. Maybe it means continuing their work. Knowing yourself. Setting boundaries. Using your voice, even when it shakes. Supporting other women instead of competing with them. Questioning the rules you inherited, instead of just passing them down. And refusing to make yourself smaller simply because your full size and amazingness makes somebody else uncomfortable. I am committed to showing up as a bold brave woman. Does it scare me? Yes, it does and it wouldn’t require courage if it didn’t. To make yourself vulnerable and exposed especially in the age we are living in, really does require bravery. But I have made a commitment to myself, and to the amazing women I am here to serve, that I will show up for all of it. Messy, confused at times, and always myself. Imperfectly me. We did not create the space we get to live in today. We inherited it. From women who were told to stay small, and made it bigger anyway. Who fought so their daughters and granddaughters would have the rights that we have and I don’t take this for granted. For those in the US, I acknowledge, that there’s be a lot of push back against the gains women have made over the previous decades especially with the trad wife movement. I heard something so ridiculous the other day that women’s right to vote should be revoked. I can’t recall where I saw it, but I was appalled, as we all should be. That said, it’s now on us to keep pushing for the rights of women and girls to be treated with respect and fairly. We can choose to be fully and unapologetically ourselves, and letting that be enough. By refusing to hand the smallness down to the girls coming up behind us. And being role models for them in how we are showing up for ourselves, our communities and our families. Bold brave! If you have ever been called too much, I want you to try wearing it like a badge of honor instead of a wound. You are not too much. You are exactly enough, maybe even gloriously, world-changingly too much. And the women who came before you would be so proud to see you take up all your space. Links: 🎧 Listen at Fully Expressed Radio: https://fullyexpressedradio.com/ 📖 Subscribe to Fully Expressed on Substack: https://fullyexpressedwithayesha.substack.com/ ✨ Join Your Voice by Design (live workshop, 20/21 September) by upgrading to an annual paid subscription this month, with Marketing by Design gifted as a bonus. Already an annual subscriber? It's yours free. → https://fullyexpressedwithayesha.substack.com/subscribe 💛 The fuller story of the online harassment I mention: "Online Stalking Nearly Silenced Me" → https://fullyexpressedwithayesha.substack.com/p/online-stalking-nearly-silenced-me Come and take up space with me: Here's to living Fully Expressed!Love, Ayesha xox Get full access to Fully Expressed with Ayesha Hilton at fullyexpressedwithayesha.substack.com/subscribe
