At some point, a lot of women are handed a list of instructions nobody actually admits is a list.
Don't be too loud.
Don't be too angry.
Don't be too opinionated.
Don't need too much.
Don't ask too many questions.
Don't make anyone uncomfortable.
Don't take up too much space.
Don't be difficult.
And for the love of everything good, whatever you do, don't become a woman who knows exactly what she deserves. Because apparently that is terrifying.
So we learn to shrink. Not always consciously. Sometimes it happens so slowly we don't even notice.
We soften the text before we send it.
We add “lol” so nobody thinks we’re mad.
We say “no worries!” when there were, in fact, several fucking worries.
We apologize before asking completely reasonable questions.
We stay quiet when someone crosses a boundary because we don’t want to “make things weird.”
We explain our no. Then explain the explanation. Then somehow end up comforting the person who was upset that we had a boundary in the first place.
And eventually, we get so good at making ourselves digestible that we forget what we actually taste like.
Women Are Taught That Being Liked Is a Survival Skill
Little girls are praised for being pleasant long before they understand what pleasant even means. She’s so sweet. She’s so easy. She never causes any trouble. She’s such a good girl.
And maybe nobody explicitly says, Your job is to make everyone around you comfortable.
They don’t have to. We figure it out.
We notice which girls get called dramatic. Which women get called difficult. Which coworkers get described as aggressive instead of assertive. Which wives get told they’re nagging. Which mothers are expected to carry an entire family’s emotional and logistical workload while somehow maintaining the temperament of a Disney princess.
We learn the rules. And then one day, if we’re lucky, we start breaking them.
The People Who Loved Your Lack of Boundaries Will Hate Your Boundaries
Here’s one of the most uncomfortable parts of changing: Not everyone is going to celebrate.
Some people preferred you exhausted. Some people preferred you endlessly available. Some people preferred the version of you who never said, “Actually, that’s not okay with me.” And when that version disappears, they may decide you’ve changed. They’re right. You have. That’s the point.
You stopped saying yes when you meant no.
You stopped volunteering for emotional labor nobody ever reciprocated.
You stopped chasing people who were perfectly comfortable watching you do all the chasing.
You stopped arguing your humanity like it was a case before the Supreme Court.
You stopped confusing being needed with being loved.
Because sometimes what people really mean when they say you’ve become difficult is: you became difficult to use. There is a difference.
Anger Isn’t Always a Problem to Fix
Women are often encouraged to examine our anger before anyone examines what made us angry.
Have you tried calming down? Have you considered their perspective? Could you have handled it differently?
Maybe. But could they have not treated you like shit? Let’s put that question on the agenda too.
Anger can be destructive. Of course it can. But anger can also be information. It can tell you that something is unfair. That a boundary has been crossed. That you’ve been swallowing resentment for six years while telling everyone you’re fine. That the life you’re living no longer fits the person you’ve become.
Sometimes anger isn’t asking you to burn everything down. Sometimes it’s asking you to finally stop abandoning yourself. Listen to it.
You Don’t Owe Anyone a Smaller Version of Yourself
There is no prize at the end of your life for being the woman who required the least. Nobody hands you a trophy because you spent decades pretending you weren’t hurt. You don’t get bonus points for tolerating disrespect with a smile. You aren’t morally superior because you stayed in places that were slowly destroying you. And you do not need to earn your right to have needs.
You can want more. You can change your mind. You can disappoint people. You can leave. You can be angry. You can say no without submitting a 12-page supporting document. You can outgrow friendships. You can decide access to you is a privilege instead of a constitutional right.
You can become inconvenient. You can become loud. You can become impossible to manipulate. You can become the woman younger you desperately needed to know existed.
Too Much.
Become Too Much for the Wrong People
Be too opinionated for people who require your silence.
Too independent for people who need you dependent.
Too ambitious for people who feel safer when you doubt yourself.
Too loud for rooms that only celebrate women who whisper.
Too angry for systems that rely on your compliance.
Too difficult for anyone who thinks loving you should require your obedience.
And especially — become far too much for anyone who was only comfortable with you when you were abandoning yourself.
You were never supposed to spend your entire life making yourself smaller so other people could feel bigger.
Take up the space. Say the thing. Wear the thing. Start over. Walk away. Ask for more. Stop apologizing for having standards. Let them misunderstand you. Let them call you difficult. Let them say you’ve changed.
Because maybe you finally have. And maybe that’s the fucking point.
The Rage Report is where we talk about the things women were told to swallow quietly.
We don’t do quiet very well around here.
0 comments