What strikes me most about all of this is how the myth of confidence and this monetised version of liberation continues to keep women looking inward to what’s might be wrong with them, instead of outwards to what’s really going on and what’s wrong with the world. You can’t be given or taught confidence, it comes through taking action but that can be hard when things are stacked against us.
We’re being taught, still! to constantly improve ourselves, rather than to question why the world still isn’t helping women, why it’s often working against us and why we don’t have any real equality.
It’s no surprise I guess that the people putting women in their place, giving them false hope and unrealistic ideas, albeit aesthetically pleasing ones, are other women because the patriarchy relies on women competing with each other and not really helping each other. It’s how society has worked for a long time.
Real liberation only really happens in places and relationships where women share knowledge and contacts instead of competing and watching each other with suspicion. So that’s things like having transparent conversations about money, helping each other childcare, generosity without agenda, giving mentoring and guidance that isn’t always monetised. (I say this as a coach who of course charges for that service but also gives untold hours of my time every month to supporting and championing other women.)
We have to see that it’s only when we stop competing and also frankly believing we are all capable of much more than this smoke and mirrors bullshit, that we all start to win. Great piece 🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻
Yes, exactly, Sarah, you’ve named it so beautifully. The confidence myth is the patriarchy’s favourite sleight of hand: keep women endlessly polishing ourselves while the systemic architecture stays untouched. It’s brilliant theatre, if you forget who’s paying for the tickets!
And I love what you said about generosity without the invoice. That’s where the real rebellion lives now — in women helping each other without turning it into content or a brand pillar. The quiet, unmonetised exchanges are the ones that actually change things.
Thank you for reading with such care and for all the work you’re already doing to make that kind of liberation real.
I’d love a chat with you, if you ever fancy that 😉
I would! Men have been helping one another out like this for millennia, whilst also killing each other (and doing the dirty on each other too let’s not forget :-) ) but I think the way the women have always been pitted against each other really does get the way of us being powerfully useful to each other!
Yes, exactly that. Men have always had their messy mix of rivalry and allegiance, and somehow still manage to pass power between them like it’s a family heirloom. Women were taught competition without the inheritance.
It’s changing though and conversations like this are proof. And yes, I’m 100% up for that chat. Something tells me it’d be half strategy session, half joyful mutiny. 😉
Highly political, imagine lots of men wouldn’t like this - but that is what real feminism looks like. Examining the structures. Such a good article thank you.
I think I often miss your reads due to time zone differences and I’m so glad you shared this title as a note. I’ve had my eyes open for it. Well done 👏
Ah, thank you, Chanel — I love knowing you were keeping an eye out for it! Time zones do their best to keep us apart, but I’m thrilled this one found you 💖
Catching up on many posts today and what a timely one this was to read. “What began as solidarity has hardened into emotional capitalism — the conversion of feeling into revenue. Experience becomes a franchise. Each woman’s personal transformation is formatted for export.” This! The exploitative process of it all! Monetizing the appearance of confidence — terribly detrimental to actual confidence. I love how your mind observes and reflects, and I always love your voice ❤️
That bit you picked out is one that still makes my jaw clench tight. Turning confidence into something you perform rather than something you actually feel…it does such a number on women!
And you’re so right: what started as genuine connection has somehow been twisted into a marketplace for feelings. It’s wild when you stop and see it clearly.
Thank you for catching up, for reading with such care, and for always bringing that sharp, generous mind of yours. I love having you here. ❤️
Women questioning themselves or not helping each other or actively sabotaging each other rather than questioning the way things are built. 🔥
Yes the teaching loop doesn’t break us out of this either.
All brilliant. But when does the penny often drop for us ?
After having kids. When it can feel too late. Before that? Blissful ignorance.
We can’t fight against that which we do not know.
The solution ? To remove blinkers from those coming up and younger than us. But how to convince that it isn’t their looks we are jealous of it is their energy, their time and their innocence.
Really though they need to be part of the conversation or the numbers are never big enough.
It feels like the number of those who know, care and might have the voice or platform to say something is really small.
It would require a team of people to really think about how to go about this kind of change. I think you’d need a man or two in that discussion too. But maybe with a tape over his mouth for the first hour.
Sounding flippant but not meaning to be …
What a vision for the future for women that would be.
Joanna, yes, all of this. The penny drop so often happens post-children, when the bandwidth for righteous fury is at its lowest and the structural absurdities are at their loudest. Before that, as you say, it’s blissful ignorance dressed as freedom.
And I love your call to widen the conversation...to reach the women who still think the system can be out-hustled rather than overhauled. It’s hard to convince them it’s not envy, it’s foresight.
As for the men in the room… yes, let’s invite them OF COURSE but I’m tempted to keep your tape idea. First hour mandatory. 😉
Particularly the bit about curated background (re financial support). I remember when I started freelancing I was the only income covering my mortgage and life expenses and I HAD TO WORK. I had to chase the $ and do jobs I hated so I could keep my home and I’d see all these women come through and they’d be on socials 20x times a day pushing a brand of success and I felt so small, and stupid, and bad at business that I wasn’t growing (until someone pointed out they had a lot of free time to be posting 🤷♀️). Those days sucked. But once that mask slips 🌞
Yes, the curated background! You were out there actually working while everyone else was selling the idea of working from their artfully lit kitchens. No wonder it felt impossible to keep up. You were in survival mode; they were in performance mode. Different planets entirely.
And when the mask slips? God, what a relief. Suddenly you realise you were never behind, you were just living in the real world. 🌞
As with so much of what you write, as I read I realized that I've FELT the impact of what you identify here but had no conscious, conceptual understanding of what is really happening here and therfore no way to articulate it, even to myself. I am grateful that you named it because now I can interact with it in a much more meaningful, conscious, critical way.
Ray, that means a lot, thank you. I know exactly what you mean about feeling something long before you can name it. Once it’s named, it stops being fog and starts being terrain — you can walk it, test it, decide what’s yours and what never was.
And yes, the moment you see it clearly, the spell’s broken. There’s no going back after that! xx
The truth here is deafening. Women selling their transformation to other women to sell to more… and even when I know it, I still end up believing, and buying… breaking the cycle is hard!
God, yes, that’s the trap, isn’t it? Even when we see the loop, we’re still inside it. The sales pitch is baked so deep into our cultural bloodstream it starts to sound like truth.
Breaking it isn’t a single act, right?! It’s constant noticing, and constant refusal. And honestly? Every time a woman clocks the game and says not today, the whole illusion loses a little of its shine. That’s how we start burning it down — one unbought lie at a time. 🔥
And it’s not just in the purchasing, it’s in the consuming. What you watch (on TikTok, Insta, YouTube, etc)…feeds this loop. The attention economy seems to be the #1 thing everyone is driving at these days.
Exactly, the loop doesn’t just run on money, it runs on eyeballs. Attention is the new currency, and women’s lives are the collateral.
What’s funny (in a grim way) is how the platforms keep calling it empowerment while training us to perform for free. It’s the patriarchy’s favourite side hustle: monetise our gaze, then sell it back to us as confidence.
Oh. my. Word. It’s Sunday morning and you took me to church! Say it louder for the people in the back. I have forwarded this, will read it a few more times, will make amends for my part in this crazy pattern, and will lead differently going forward. Upgrading to paid as this vehicle needs fuel to keep driving. Thank you for
Along the time to bring these connections to light.
Helen! What a comment, I can feel the fire through the screen. Thank you for this and for fuelling the work (literally and metaphorically). It’s wild, isn’t it, how quickly we can all get swept into these patterns, even when we know better? The fact that you’re naming it and leading differently — that’s the real work.
And “took me to church” might be the highest compliment I’ll ever receive on a Sunday morning. 🙏
This is a great read and I’m so glad I discovered you in a July newsletter with Post Growth Institute, which linked me to your Medium article ‘Acquainting Ourselves with Collapse’ and then I found you here. A digital path led me here.
Wow! Great read!
What strikes me most about all of this is how the myth of confidence and this monetised version of liberation continues to keep women looking inward to what’s might be wrong with them, instead of outwards to what’s really going on and what’s wrong with the world. You can’t be given or taught confidence, it comes through taking action but that can be hard when things are stacked against us.
We’re being taught, still! to constantly improve ourselves, rather than to question why the world still isn’t helping women, why it’s often working against us and why we don’t have any real equality.
It’s no surprise I guess that the people putting women in their place, giving them false hope and unrealistic ideas, albeit aesthetically pleasing ones, are other women because the patriarchy relies on women competing with each other and not really helping each other. It’s how society has worked for a long time.
Real liberation only really happens in places and relationships where women share knowledge and contacts instead of competing and watching each other with suspicion. So that’s things like having transparent conversations about money, helping each other childcare, generosity without agenda, giving mentoring and guidance that isn’t always monetised. (I say this as a coach who of course charges for that service but also gives untold hours of my time every month to supporting and championing other women.)
We have to see that it’s only when we stop competing and also frankly believing we are all capable of much more than this smoke and mirrors bullshit, that we all start to win. Great piece 🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻
Yes, exactly, Sarah, you’ve named it so beautifully. The confidence myth is the patriarchy’s favourite sleight of hand: keep women endlessly polishing ourselves while the systemic architecture stays untouched. It’s brilliant theatre, if you forget who’s paying for the tickets!
And I love what you said about generosity without the invoice. That’s where the real rebellion lives now — in women helping each other without turning it into content or a brand pillar. The quiet, unmonetised exchanges are the ones that actually change things.
Thank you for reading with such care and for all the work you’re already doing to make that kind of liberation real.
I’d love a chat with you, if you ever fancy that 😉
I would! Men have been helping one another out like this for millennia, whilst also killing each other (and doing the dirty on each other too let’s not forget :-) ) but I think the way the women have always been pitted against each other really does get the way of us being powerfully useful to each other!
Yes, exactly that. Men have always had their messy mix of rivalry and allegiance, and somehow still manage to pass power between them like it’s a family heirloom. Women were taught competition without the inheritance.
It’s changing though and conversations like this are proof. And yes, I’m 100% up for that chat. Something tells me it’d be half strategy session, half joyful mutiny. 😉
Highly political, imagine lots of men wouldn’t like this - but that is what real feminism looks like. Examining the structures. Such a good article thank you.
I think I often miss your reads due to time zone differences and I’m so glad you shared this title as a note. I’ve had my eyes open for it. Well done 👏
Ah, thank you, Chanel — I love knowing you were keeping an eye out for it! Time zones do their best to keep us apart, but I’m thrilled this one found you 💖
Catching up on many posts today and what a timely one this was to read. “What began as solidarity has hardened into emotional capitalism — the conversion of feeling into revenue. Experience becomes a franchise. Each woman’s personal transformation is formatted for export.” This! The exploitative process of it all! Monetizing the appearance of confidence — terribly detrimental to actual confidence. I love how your mind observes and reflects, and I always love your voice ❤️
That bit you picked out is one that still makes my jaw clench tight. Turning confidence into something you perform rather than something you actually feel…it does such a number on women!
And you’re so right: what started as genuine connection has somehow been twisted into a marketplace for feelings. It’s wild when you stop and see it clearly.
Thank you for catching up, for reading with such care, and for always bringing that sharp, generous mind of yours. I love having you here. ❤️
The feeling is mutual 🩵
Women questioning themselves or not helping each other or actively sabotaging each other rather than questioning the way things are built. 🔥
Yes the teaching loop doesn’t break us out of this either.
All brilliant. But when does the penny often drop for us ?
After having kids. When it can feel too late. Before that? Blissful ignorance.
We can’t fight against that which we do not know.
The solution ? To remove blinkers from those coming up and younger than us. But how to convince that it isn’t their looks we are jealous of it is their energy, their time and their innocence.
Really though they need to be part of the conversation or the numbers are never big enough.
It feels like the number of those who know, care and might have the voice or platform to say something is really small.
It would require a team of people to really think about how to go about this kind of change. I think you’d need a man or two in that discussion too. But maybe with a tape over his mouth for the first hour.
Sounding flippant but not meaning to be …
What a vision for the future for women that would be.
Great article thank you. X
Joanna, yes, all of this. The penny drop so often happens post-children, when the bandwidth for righteous fury is at its lowest and the structural absurdities are at their loudest. Before that, as you say, it’s blissful ignorance dressed as freedom.
And I love your call to widen the conversation...to reach the women who still think the system can be out-hustled rather than overhauled. It’s hard to convince them it’s not envy, it’s foresight.
As for the men in the room… yes, let’s invite them OF COURSE but I’m tempted to keep your tape idea. First hour mandatory. 😉
‘When the bandwidth for righteous fury is at its lowest.’ Great line.
Oof. This hits!
Particularly the bit about curated background (re financial support). I remember when I started freelancing I was the only income covering my mortgage and life expenses and I HAD TO WORK. I had to chase the $ and do jobs I hated so I could keep my home and I’d see all these women come through and they’d be on socials 20x times a day pushing a brand of success and I felt so small, and stupid, and bad at business that I wasn’t growing (until someone pointed out they had a lot of free time to be posting 🤷♀️). Those days sucked. But once that mask slips 🌞
Yes, the curated background! You were out there actually working while everyone else was selling the idea of working from their artfully lit kitchens. No wonder it felt impossible to keep up. You were in survival mode; they were in performance mode. Different planets entirely.
And when the mask slips? God, what a relief. Suddenly you realise you were never behind, you were just living in the real world. 🌞
I loved reading this, thank you for writing it.
As with so much of what you write, as I read I realized that I've FELT the impact of what you identify here but had no conscious, conceptual understanding of what is really happening here and therfore no way to articulate it, even to myself. I am grateful that you named it because now I can interact with it in a much more meaningful, conscious, critical way.
Ray, that means a lot, thank you. I know exactly what you mean about feeling something long before you can name it. Once it’s named, it stops being fog and starts being terrain — you can walk it, test it, decide what’s yours and what never was.
And yes, the moment you see it clearly, the spell’s broken. There’s no going back after that! xx
The truth here is deafening. Women selling their transformation to other women to sell to more… and even when I know it, I still end up believing, and buying… breaking the cycle is hard!
God, yes, that’s the trap, isn’t it? Even when we see the loop, we’re still inside it. The sales pitch is baked so deep into our cultural bloodstream it starts to sound like truth.
Breaking it isn’t a single act, right?! It’s constant noticing, and constant refusal. And honestly? Every time a woman clocks the game and says not today, the whole illusion loses a little of its shine. That’s how we start burning it down — one unbought lie at a time. 🔥
And it’s not just in the purchasing, it’s in the consuming. What you watch (on TikTok, Insta, YouTube, etc)…feeds this loop. The attention economy seems to be the #1 thing everyone is driving at these days.
Exactly, the loop doesn’t just run on money, it runs on eyeballs. Attention is the new currency, and women’s lives are the collateral.
What’s funny (in a grim way) is how the platforms keep calling it empowerment while training us to perform for free. It’s the patriarchy’s favourite side hustle: monetise our gaze, then sell it back to us as confidence.
Oh. my. Word. It’s Sunday morning and you took me to church! Say it louder for the people in the back. I have forwarded this, will read it a few more times, will make amends for my part in this crazy pattern, and will lead differently going forward. Upgrading to paid as this vehicle needs fuel to keep driving. Thank you for
Along the time to bring these connections to light.
Helen! What a comment, I can feel the fire through the screen. Thank you for this and for fuelling the work (literally and metaphorically). It’s wild, isn’t it, how quickly we can all get swept into these patterns, even when we know better? The fact that you’re naming it and leading differently — that’s the real work.
And “took me to church” might be the highest compliment I’ll ever receive on a Sunday morning. 🙏
This is a great read and I’m so glad I discovered you in a July newsletter with Post Growth Institute, which linked me to your Medium article ‘Acquainting Ourselves with Collapse’ and then I found you here. A digital path led me here.