Read the full article on Substack.
On mean girls, grown-up dimming, and why female energy is never as simple as sisterhood hashtags make it seem.
When I was six, I hit a girl in the face with my aluminum Strawberry Shortcake lunchbox — a moment I unpacked in an earlier piece linked here.
Not my finest moment—but definitely not unprovoked.
She’d been whisper-bullying me for weeks: the yanks, the digs, the slow-burn smugness mean girls master early. Then one day she pushed too far. I don’t remember the words—only the heat, the humiliation, the sudden clarity.
Wham.
Lunchbox to the face.
Power dynamic reset.
I wasn’t proud.
But I wasn’t sorry.
That was one of my first lessons in female energy.
And here’s the truth I didn’t have language for at six:
The politics of girlhood don’t disappear.
They just evolve.
The Hidden Hierarchies
We’re told women are each other’s mirrors.
We rise together.
We lift each other.
We glow collectively.
Beautiful idea.
Messier in practice.
Because beneath the surface lives a quiet calibration:
• Who gets to shine
• Who gets to lead
• Who must stay “relatable”
• Who expands
• Who shrinks when someone else does
Not all competition looks like rivalry.
Sometimes it looks like warmth—just enough to tether you, not enough to let you rise.
We’ve been conditioned to prioritize harmony over sovereignty:
Be likable.
Be chill.
Don’t outshine.
Don’t threaten the ecosystem.
So, when one woman begins to glow too brightly, others instinctively adjust the dimmer.
Read the full article on Substack.
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