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As women, we’ve been shamed since birth to even voice our boundaries.
Our discomfort and lack of safety have been disregarded and dismissed like a gnat by society. As a result, we clam up even when we want to scream.
I still struggle with setting boundaries to this day. Sometimes I still don’t speak up until it becomes unbearable. And I shouldn’t have to. None of us should.
For instance I didn’t walk out on my recent job until the sexual harassment escalated to the point where I couldn’t take it anymore.
We could speak up as soon as our intuition tells us something is off. Just that tug of a feeling. That’s all we need to to withdraw, to leave the conversation or to get the hell out of there.
We don’t have to wait until we are filled to the bone with anxiety and drowning in it to be able to say, “I’m not okay with this.”
Men and their pickme women will guilt us, shame us, attack us or gaslight us into submission if we even voice our discomfort. They will expect us to bend over backwards for them, to shut up when they are violating us on any or every level. Do we really ever need to put up with this?
If anyone has a problem with you expressing how uncomfortable or how unsafe you feel or if you simply are not up to doing something then do they even respect you? Do they care about your needs?
If not, snip SNIP them out of your life.
We don’t owe anyone sh*t.
Our needs and wants are ALWAYS valid no matter how society convinces us otherwise. In fact, we need to be prioritizing them more. We owe it to ourselves to put our comfort, safety and wellbeing first especially after years of putting our own selves on the back burner.
We have a lot of limiting brainwashing we have to unroot ourselves from. The patriarchy wants our power and light snuffed out. Don’t even entertain them.
Self prioritization will save your life as a woman.
Beautiful post, and so relatable. I definitely have to start getting more comfortable pushing back and saying “I don’t share that kind of information” and “I’m not comfortable with that” rather than giving a vague answer in the interest of honesty or whatever. Harder to do in person, but important to our safety.
At age 47, I am only now just learning how to enforce boundaries. I cry when I think how late in life I am learning this lesson, and how I could have saved myself decades of pain and torture. It's been illuminating watching men's reactions to my NO's. Subtle defiance to my NOs I never saw before. Subtle manipulation over time to try to get me to change my NO. Things I just never saw before.
I got to practice enforcing my boundaries in my meet up group I run for Gen Xers. I specifically have every member answer the question that they understand this is not a dating group. This question was geared towards the men, of course, but I had to make the women answer too, to be fair. Well, what do you think happened? Right out the gate from the very first event, every man I met hit on me and asked me out in a date! Every single one! And one by one I had to enforce my boundaries. And eventually ended up banning all the men who kept repeatedly testing my boundaries. 3 dudes legit kept trying to get me to go out with them, until I kicked them out. Becuase this is a new muscle and I have never tried to enforce boundaries before, it was a shock to me. I knew it was going to happen, but I honestly gave the benefit of the doubt that not all would disrespect the group rule but they all did.
Snip SNIP. It's the only way. It SHOUDLN'T Be. But reality is reality. I wish I had known this SOONER. Often, speaking up does far more harm than snip snip.
Just SPLIT.
This is literally r/relationship_advice, AITA and all its related subs. They'll be shook when a woman in an obvious abusive relationships asks if her life is a-OK. But conveniently forget that they and society gaslight her to "cOmMunIcAte" with her scrote to get go this point. Men are taught the opposite of this, where any bad behavior from stealing from moms cookie jar to literal terrorism is only punished when it becomes kleptomania, people dead etc