They say it’s a man’s world. And I want to add that it’s a woman’s social world.

What I mean is how lucky we are to have each other – to share every hair tool, swap outfits before a night out, and still have the occasional sleepover well into our 20s. Whether it’s holding each other’s hair back over the loo after a late night or holding hands before an exam or a first date, the depth our friendships is something special. It’s my favourite part of womanhood so far, we’re cute.

But this ability to have such powerful friendships is partly the result of being taught from a young age that maintaining relationships is our responsibility – all done in a subtle manner, sometimes overtly. It’s a weight we carry instinctively.

We become social architects before we even understand the concept. I remember even at 12 years old, one of my favourite teachers told me I was not allowed to play frisbee during sports because I had an injury at the time. I promised her I would not, I played frisbee during sports anyway. I was so upset with myself that I might have personally upset, disappointed or offended her that I went home and wrote a very tear-stained note to leave in her office the next day.

More often than not we are storing or feeling guilty for not doing enough for several other people at one time – whether it’s wanting to help your friend dealing with low confidence, your brother with his exam stress, your new foreign flatmate navigating the city.

We learn early that part of being a ‘good woman’ is making sure the people around us feel supported, connected, and emotionally tethered. And so, we take it on. Willingly or sometimes less willingly and more guiltily. And if we don’t hold up this social scaffolding that seems to keep getting higher and higher, what happens? 

If we finally just stop, get overwhelmed, forget one thing, what happens? We are told how silly we were for taking on so much, it’s seen as a flaw, there is something wrong with you for wanting to keep everyone happy, for trying to keep up with the exact expectations that have been put on you your entire life. The ones that can have consequences, whether its other peoples’ disappointment or worse, your own. 

The problem is it’s a double-edged sword, if we keep trying to keep up with these expectations we will always go through this cycle:

Keeping everyone happy until we burst, disappointment, overwhelm, exhaustion, rest, repeat.

This has been my pattern for years. I cannot count how many times the people close to me have asked ‘Why do you do always do this? You need to give yourself a break, you can’t please everyone.’ Yet proceed to be disappointed when I don’t fulfil their allotted empathy quota for the week (not to blame them, I love them dearly, we all do this). 

We are expected to be the ones who remember, who nurture, who bridge the gaps. And while this ability to connect, to empathise, to hold people together is powerful, it is exhausting. Women preserve the social world; it is our beautiful strength to have such a natural empathy, but it has been contorted, this beautiful capacity for such empathy is being over-burdened with guilt and expectations. 

It can lead to many women allowing their boundaries to be crossed to protect others or themselves ironically, to avoid a potentially hurtful conflict, it can lead to undeclared needs to appear more feminine or more polite. This pressured manifestation of empathy has been so alienated from its nature that women often perform empathy simply to keep themselves safe from a negative reaction. This is not about a disconnection from our gut feeling, our inner voice. She will always be there for us. This is about numbing, about the two voices in conflict – our outer voice and what our inner voice actually wants to say. And often, they grow further apart even at a young age. 

For example, an experiment by Dr. Elizabeth Kilbey and Professor Paul Howard Jones observed five-year-old girls and boys drinking lemonade in front of the woman who had made it. The lemonade had been spiked with salt, and the researchers focused on the children’s reactions. Would they be honest about the terrible taste? The boys were – very. ‘I’ll be sick’, one said. The girls, however, chose to preserve the woman’s feelings rather than admitting the truth. One girl even said when asked later, ‘I pretended I did like it so it made her happy’.

Professor Jones noted that as early as three or four months old, girls already exhibit greater awareness of the emotions of others compared to boys. While there is no definitive evidence that this is entirely innate, empathy has long been ingrained as part of the female gender role. 

But this is not a nature v nurture debate. It is a readdress from a 21-year-old already exhausted by the weight of these ‘invisible’ yet overwhelming expectations. For too long, women’s empathy has been moulded into a societal obligation rather than a choice. Women often find themselves shaping their lives around the need to avoid making others uncomfortable, to protect fragile egos, to escape criticism, to simply exist without being labelled difficult. 

I was listening to a podcast today – an interview with Carol Gilligan, author of In a Different Voice – where she highlighted the harmful role women play in reinforcing expectations for one another. It has become a kind of Big Brother-esque, 1984 effect – an echo chamber of gossip and judgement, often disguised as concern when a woman dares to stray too far from the pack. Gilligan called it the ‘good woman police’: the invisible force that pressures women to stay in line. When a woman reaches a certain level – academically, socially, romantically, professionally – she often feels an even greater need to please, to prove she still belongs. A statistic she cited struck me: when American teenagers were asked whether they had ever chosen to withhold their opinion to be more likeable, 46% said yes. Among high-achieving girls, that number jumped to 62%.

Women are not born struggling to express their needs. In fact, as children, we are often more vocal about them. But we are taught the role of the ‘good woman’ through a relentless system of patriarchal conditioning – through media, family values, education, and, just as significantly, through our relationships with one another. This isn’t about blame; it’s about recognition. It’s about acknowledging the second voice we have internalised and, perhaps, reminding ourselves that our own voices deserve to be louder.

So, the real question is: How do we flip the script? If our natural empathy has been twisted into an expectation of self-sacrifice – into a demand that we shrink, soften, and mute ourselves – then how do we shift that narrative? How do we make sure this becomes history, not something we quietly pass down to the next generation?

I don’t have a perfect answer yet, but there are two working theories.

1. To think of little me.

The loud, little human I was. I think of her and how she would have made her voice heard, COMPLETELY unapologetically. Whether quiet, shy, chaotic or outspoken, think of your younger self. Is she happy with the way you’re treated now? Would you want her to tolerate the way her friend spoke to her? 

The goal is not to abandon our natural empathy but to reclaim it – wield it wisely. Boundaries don’t make you cold; they make you clear. The story we are told is that practising ourselves is selfish, but true empathy does, in fact, include self-empathy. 

           2. Trust your hunger.

Your ambitions, your needs, your wants. You do not need to feed everyone else before yourself. Throughout history and still today, many women have been taught that they shouldn’t have hungers, that desire is dangerous, that wanting more is unfeminine or low and behold greedy and selfish.  

But our authenticity comes from our hunger, by acknowledging it, by fulfilling it, we unlock a part of ourselves that perhaps was locked away before. Our full selves are available to us.

For me, one of my hungers is writing. I have a bizarre craving for it. I was terrified of letting anyone see my words beyond my professors or my journal pages. So, this is me finally fulfilling that hunger. And it’s snowballed. 

I moved to Paris in September and wanted a group of girlfriends – it finally formed this month – I am going to the cinema with them tonight. I always wanted to wear my natural curls but spent years frying it with a blow-dryer. Now, I’m sitting here with a t-shirt wrapped around my head, waiting for the curls to dry. 

So just try listening to that hunger. Does she want a yoghurt bowl right now? Or maybe a weekend to be completely left alone? Or to start painting again? 

Our hunger for life is the most trustworthy thing we have; it is what guides us. So, can we please stop telling the guide to shut up?