Stop Saying “Strong Woman”

For most of my life, I have striven to be a strong woman. I wanted to be someone who could handle anything and everything for anyone and everyone. I wanted to be that person that you wanted by your side, whether you were going into battle or sitting down to a long meeting.

Strong women were praised. Strong women were the ideal. Strong women don’t need help. They can do everything without their perfectly manicured nails chipping or their mascara running.

As I have grown, I’ve discovered the problem. Strong women, as I perceived them, are a myth.

Women are just women. They have strengths, they have weaknesses. They are capable of doing everything, here is the deal though, they are human.

I think we as a culture have a problem. We don’t allow for humans. We only allow for archetypes. Superheroes who can clear buildings in a single bound, who can take care of business and home life, who can do everything and not grow weary. We don’t want to be the people who need to recharge, who really should take on a bit less, who need help, and, heaven forbid, we need help.

We are breaking people. We are forcing them to work at 113950% knowing that burnout is near. We are bringing children up to think that you cannot show any kind of weakness, even if that means you never learn how to cope with basic things, like stress and sadness. This also means that we are not telling them that counseling and therapy is good and helpful for everyone. We as a culture are still telling people that counseling and therapy is only good for broken people. For people who cannot deal on their own. When in reality, just like education, we are not born knowing how to properly deal with every situation. We have to learn.

Please allow me to explain myself. Women are allowed to be strong, men are allowed to be strong. We also are allowed to be weak, kind, happy, mad, sweet, noble, focused, any and all sorts of things. No person is defined by one thing. They are many and wonderfully varied things. They are even able to be contradictions!

I want to challenge you to allow for humans. Allow people to know they can succeed and will be praised for it, but also allow people to fail and let them know that they won’t be ostracized for it.

I would also challenge you to begin to notice unrealistic standards, ones you have for yourself, ones you see in media (even when they are all powerful superheroes), ones you see others placing on themselves, etc. Begin to change the way you think about yourself and what you are required to do and handle.

What do you think? Are there ways that we can be considered strong without breaking us? Are there ways that the media has pulled us into thinking we have to be perfect?

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