Hi👋🏽 I’m Kat. I help navigate difficult conversations and teach women how to negotiate on their own terms. Welcome to my version of a newsletter where I’ll be reminding you how to be kinder to yourself. You may listen (above) or read (below). You’re doing great, sweetie. Remember you’re all you have. So welcome and thanks for being here.✨
✨I dedicate this note to all, especially women and my dear friends, who are in a relentless search of their true self. May you fall madly in love when you meet them✨
I’ve been thinking a lot about choices lately - just the wonderful privilege to be able to make choices in our lives. Where to live, what to do or who to be with. It's an incredible gift when we are able to manifest these decisions into existence. I think about the people who squandered on choices out of fear, disappointment, shame and spite - or all of the above. Rather than making choices for themselves, they withdraw by deferring decisions to others. Perhaps you can say that avoidance is a choice on its own.
In 2014, right before grad school, I started a study asking women to define their idea of empowerment. The responses astounded me after learning there is not one universal way to feel truly empowered. It varied from person to person. I theorized that even if women were offered equal opportunities as men, it would almost seem fruitless without addressing the root causes that sustain inequality in the first place. For example, I discovered that access to education will not produce women’s empowerment if women themselves were taught their entire existence to shape their lives within the confines of social expectations. Indoctrination is not something one can easily break free from especially when it’s embedded into their unquestioned identity. A society may have the most highly educated women in the world and yet have the least agency over their lives, bodies or futures. There are even women who find themselves disempowered, despite achieving high socioeconomic status in the wealthiest of communities. I uncovered in my research that structural equality does not mean empowerment if there’s still no freedom in one's individual choices and identity.
Empowerment is about choices. Thanks to social economist Naila Kabeer who completely upended and redefined my definition of the concept. It’s about having those choices available as well as having the agency to act on those choices. On a personal level, I believe that it’s also about finding one’s own path and being able to follow that path regardless of what society dictates.
I never truly appreciated the significance of my agency until in recent years when I finally reached that level of self-actualization. I find that women of a certain age (hello, ladies in their thirties) are often deemed suspicious for simply being a woman devoid of titles that of a wife or a mother. It baffles me that even at this day and age, women are still asked why they have never marry or have kids as if the decision not to pursue these is delusionary. It’s amazing how women are still expected to explain themselves for their life decisions but no one ever flinches when men remain a bachelor until hell freezes over. We tell girls they can be whatever they want to be, yet as adults we carry the stigma surrounding women in their 30’s or 40’s who choose to remain single. I learned to be unapologetic for my own life choices. My lifestyle preference is stereotypically unpopular but it has nothing to do with anyone but myself. Any attempt to convince me to follow a different path is futile because frankly I’m having way too much fun living my best life.
It’s worth noting that there are those who feel trapped within social pressures often with no other alternative. Whether due to socioeconomic or sociocultural reasons they submit to these obligations. I am familiar of some who were never granted opportunities to even choose how to live their life or the outcome of their futures. This makes me think about the many brilliant women I know and the regrettable choices they made out of social or familial pressures. And then there are those who fall in line with the status quo out of fear of ostracization for being different. I see you and I totally get it.
I am not making a case for one choice being the better one or the right one. It’s a case made on the belief that each of us, if afforded, has a right to make our own unique choices. Contrary to what is often presented, empowerment doesn’t come in a fancy title or a boatload of cash or a special milestone - though admittedly we all want those things. But these are just other forms of social pressures only with a slightly different face. Some of these life goals parading as empowerment is just another way society dictates how we spend our time, how we live our life or how to look. If we had true autonomy over our lives, wouldn’t we feel more fulfilled day in, day out, rather than burned out and anxious all the damn time. Perhaps, our anxiety grows each day because we know a lifetime is too short to keep denying ourselves what we truly want out of life. Perhaps society has drown out our inner voices, speaking on our behalf far too long that we’re convinced that their claims become our truths. Imagine if we can be honest with ourselves about what we really want, what kind of life do you think we’ll have? The ability to run our life free of external control is essential to self-fulfillment.
Choosing to create a life for yourself is not selfish but it may need a little bit of courage. You can still have love, community, respect, altruism, friendship and relationships. Self-advocacy does not negate the existence of these values. The universe didn’t grant you this one life so you can live it according to someone else’s design. Don’t imprison yourself in a life not of your own making. Understand that your partners, parents and peers were granted a life entirely separate from yours. They have their own lives to run, so you need to live yours.
It will take some time and practice, but in the end it will be worth knowing that your one chance of a lifetime you spent most of that being true to who you are. Happy International Women’s Month, ladies - now, go and create the life you deserve!💫
xx
Kat✨
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