The Power of Being Too Much

As women, we are often taught to stifle our signaling emotions.
Feelings like anger, rage, and discomfort are seen as too much- for both ourselves and those around us.

We’re muted into submission.
We’re expected to walk a tightrope that was never actually designed to hold us.

Our culture teaches us to be surprised when a woman is both pretty and smart. Polite and confident. Silent and powerful.
We’re told to shed dimensions of ourselves just to fit into the confines of a gaze- one that only sees us through the objectifying mold someone else has carved.

If you can’t see me... how can you hear me?

I don’t want sympathy.
I don’t want an apology on behalf of all men.
I want to normalize women standing loud and firm in moments of oppression and injustice without shocking the hell out of people.

To quote Soraya Chemaly:

“We should be making people comfortable with the discomfort they feel when women say no unapologetically.”

We live in a world steeped in multilayered conditioning that distances us from recognizing our own discomfort- let alone someone else’s. From mind-controlling media to the escapism and addictive, disembodied consumption of porn, people have become desensitized to social and emotional cues.

It’s not just that the word no doesn’t register, but it’s the normalization of the lack of connection.

The absence of presence.
A disconnection so deep that reading body language, facial expressions, and energy becomes nearly impossible.

We always declare what we feel-
you’ve just been trained not to hear us.

There is power in anger.
By repressing it, we perpetuate the very cycles of abuse being acted upon us.
But the moment we embrace our rage, we become visible.

Let’s make noise- without apology.