DEAR YOUNG WOMEN: YOUR SOFTNESS IS NOT A PERFORMANCE

Dear Younger generation of women (AKA Millennials, Gen z and Alpha),

Lately, I’ve been watching the world spin language like sugar.
“Divine femininity.”
“Hyper-independence is a trauma response.”
“Soft life only.”

There’s something seductive about the simplicity of it all. Be this, not that. Heal by performing healed. Rest, but only in a way that photographs well. Return to softness, but only a kind we recognize.

But I wonder—when did femininity become a script you have to audition for?

I ask as someone who has tried on all the versions.

The quiet girl, the strong girl, the fixing girl. The girl who prays, plans, forgives, forgets, tries again. The girl who cooks and leads and says no gently, but means it with her chest.

I have been called masculine for simply knowing what I want.
For moving through the world without waiting to be rescued.
For calling a thing by its name and not shrinking in the echo.

But the truth is—none of that came from ego.
It came from necessity. From learning early that life won’t always wait for you to be ready. That sometimes, love doesn’t look like being saved. It looks like saving yourself without losing your tenderness in the process.


So I stopped auditioning. I stopped performing softness like a job interview.
And started embodying it like a quiet, sacred rhythm.

Not the kind that begs to be protected.
The kind that protects, even while bleeding.
The kind that keeps the lamp burning for others, but also knows when to blow it out and rest.

You see, I’ve lived in both worlds—the “let me do it myself” and the “please sit with me while I fall apart.” I’ve been the planner and the poet. The caretaker and the one who desperately needed care.

And I’ve come to believe that the fullness of womanhood—of personhood—isn’t either/or. It’s and.


Soft and structured.
Open and discerning.
Held and holding.
Laughing and angry.
Tired and still trying.

The problem isn’t that women are too much—it’s that the culture keeps asking us to be less.

So no, I won’t perform your version of femininity.
I will live mine.

One that does not shrink or shout for validation.
One that observes, reflects, and still dares to feel everything.
One that lets me be many things—sometimes in a single day.


And maybe, just maybe, if we stop prescribing what womanhood should look like, we might finally make space for who women really are.

With love and a raised brow,
Meestique.
The Empathic Social Observer