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Susan Bernstein's avatar

It is frustrating to hear other people telling me how to act or think or view myself as a woman. It has been difficult enough to keep up with the wildly changing standards of how I should look, dress and groom myself (these memes and women's magazine articles get into the nitty-gritty details of grooming). Why do I have to act like a "badass bitch" or "warrior queen" to be confident or treated with respect? I appreciate my femininity and try to nurture that aspect of my persona on my own terms. I wear my pearls to the supermarket. I like men. I like talking about sports with men. I like cooking for men. They eat the food without pretending that they never eat. I'm tired of the wine-guzzling bitchfests where all of my women friends bash men, then ridicule me when I say I'd still like to find a nice man as a lover and companion. Your Substack is great, Freddie. I look forward to reading your posts every morning. I'm glad I subscribed.

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KW's avatar

The paragraphs about how true confidence is being "at ease" really speak to me. I've slowly come to that realization too. I had a therapist who once told me that there's a big difference between being self-conscious and self-aware.

The latter sounds like what you're hinting at: better to be at ease and be like "you know what? I've been here before and will be here again. Life goes on" than to try and force confidence.

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