Womanhood & Growth
There is a version of supporting other women that is genuinely beautiful — the mutual aid, the shared wisdom, the specific warmth of women who genuinely have each other. And there is a version that is the people-pleasing pattern applied to female relationships — the constant availability, the absorption of others' distress, the self-erasure in service of being a good friend.
The first is worth building. The second is worth examining.
The friend who only calls in crisis. The relationship structured entirely around one person's need — in which your role is exclusively to receive and support, and there is no genuine reciprocity or interest in your inner life.
The support that requires your depletion. Support that leaves you consistently more drained than before the interaction, in which genuine care for your own wellbeing is secondary to being there for another.
The support that enables rather than empowers. Support that keeps someone in a pattern rather than supporting their movement out of it — that absorbs their distress without encouraging their own agency.
The support that compromises your values. Being asked to be present for, or actively supportive of, choices or situations that genuinely conflict with your values.
If this stirred something in you, start with my book, The Good Girl Delusion →
Genuine support for other women includes:
Being genuinely present — not distracted, not managing your own response, but actually there.
Honest care rather than comfortable agreement. The friend who tells you the truth when the comfortable version is inaccurate is more genuinely supportive than one who simply validates.
Giving from genuine abundance rather than from performance. The support that comes from genuine care and genuine capacity is different from the support that comes from the need to be seen as a good friend.
Knowing your limits. It is possible to genuinely care for someone and also to know that this is not something you can support right now. Both can be true.
Related: Women Who Build Women · The Emotional Cost of People Pleasing · Protect Your Energy Without Being Cold
Nancy GLO
Reflective storyteller & style curator for women becoming
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