Discussion Roundtable: Have older women always been trying to warn us?

Here’s the question on my mind today: Have women in their 40s+ always tried to protect younger generations of girls and women from the pitfalls of selling your soul to obtain male validation and partnership? And younger women just can’t hear it?

Or is this a more recent phenomenon?

We started having this conversation at the end of our last Women’s Circle and I’m itching to continue it.

Because here’s the thing, when I was in my teens and twenties, I happily devoted myself to the task of winning over the male gaze. My personality, appearance, ambitions and goals all orbited the pursuit of acquiring male approval.

My self-esteem was strapped in tight to a relationship rollercoaster—up when I had a boyfriend, low, low, low when I was dumped or single.

Unsurprisingly this devotion set the stage for me to tolerate some… not great treatment.