Has Generational Female Oppression Impacted Your Ability to Bloom?

Let’s talk about the impact of generational female oppression because understanding our experiences helps us understand ourselves. 

When I started to do my own growth work, I couldn't have told you what I needed. Every decision I made filtered through the lens of what I thought I was "supposed" to do rather than what I really wanted to do.  It also meant I made many major decisions based on what I thought I "should" do rather than what was intuitively right for me.  I don't remember anyone teaching me to trust my intuition.  

I was reading Glennon Doyle's book Untamed, and she told a story of how one day her son and daughter each separately had friends over.  She asked everyone if they wanted to eat and all the males said yes instantly, and the females looked to each other to see if they "should" say yes or no.  It was a little moment of seeing how women from a young age are programed and encouraged to go with what everyone else wants, rather than filtering through our own personal needs. 

Imagine if from a young age we were encouraged to look within and trust our intuition to guide us?!!

Something that has come up a lot in my many years of studying this trait is that many of us (especially as HSP women) have been programmed to think of other people's needs before our own.  As a child, were you ever asked, "What do you need?" or were you encouraged to give up your needs for others?  I know I was praised for giving up my needs and raised to believe that giving up my needs to please others is what I was supposed to do.  Every one of my female friends had the same experience.  

In fact, most women have been inaccurately taught that prioritizing our needs is selfish! 

I have been mentoring women for a few years now in business, and I also see there are many issues with confidence. So many women have a hard time putting themselves out there and believing in themselves and I really think this has been passed down generationally. 

We have inequality and oppression that exist to this day in so many areas!  Many women are suffering greatly in the world under this current and severe oppression in many parts of the world. 

Let's give some perspective here about how some (recent) history within the U.S. too...

The following list is of NINE things a woman couldn’t do in 1971 (Fact checked with Snopes)

In 1971 a woman could not:

1. Get a Credit Card in her own name – it wasn’t until 1974 that a law forced credit card companies to issue cards to women without their husband’s signature (or even her own 18-year-old son!)

2. Be guaranteed that they wouldn’t be unceremoniously fired for the offense of getting pregnant – that changed with the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of *1978*!

3. Serve on a jury – It varied by state, but the main reason women were kept out of jury pools was that they were considered the center of the home which was their primary responsibility as caregivers. They were also thought to be too fragile to hear the grisly details of crimes and too sympathetic by nature to be able to remain objective about those accused of offenses. It wasn’t until 1973 that women could serve on juries in all 50 states.

4. Fight on the front lines – admitted into military academies in 1976, it wasn’t until 2013 that the military ban on women in combat was lifted. Prior to 1973, women were only allowed in the military as nurses or support staff.

5. Get an Ivy League education – Yale and Princeton didn’t accept female students until 1969. Harvard didn’t admit women until 1977 (when it merged with the all-female Radcliffe College). Brown (which merged with women’s college Pembroke), Dartmouth, and Columbia did not offer admission to women until 1971, 1972, and 1981, respectively. Other case-specific instances allowed some women to take certain classes at Ivy League institutions (such as Barnard women taking classes at Columbia), but, by and large, women in the ’60s who harbored Ivy League dreams had to put them on hold.

6. Take legal action against workplace sexual harassment. Indeed the first time a court recognized office sexual harassment as grounds for any legal action was in 1977!

7. Decide not to have sex if their husband wanted to – spousal rape wasn’t criminalized in all 50 states until 1993. Read that again … 1993.

8. Obtain health insurance at the same monetary rate as a man. Sex discrimination wasn’t outlawed in health insurance until 2010, and today many, including sitting elected officials at the Federal level, feel women don’t mind paying a little more. Again, that date was 2010.

9. The birth control pill: Issues like reproductive freedom and a woman’s right to decide when and whether to have children were only just beginning to be openly discussed in the 1960s. In 1957, the FDA approved the birth control pill but only for “severe menstrual distress.” In 1960, the pill was approved for use as a contraceptive. Even so, the pill was illegal in some states and could be prescribed only to married women for purposes of family planning, and not all pharmacies stocked it. Some of those opposed said oral contraceptives were “immoral, promoted prostitution and were tantamount to abortion.” It wasn’t until several years later that birth control was approved for use by all women, regardless of marital status. In short, birth control meant a woman could complete her education, enter the workforce and plan her own life. (In some countries women are currently not allowed to use birth control too).


I want to have these conversations so we can be conscious to get empowered to make real change.  

One of the ways we can instill change is to start with ourselves.  I made a shirt that says, "Empowered women empower women".  I love that concept and it is the essence of what I feel called to do too.   I believe in helping women and offer scholarships every week to women (or non-binary) BIPOC and LGBTQ+ and also have been mentoring women for years in business to start their own business and gain financial freedom.  I know my true freedom was not felt until I financially supported myself completely and knew that I could do it myself. 

• I want to encourage women to become financially free too so your life and decisions belong to you completely.

• I want women to walk with their heads held high and to believe that anything is possible.

• I want women to break the cycle and make changes for all the young girls growing up in the world.

• I want us to stand shoulder to shoulder to lift each other higher in the world.

• We rise by lifting each other.

I want to hear from you! What comes up for you reading this?  ❤️

Do you want to get empowered together and bloom to your highest potential? It’s my calling to empower sensitive women and I invite you to join my Sensitive Empowerment Community where we rise by supporting each other. There is a lot of strength in being together.

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