Beautifully and painfully human.

What is so deeply ingrained within us as women no matter how much work we think we’ve done  is this underlying shadow. Call it the sisterhood wound, call it internalised misogyny, call it whatever you want… but it sits under our skin like a bruise we can’t stop hitting. Every time we think we’ve healed it, it shows up again. Same wound, different costume.

This is the part that guts me, even the women doing the work, the ones who preach it, teach it, live it even we hit that same wound over and over again. It’s not because we’re broken, it’s because it’s woven into us. Generational. Cultural. Bone deep.

It’s that friend who doesn’t support you because you’ve been sticking your head out a bit too far. The one who loves you privately but disappears publicly.

The tall poppy syndrome so fucking entrenched in Aotearoa and Aussie  that no one even questions it anymore. I see one of my close friends going through this now, talking deeply into the Tall Poppy syndrome and it just highlights how deep the wound runs.

I’m not pretending I’m innocent either. I’ve had my own streak. I’ve had those moments where jealousy sneaks in and whispers its poison. Sometimes I catch it fast. Sometimes I don’t.

That doesn’t make me a bad woman  it makes me human. It makes all of us human. But the power is in catching it and choosing differently.

Then there’s the social media thing the one that hits harder than anyone talks about. When you pour your heart into something, raw and real, and your “friends” scroll past like they didn’t see it… even though you can literally see them watching, present, online, active.

That part hurts in a way that’s ridiculous and real at the same time. Because underneath it is this ancient wound: Why her, not me? Why is she shining? Why do I feel like her shine dims mine?

I’m sitting here writing this because I ‘m in the middle of making a submission to an organisation. I’m part of  an organisation fighting to keep its place in a restructure  and the brutal truth is that I find parts of it more toxic than sitting in a room full of big burly men’s men. That’s a hell of a thing to admit. Hell of a thing to hold.

I look at the women’s side of this organisation, the space that’s meant to be uplifting, safe, empowering and sometimes it feels more toxic than what it’s fighting against.

That’s a massive thing to admit. It feels like sitting in a room full of women who are supposed to have your back, but instead the air is thick with judgement, cliques, side eyes, passive aggressive comments about your body, your choices, your mahi. Stuff said in the name of “care,” but we all know the difference between caring and policing.

Maybe the strength is in owning the shadow. Owning that the mean streak exists in all of us. Owning that sometimes the jealousy overtakes the goodness. Owning that being a woman doesn’t automatically make us better, kinder, or more supportive.

It just makes us human. Beautifully, painfully human.

If we can admit that really admit it maybe that’s the beginning of something different.