Mel | Done. Who's with me? Here's the plan ↓
Done hoping someone else will fix it. Done fawning to keep the peace. Done shrinking so everyone else stays comfortable.
For generations, women were taught to read the room before we read ourselves. To say the quiet yes. To believe our bodies were the bill. To bow to what they could do. That wasn't weakness. It was survival, and it kept a lot of us alive.
Fawning kept us alive. It doesn't have to keep us small.
This isn't about tearing anyone down. I'm not coming for your seat. I'm done standing behind your chair. Women rising doesn't mean men falling. It means all of us finally growing up.
Women, we are the creators of life. It's time we start acting like it.
Not following me. Not liking my posts. With me.
Here's what I see. Women are already yelling. On TikTok, in the comments, at the kitchen table, in parking lots with our keys between our fingers. We're loud. We're right. And we're all yelling at different walls.
Loud is the fuel. Deeds are the engine.
No, this isn't a Pinky and the Brain plot. We're not taking over the world. We're taking our turn.
Men have had thousands of years to run it. Look where we are. Our turn isn't something we're asking for. We're taking it.
This isn't about men being bad. It's about a system built without us, one that still runs on our exhaustion, our quiet yes, and our fear on the walk to the car. Most of the men and women living inside it didn't build it, and most don't even see it. That doesn't make it okay. It just means it keeps running until we stop feeding it.
And here's the both: we've said yes to it too. Over and over, for a lot of good reasons. That's our part. It's also our power. What we've been doing, we can stop doing.
So here's the world I'm heading for. Women lead. Men support, and when we ask, they stand at full strength.
To the men and women who aren't ready for real change:
Sit down until we ask you to stand. Then stand like you mean it.
I'm not pretending that's where we start. It's where we're going. No lying, no pretending. Here's how we get there.
Women are on every rung at once. Some of us aren't safe yet. Some of us are safe and still brace. Some of us run companies and still lead by the old rules.
"I'm fine. I just hold my keys."
You've been paying a tax for your safety your whole life. #GirlsTax.
The girls tax is everything we do to stay safe that nobody calls work. Keys between your fingers. Checking the back seat. Parking under the light. Texting "home safe." Never leaving your drink. Changing your outfit, your route, your run time.
It costs time, energy, money (the Uber instead of the walk), and freedom. Most men never have to think about it. Most of us never noticed we were paying it.
Naming it isn't blame. It's the first time you see the bill.
Then she starts asking: "Why should I have to?"
"I'm just moody."
Half of what you feel isn't yours. You've been carrying everyone else's emotions, and they've been driving the train in the background, like a software program you never installed.
You walk into a room and know before anyone says a word: who's mad, who's sad, who needs you. That's reading the room, and for a lot of us it started as survival.
The trouble is, we don't just read it. We take it in. His bad day becomes your bad mood. Your mom's worry becomes your anxiety. The boss's stress follows you home. It all runs quietly in the background, and you call it "moody."
Noticing is the first step. When a feeling shows up, ask: "Is this mine?" If it isn't, you get to set it down. (That's what the Insulation Challenge is for.)
Then she starts asking: "What do I actually want?"
"That's just how I was raised."
Good girl. Helpmate. Different pulpits, same sermon. Whose voice is that? Stop explaining.
Most of us were raised on a script: be good, be nice, keep the peace, don't make him mad. Our parents got it from theirs, and they got it from theirs.
Some of us heard it from the pulpit too: Eve as the one who brought sin into the world, a wife as a "helpmate." (The Hebrew word is ezer, the same word used for God's own help. It means strength, not assistant.)
This isn't about faith, and it isn't about blaming our moms. It's about noticing whose voice is talking when you think "I should." Name who said it first. Then decide if you still agree.
And stop turning around to explain yourself. You don't need anyone's permission to walk forward.
Then she starts saying: "I don't have to obey that."
"I don't want to make waves."
The quiet yes is still a yes. Say it straight. Hold the line.
The quiet yes is the yes you say when part of you means no. To the favor. The extra shift. The plans you didn't want. Sometimes sex.
Some part of us knows what could happen if we say no, so we say yes and smooth it over. If you need to be talked into it, it's a no, even if you said yes.
Claiming starts small. Say it straight: "I want this." "No, thanks." No hints. No steering. No letting him think it was his idea.
Then she starts saying: "My no counts. My voice counts."
"Women can't change much."
Women in the rooms where decisions get made, leading from ourselves. Not running the old script from a bigger chair.
Women are in more rooms than ever: boardrooms, Congress, the corner office. But a title doesn't change the rules. A lot of women at the top are still keeping the peace, smoothing it over, and supporting someone else's mission. Same script, bigger chair.
Rising means getting into the rooms where decisions get made, and once you're there, leading from yourself, not from the rules you were raised on. The school board. The city council. The statehouse. Your own kitchen table.
Then she starts asking: "What can I lead?"
"What can I lead?"
Whatever's in front of you. Your home. Your town. Your school board. Your country. Women lead. Men stand when asked.
Women lead. Not as a favor. Not as a trial run. We lead, and the ones who aren't ready for real change sit down until we ask them to stand. Then they stand like they mean it.
I'm not pretending we're there yet. I'm telling you up front, because no lying, no pretending. This is where we're going.
That's the destination.
Find yourself on the ladder. Which rung are you on?
You don't have to be at the top to be part of The Chorus ↓ You take the next step, and you hold a hand out to the woman one rung below you.
This is how we rise together.
This is the part I'm building.
A gathering of the women who are already standing up, so our voices rise together and turn into something real. Not a forum. Not one more place to yell at the wall. Something that keeps moving after the rally ends.
We don't need everyone singing exactly like me or you. We need everyone singing the same song, in the same auditorium.
Right now, a lot of us are the woman on the street corner with her guitar. She's singing the right song. She's singing it well. And people walk right past her, because she's alone and nobody can hear her over the traffic.
Now put her on the stage with a thousand women singing the same song. You can't walk past that. You can't talk over it. That's a chorus.
My voice is the bite. That's my part. Other women will meet you gently at step one. Some will carry safety, healing, politics, parenting. Same song, different voices.
We stop turning around to explain. To the men who don't get it. To the women who don't agree. Not out of anger. We just stop. And we turn toward each other, into one great big circle.
Then we settle in and ask: what do you do best? The healer. The organizer. The one who knows the law. The one who can make a room laugh. The one who never misses a school board meeting. We pool it all: our skills, our resources, our people. Our own coalition.
Then we turn again. This time outward, toward the ones we stopped explaining to. And we march. Into leadership. Into Congress. Into the boardroom, the statehouse, the city council. And into our own homes, where we stop keeping the peace and start making it.
Not by force. Together, we're so strong the sea just parts.
Every woman knows who to call, and that a trained woman will show up and stay with her.
Which feelings are yours. Whose voice that is. What you actually want.
Say it straight. Hold the line. Tell the truth out loud.
Change something real, together, one fight at a time. Raise the next generation differently.
Safe comes first, so your first deed is too. Share the card ↓
What every voice in the Chorus agrees to, up front:
Don't know what to do? Most of us don't. That's okay. Here's your first week. Three things, real and doable, no speech required.
Most women don't know this. If you've been sexually assaulted, you can ask for a trained advocate to come stand with you at the hospital. Free. Confidential. You don't have to report to police. That choice stays yours.
Screenshot this card. Post it to your story. Send it to three women. Add your own state's number if you know it.
If you've been sexually assaulted, you can ask for a trained advocate to meet you at the hospital.
Free. Confidential.
You don't have to report.
In Michigan? Every number is on the Who to call page. Anywhere else, find your state's coalition: endsexualviolence.org
Find one woman or one page already telling the truth: about our rights, our safety, our bodies, our money. Following is a nod. Amplifying is a deed.
Add #DoneFawning so we can find each other.
The healer. The organizer. The one who knows the law. The one who makes us laugh. The one who never misses a meeting. Every one of those is a seat at the table. Tell me yours ↓
I'm gathering. A few minutes every day, I'm finding the women who are already loud and showing up for them before I ask for anything. This winter, the first ask. In January, the rally, and then the first Chorus circle.
I'm not rushing it. Movements die when one woman burns out carrying everything. This one's built to last.
Already loud? Ready to be? Leave your name. When the first circle opens, you'll hear it first.
Do you know what you want? Or just what everyone else wants from you?
Seven days of quieting everyone else's pull so you can finally hear your own desire. We start together Sunday, November 1.
Most of us walk around with no skin on. We feel his mood from the driveway. We know the kids are off before they say a word. We walk into a room and pick up everybody's weather, and by dinner we can't tell which feelings are ours.
Insulation is the layer between you and all of that. It's not a wall. You still love them, still see them, still care. You just stop soaking it all up. For seven days, we practice thickening that layer, on purpose, together.
I didn't know half of what I wanted wasn't mine until I insulated myself from my husband's pull. Not because he did anything wrong. Because I'd been tuned to him for so long, I'd stopped hearing me.
Once I put the layer up, it took over two weeks for my own desire to show up. Two weeks. That's how deep it was buried. I figured I wasn't the only one.
By day seven, you won't be a new woman. That's not the point. Here's what you might walk away with:
Insulation isn't the goal. Choice is.
You can't choose what you want if you can't hear it. This is how you start hearing it. It's step 2 on the ladder: notice.
The woman who keeps everyone okay and loses herself doing it. The one who says "I'm just moody" when she's actually carrying three other people's days. The one who can't answer "what do you want for dinner?" without checking the room first. Loud or quiet, it doesn't matter. Loud and fawning can live in the same woman. Ask me how I know.
Insulation comes after safety. If you're not safe at home, this isn't your first step, and that's not a failure. Call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233 (or text START to 88788).
And quiet can stir up hard stuff, especially if you're carrying trauma. Pausing, breathing, or reaching out is part of the practice, not failing it. I'm not a therapist, and this isn't therapy. It's a week of listening to yourself, with women right beside you.
Join the waitlist and I'll send you everything before we begin.
A new story every Sunday, one step on the ladder at a time.
For everyone who did all the spiritual "right" things and still felt empty. Coming soon.
The quiet yes, borrowed desire, and the rise of the feminine. Follow along as it's written.
Patience is sexy. Protect me from who? The 6 Ps.
Shirts and stickers that say it out loud, so you don't have to explain it again. Printed when you order, shipped to your door.
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