In times like these where giving up your bodily autonomy and independence seems to be a trend, what’s something you wish you could tell young women today?
Ranging from love, career, financial independence, and self-confidence.
In times like these where giving up your bodily autonomy and independence seems to be a trend, what’s something you wish you could tell young women today?
Ranging from love, career, financial independence, and self-confidence.
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You don’t need a relationship. Make your own happiness, don’t go looking for it.
The wisest words I’ve ever come across:
Dessa- “Bones are stronger for the breaking, the danger is the bending, those concessions you can never take back.”
Break if you have to; to get where you want to be, to become who you want to be, but careful of what concessions you’re willing to make, especially if they’re for men, or love in general.
Be financially and sexually independent. Make sure you have enough money to leave any relationship at any time so you don’t get stuck with a bad partner. Know your own body and don’t rely solely on men for sexual pleasure.
Learn how to be alone. Go to movie, restaurants and the beach alone. Be ok with it.it doesn’t become a threat when you learn how to be at peace with it. Then being single can’t be used against you.
Life is NOT about getting married and having babies. Live your own life at your own pace 🥰
You’re not behind. The faster you de-centre men, the better your relationship with yourself will be. Detach from the outcome and learn to live in the present moment. Nothing is forever, always be grateful for what you have and always know that you deserve the best of what life has to offer!
Partners and kids are great but live your life first. Ideally you’ll still get to live your life once you have those things but it’s easier to stay who you are if you’re sure and set in who you are before making accommodations for other people. On that note also be sure you’re not always the person being asked to make accommodations for others. Know your worth and value too. Be capable of being independent before choosing if you want to rely on someone.
I know multiple 20-22 year old women being rushed to settle down, get married, start having kids right away. Yes with the right partner and kids you can still do things like get an education and travel. But it’s can be so much harder. To me there’s no good reason not to do those things first other than people fearing if you get a taste of freedom they won’t be able to restrict you like they could before.
Don’t take criticism from anyone you wouldn’t ask for advice.
If you end up with a partner, don’t totally subsume your life into theirs; sure, do stuff together and have friends in common, but have your own separate hobbies and interests and friends too. Expect and encourage your partner to do the same.
Care for and be kind to others, but you can’t pour from an empty cup – don’t give so much that it’s to your detriment. Put on your own oxygen mask first.
If it’s going to take less than five minutes to do, just do it now. It’s only five minutes. What else were you meaningfully going to do with it?
Rest when you need to. Physically and mentally.
Stay as physically active as your circumstances allow, and eat healthily as much as you can – but remember that sometimes you have to feed the soul as well as the body. Joy is important!
Remember that your first, instinctive reaction is what you were brought up to think – but it’s your second, intentional thought, and what you choose to do about it, that makes you who you are.
Luck is great, but it really helps to put yourself in its way.
Speak to yourself as you would to your dearest friend if they were having the same problem.
Always make your own money. Always.
The men telling you that you don’t need to make your own money are the ones you need to worry about.
Don’t just listen to what he says or promises, observe what he does when dealing with people who he doesn’t need to impress or in a social/economical disadvantage. I used he/him but it doesn’t have to be a guy, could be any person you would consider a serious relationship with.
Have savings. Having savings means you can nope out of any sketchy situation or relationship as soon as it starts making you feel uncomfortable or unsafe. If you have the money to grab a taxi, plane ticket, or find another room to rent, you have the power to keep yourself much much safer.
Study rhetoric. No matter your nation; vote. Care about democracy.
this is very basic but it is ok to be rude to strangers. You dont owe strangers your time or energy. Dont stop to help a random man who needs help….there is nothing that you can do for him that he physically cannot do himself.
Know you’re worth and don’t assume compatibility with another person just because you have an attraction to them. For me, honestly, the burned haystack dating method has been great for me to analyze my own biases about compatibility of values. When I was young, I married under the assumption that we just work everything out together, but that very much did not happen. Things got progressively worse over time until I had to escape and I’m now doing the single Mom life… I’m loving being early middle-aged and the life experience and perspectives. I have now.
My advice to any woman in the United States is to get super long lasting birth control or sterilization now while you still can.
General advice is to make sure that if you do decide to get married, don’t stop working and make sure you have control over your money. You never know when you might end up unattached for whatever reason.
There’s so much great advice in the podcast the Audaci-Tea that I would highly reccomend every episode. Especially the Not All Men episode and Empowerment vs Liberation (tho honestly every episode is a goldmine of all the best advice that I know I wish I had in HS)
Get your finances and life in order. Make sure you can function independently. If you live somewhere with far too high COL, get roommates with other like-minded women who can build you up. Do not tie yourself to a man permanently until you live with him at least a year and have experienced some kind of major life change and/or tragedy during the relationship (helps you see how he manages complex life circumstances like loss of employment, death of family members, navigating mental health swings, etc). Do not ignore red flags. Watch how he treats women he isn’t attracted to. How does he talk about fat women? Women from other cultures? Teenage girls? You need to know his values, not just what he says.
Do. Not. Get. Pregnant. Full stop. You will know when you’re ready for motherhood. Do not wait to make that choice until after the hormonal changes have begun. Make the choice now and stick to it.
Travel and see the world. Find diverse people to interact with and get to know. Join hobby groups and try to stay off the internet as much as possible (I say as I type on Reddit while I should be writing a note for work). Prioritize laughter and learn to fall in love with yourself. Don’t be afraid to grow and change. Embrace uncertainty. No matter how tightly you hold onto life, it will always slip through your fingers like sand. The best you can do is see it all as a journey in which there is no destination, just places along the way.
Find and keep friendship. Deep, loving friendships.
You don’t owe anyone anything. Not your time, not your money, not your mental or physical effort. This applies even to blood relatives. It is YOUR life.
I think i would have enjoyed my young adulthood way more if I didn’t feel so obligated to everyone all the time.
(Obviously this doesn’t apply to legal issues and written financial agreements but you get what I mean 😂😂)
Also: De-center men from your life.
Be wise with who you give the following: your time, your love, and your peace.
Your time is valuable, and you decide how you spend it. Don’t let others dictate how you spend that time, and don’t pour all of it into one place, whether that be work, romance, or pleasure.
Your love is precious, and a beautiful thing. You can’t always predict who is going to handle that love with care, but you can use discernment with it. Don’t be afraid to love, but don’t hang on to people who do not love you back. And that is not just in romance. That’s in friendships and familial relationships, too.
And when it’s all said and done, your peace is what is going to keep you sane in this world constantly attacking it. Don’t be afraid to remove yourself from situations that threaten it. Not everything is worth a fight, or pain, or destroying that peace.
A lot of the advice is oriented towards romantic and sexual relationships with men. I would add…birth families can be problematic as well.
Make sure you are financially independent of them (a trade or higher education in a degree with reliable employment prospects…military if you are totally out of options). Make a point to get all your important paperwork after you leave the home. Make sure your parents etc. are not on your accounts. Make sure you do not carelessly allow them rights in medical decisions. Lock down your credit early on. If they did screw up your credit when you were a minor then be prepared to dispute that legally. Develop alternative social safety nets and communities you can turn to when you need it and start that early.
If you are still a minor, focus until surviving until you can get out and if it is bad enough make sure the break is swift, clean and they don’t know until the day of. Find people who can help you in advance with safety, legal and other bureaucratic issues. When abusive dynamics are in play it can get really ugly very fast. There are a lot of parallels with DV situations between adults except usually your family has had you since birth and they have more legal rights.
Also, a good therapist is worth their weight in gold when you are working through these kinds of issues.
I promise you there are plenty a mediocre men for you to date and spend time with that don’t belittle you or control you or hit you or lie to you and so on.
You are at the bottom of the barrel when you accept those actions and you don’t need to.
There’s a great guy waiting for you too sure, but literally just not dating someone like that frees you up to be with someone who is literally the actual bare minimum without the abuse.
And if that doesn’t sound enticing, why would you stay with someone who IS abusive but also mediocre? Come on now. You deserve better.
And don’t listen to that mediocre man telling you that you don’t deserve anything less than abuse. They’re full of shit.
Become a person you like first. Then if others dislike you, you know you don’t agree with their values and don’t have to listen to their opinions. And if others like you, you know they like the right version of you, the version you want to be.
Know what you want, basically. Other people will be happy to tell you what you should want or what they want. If you don’t know your own wishes, you can’t make them come true.
And don’t leave it up to other people to make your wishes come true. It’s up to you.
Never give a man a second chance. You saw right the first time, haha.
Don’t move in together until at least year 3. Pay attention to how he lives alone. When you visit his place, do you clean up for him? Do you grocery shop? You’ll be doing the majority of the chores when you live together as well. Find someone with the same base standards of living as you. Keep your finances separate. Try to get “just in case” money in a savings account- enough for a security deposit and first months rent anywhere. Buy a reliable used car that is just yours. Pay attention to how he discusses plans he doesn’t want to do- do you only go to his plans? Does he make you feel like cancelling was your idea? You’re going to end up isolated and not know how it happened. Don’t be his therapist, don’t try to fix him, don’t be his mom, don’t clean up after him. The goal in relationships is 50/50 on work and effort, but life often gives us periods of 80/20 and 30/70, you should feel like you can be there for each other and not taken advantage of. Hanging out shouldn’t cause you dread or anxiety. And sometimes there will be things or habits where they won’t change and you’ll have to consider if you want your life to be that way forever. Would you be happy?
Find what makes you feel confident. Sometimes it’s clothes, sometimes it’s a hobby, sometimes it’s repeating one thing you like about yourself in the mirror every day. Find what makes you happy. Forgive yourself. And don’t suffer in a job you hate. There are jobs out there where you don’t regret waking up in the mornings, where you enjoy the tasks and the people you work with. It might mean trying something new, and figuring out what you don’t like is just as important as figuring out what you do like.
Don’t be afraid of aging. Don’t be afraid of being fat. I’m so tired of looking back on old photos and thinking “Damn! I was so hot! I was so powerful! I could have been doing such fun things! I let fear and discomfort keep me bundled in a corner” so I try to keep that in mind now. I’m not my type, I’m hotter than I think. I love my grey hairs and wrinkles. I love the fat on my body that kept me alive through a lupus flare and stomach paralysis, and the fat that has returned to protect me and the energy that I have to do fun things every day.
Never buy a brand new car. Do buy a good mattress. Do buy good supportive shoes. Do go to the dentist at least once a year, twice if you can manage it. Credit scores are a scam- get a credit card early, like college and from a credit union, but never charge more to it than you can immediately pay off- and do immediately log online to pay off your charge. You’ll have good credit by the time you need it. Car loans from your credit union and small personal loans [say, for an expensive mattress] when your car is paid off are also good ways to boost credit scores over time. Best financial advice I have for those is to get 5 year loans and pay off in 3-4 years.
I’m 33 so I know there’s still a lot to learn, but maybe someone will find something in there useful.
“In these days”?
Be careful of cognitive biases like “Declinism”.
The same strategies used to RedPill men very effectively, can also be used against us either by our own doing, or as a strategy by outside forces.
My advice is to learn about history and hold progress close to your chest and protect it.
Don’t let these fallacies dictate how you live your life or cause you to become frozen with fear.
If you have hopes and dreams you don’t let go of them. Figure out the steps to make them happen.
Collect wisdom and value your space. Only let people in your life who build you up and honor your dreams.
Do not do anything – move someplace, get pregnant/have children, leave your job – unless YOU alone really want to. Do not fall into the trap of doing something merely to appease a partner/your family. If you’re even remotely uncomfortable with the idea of something, always remember that you can say a firm “no”.