Building a World That Welcomes Women's Power Using SBC

I am tired. We are tired. Of shrinking. Of explaining. Of fighting for space in a world that promised it was already ours. This isn't about individual failings; it's about a system designed to hold us back. Let's talk about how to dismantle it.

I grew up believing I could be anything. A leader, a changemaker, a woman who chooses her own life. And in many ways, I am. Women around me are CEOs, doctors, scientists, entrepreneurs, and decision-makers.

But for every step forward, there’s an invisible tether pulling us back.

We're told girls can achieve anything, yet they're often subtly steered away from 'unfeminine' pursuits. We're applauded for our strength, but judged for being 'too assertive.' We're expected to be independent thinkers, but also to uphold family traditions without question. Our lives are a constant negotiation between modern aspirations and age-old expectations, while men are rarely challenged to change their perspectives on family, relationships, or societal roles?

We have empowered women, but we have not built a world that welcomes them in their power.

So how do we change this?

Behavioral science tells us that systems don’t change just because individuals do. We need to shift expectations, environments, and incentives together. That means tackling this at every level—home, work, and society.

At Home: Make the Invisible Visible

Patriarchy doesn’t need grand rules—it survives in the unnoticed, the unchallenged, the normal. It survives when a woman’s job is never truly done, because she carries the unseen weight of planning, remembering, anticipating.

💡 Small shifts, big change:

✔ Start with a simple redistribution exercise: List every household task—emotional and physical—and split them fairly. What gets measured gets changed.

✔ Normalize role modeling: Kids learn from what they see. If a father picks up a broom, a son learns that cleaning isn’t “helping,” it’s responsibility.

✔ Use "if-then" habits: Tie actions to triggers. If dinner is cooked, then dishes are done by someone else. Over time, fairness becomes second nature.

At Work: Restructure, Don't Just Inspire

Workplaces celebrate diversity but don’t change their structures to sustain it. If women leave because they are overburdened or unheard, the problem isn’t women—it’s the system.

💡 Fix the defaults, not the women:

✔ Audit interruptions: Who gets cut off more in meetings? A Harvard study found that women are interrupted three times more than men. Make space, and make sure their voices aren’t dismissed.

✔ Flip the mentoring model: Instead of training women to “speak up,” train leadership to listen better.

✔ Tie equity to incentives: Change happens when it is rewarded. Companies that tie promotions to inclusion metrics see actual behavioral shifts, not just statements of intent.

In Society: Shift the Frame

The biggest trick patriarchy ever pulled was making women police themselves. It made us question our own anger, shrink our ambitions, and accept discomfort as the price of existence.

💡 Reframe the norms:

✔ When someone says, "But she’s his wife, she should adjust," respond with, "Why is adjustment only a woman’s duty?"

✔ When women are expected to justify their choices—career, marriage, motherhood—ask why men don’t have to do the same.

✔ When a man stands up for a woman, praise his strength, not his sacrifice. We should not romanticize men "defying" patriarchy. It should be the norm.

Why This Matters

Change does not happen because we tell people to do better. It happens when we design a world where doing better is easier, inherent, and expected.

We cannot just teach equality; we must build it into the fabric of how homes function, how workplaces operate, how society speaks. If we don’t, we will keep asking women to be resilient in systems that refuse to make room for them.

It’s time to stop asking women to fit in. It’s time to change the world to fit them.

—One of the many women who is done fighting every day to make space for herself in this world.