When Being A Strong Woman Becomes Resilience Porn
Strong Women are Tired of Being Strong
“Wow, you’re amazing.”
“You always pull it off.”
“I don’t know how you do it.”
You know what? I don’t know how I do it either, but somehow I do.
Because that’s what women do. Or rather, what we've been trained to do.
We’ve all heard it. And on the outside, it looks like a compliment. But on the inside, it often feels like a jail sentence.
Being a “strong woman” has become a brand. Almost a performance. A role we’re expected to play on demand—no matter what’s going on behind the scenes.
We’ve been praised for holding it all together while quietly falling apart, because that's what women do.
And somewhere along the way, strength stopped being empowering and started becoming exhausting.
Amen?
That’s what I mean by resilience porn. This cultural obsession with women who can withstand anything, endure everything, and never ask for help. We’re applauded for our grit, but rarely if ever supported in our grief.
We’re celebrated for our hustle, but abandoned in our heaviness. And do you know what? That’s when resilience isn’t resilience anymore.
It’s survival dressed up as success and the costs are huge.
Strength Was Never Supposed to Cost This Much
Real resilience is rooted in truth, not performance. I repeat, real resilience is rooted in truth, NOT performance.
In other words, it’s not about ignoring your needs or white-knuckling it through your life. But that’s what many of us have learned to do, not because we chose to, but because we had to. This is how the “system” is created and it doesn't allow anything else.
The fear is pausing equals collapse, so we became masterful at coping.
We manage the emotions of others. We absorb the stress, conflict and everyone’s disappointment.
We’ve been the beasts of burden when it comes to our households, any and all relationships, family trauma, and the endless weight of expectations.
And we smile through it all thinking, we’ve got this.
But at some point, that strength stops being sustainable. It turns brittle and fragile. The kind of strength that’s always holding everything up doesn’t bend—it breaks.
There Is A Myth We All Believe and Sustain
It is the myth of The Strong Woman.
The myth says strength is doing it all alone and believing we can. However, the truth is strength is knowing when to stop.
The myth says you shouldn’t need help. The truth is asking for help is one of the hardest, bravest things you can do.
The myth says holding it all together makes you admirable. The truth is it often makes you invisible.
I believe so many of us are tired because we’ve spent years being overly responsible for more than just ourselves—emotionally, physically, logistically.
And I don’t know about you, but I am certainly starting to ask: Is this what strong is supposed to feel like?
Martyrs for Strength?
No one likes or wants to be a martyr. It’s akin to bleeding out quietly while being applauded for your composure.
You’re expected to suffer with grace, to endure without complaint, and to call it love, loyalty, or leadership.
But martyrdom isn’t strength—it’s self-erasure dressed up as virtue.
What strong women actually want is to not always be the one others lean on. And for me, it’s to be seen in my full humanity—not just my utility. That likely sounds harsh like I feel I’m being used, but it’s the doer in me that pushes this narrative, I’m not blaming anyone.
The thing is being a strong woman shouldn’t mean we lose access to softness, vulnerability, or support. It shouldn’t require us to shrink our needs or hide our hurt. It shouldn’t cost us our health, our joy, or our connection to ourselves.
But it has–for a lot of us. I’m just putting a voice to it.
So What Now?
Maybe this sounds counterintuitive to everything I just wrote, but strong women don’t give up. I believe instead, we need to step out of the performance and step into truth telling. And boy is that uncomfortable, but extremely necessary.
We have to stop treating our burnout as a badge of honor because genuine strength is something that is rooted in truth, boundaries, rest, and asking for what we actually need.
We don’t need to keep proving our capacity to survive.
We get to want more than that.
We get to say no.
We get to rest.
We get to be loved for who we are—not just for what we can endure. Let’s be honest here, that’s already been proven!
So maybe the most radical thing a strong woman can do is refuse to be “strong” according to cultural expectations and define “strong” based on her own values, on her own terms.
That is radical and it’s about damn time.
Hi Leanne, I wrote heaps of stuff to add what you posted, but I’m on an ipad, still working out how to use Substack and lost everything. I don’t think it saves drafts. Never mind, I’ll figure it out.
What you’re saying is very interesting. I’ve been thinking about strong women & warrior women also, but as part of a collective tribe, like the Amazons. Even Buddhist & Hindu cultures recognise there are times when only warrior pose will suffice.
The issue which is coming up here tho, is something I engaged with in Art History & cultural studies/literary theory years ago - the individual genius who gets rewarded in their own lifetime esp if they chose the right lucrative career. Man as superhero. President as All Mighty. Rembrandt as artist. Fact is, none of it happens in a vacuum, look closer, there’s always a support network or a lucky break or whatever power structures & money is influencing it.
Being branded a ‘Strong Woman’, yes. What a crock that is. What an excellent way, through praise, to get the boot in when one is so exhausted, that it’s difficult to even breathe, and maintain the status quo. Systems theory is really useful here. Throw in pharmacetherapy, and, well…..
And being a strong woman these days, thanks to the delights of internet porn, means putting out & supposedly enjoying a raft activities that have become normalised, eg anal sex, three ways. In addition to doing all of the tasks capable women do, esp if they don’t have the luxury of outsourcing to other lower paid ‘domestics’ or they’re on their own.
Strong Woman, to me, is the next gen manifestation of the time when ‘multi-tasking’ became a thing. In reality, it had a particularly gendered flavour which applied to women who could now ‘have it all’. Fact is, research is finally catching up & showing that the brain isn’t wired like. As a designer, I was taught that the best designs are multi-purpose, eg the Swiss Army Knife. The timesaving, ultility & economy is coming from a completely different angle.
It’s going to be interesting to see where this is leading. Systems are extremely effective at homeostatis, & the stronger the rumblings the harsher the pushback. For the tables to turn tho, it requires cross-cultural global thinking. And a return & engagement with virtues, ethical values & collective structures, whatever & however they play out.
The beautiful French Canadian woman who has the vineyard where I buy wine from, tells me we are on the cusp of a new matriarchy rising. And I agree. It must be in conjunction though, with strong men tho. We’re all part of our tribes.
“But martyrdom isn’t strength—it’s self-erasure dressed up as virtue.” Oof. So perfectly said!