Feeling tired, sluggish and unlovable? The ‘Good Girl’ myth may be to blame

“Don’t rock the boat.” Does anyone even say that any more? They probably don’t have to. Most of us learned it so well we say it to ourselves. For many women, it’s part of a larger script, the expectation to be selfless and accommodating. I call it the “Good Girl” script.

I hate to think how many times I’ve bitten my tongue, played it cool, given up on something I wanted or put up with behaviour that didn’t sit right, just to avoid confrontation. To maintain harmony. To keep the peace.

Like the time I stumbled across misconduct at work but stayed silent for weeks (spoiler: we no longer work together). Or the guy whose sexist jokes I let slide because I didn’t want to seem difficult (plot twist: we’re not a couple). I believe in standing up for what’s right, but sometimes it feels easier – and safer – to shrug, sigh and let those uncomfortable moments slip by.

We’ve been conditioned this way. Psychologists have long observed that girls are socialised differently around voice and conflict. In the 1980s, Carol Gilligan described a “loss of voice” in adolescent girls as they begin suppressing their opinions to preserve relationships. In a recent survey of more than 100 women across four generations for my book Good Girl, Goodbye, many described the same pressure to maintain harmony by pleasing and appeasing. The habit of staying agreeable doesn’t disappear with age – it follows us into adulthood.

If you grew up in a world that told you to be good, chances are you were handed a script that rewards your silence. These messages begin at home and are reinforced by the systems around us: school, work, policy, law and religion. Women don’t just act like Good Girls, they come to believe this is who they are.

As a textbook eldest daughter, I was often told I was “wise beyond my years”. I was the “goodest” of good girls.

I know I’m not alone. Girls absorb the rules long before they have the language to question them. Not because anyone sits us down and says so (although growing up hearing the words “good girl” might do the trick), but because we learn it from a thousand tiny moments. From the reactions to when we’re too loud, watching other girls labelled as “bad”, being praised for being easy-going and well-behaved.

Over time, it stops being a choice and starts feeling like an identity. It can even be hard-wired into our nervous system as a survival strategy: useful when we’re young, restrictive in adulthood.

What happens when society expects you to be amiable and undemanding? You belong, but only conditionally. The moment you ignore the rule book, you risk exile (or at least a cold-shoulder from your mother-in-law or a side-eye from a colleague). You risk being labelled all kinds of things – rude, wild, emotional, batshit crazy.

In moments of conflict, there’s a tendency in women to shrink themselves. Decades of organisational psychology research show that assertiveness is often interpreted differently depending on who expresses it. When men display decisive or dominant behaviour, they’re typically seen as strong leaders. When women display the same behaviour, they’re more likely to be labelled abrasive or unlikeable, a dynamic researchers call the “double bind” or backlash effect of female leadership.

So we adopt the role of emotional controller like it’s a full-time job; smoothing tension and ensuring everyone else is at ease. Sometimes the decision to placate is as simple as wanting to avoid others baring their teeth at us. Other times, peacekeeping is the path of least resistance. We avoid potentially disastrous emotional spillage and fallout. We mitigate the tedious, drawn-out repair conversations that aren’t guaranteed to work. We sweep the mess under our own internal rug because, well, it’s easier.

Or at least, it looks easier.

The alternative can feel like Russian roulette. Challenging the status quo or expressing your feelings can be met with resistance or dismissal. On the rare occasion you do “arc up”, you’re told to calm down even if you’ve barely raised your voice. You start managing their reaction to your feelings rather than having your feelings heard at all.

Eventually, you stop asking for what you need. Your dreams get tucked away. Your goals are dismissed. Your true self slowly erodes. Real connection to someone shouldn’t require you to be permanently pleasant. If it does, it’s worth asking whether that person deserves a front-row seat in your life.

But what happens when we avoid uncomfortable conversations? We’re not just short-changing ourselves, we’re robbing the other person of something, too. That is, the chance to understand us better or to provide us with care. Smoothing it over before it has a chance to breathe doesn’t keep the peace … it just keeps the distance.

For some women, keeping the peace is a form of protection. The reality is, it remains unsafe for many to harness their voice.

Over time, being a Good Girl can cost women their energy, time, health, money and even love. It keeps women living a life dictated by others rather than one they consciously choose. When there’s a mismatch between who you’ve been told to be and who you really are, tension builds in the body and the nervous system. What looks like harmony on the outside can actually be anger, numbness or grief on the inside.

Eventually, the body begins to strain. Sleep gets disrupted, energy drops, and illness can take hold. Physician Gabor Maté has long explored how chronic stress and emotional repression affect health, observing patterns of people-pleasing and suppressed anger in patients with autoimmune disease and other stress-related conditions.

Psychologist Dana Jack described a similar pattern as “self-silencing”: imposed by the cultural norms and pressures of what a woman is supposed to be like. But when we silence ourselves for long enough, the body starts speaking instead.

So, how can women stop paying this hefty toll? It starts with untangling the belief that your voice doesn’t matter or that your needs aren’t worthy of being met. These outdated scripts are so deeply woven into the fabric of how most women move through the world that it can take real time, and gentleness, to recognise them.

Once you do recognise them, you start to notice the activating moments. It might be the tendency to stay quiet in meetings and defer to authority. Not pushing for a second medical opinion, despite your gut screaming “something’s not right”. Silencing your needs in your relationship one too many times, until you can’t quite remember what your needs even were. We all have moments that trigger our silence.

For some women, keeping the peace is a form of protection. The reality is, it remains unsafe for many to harness their voice. For those who are safe to try something new, I invite you to find small ways to give the middle finger to people-pleasing. Behavioural research shows tiny, repeatable actions create powerful change. Saying no to a third unpaid gig, setting a boundary with your boss, asking your family to share the load at home. I call them micro-rebellions. Little moves that, over time, restore your voice and your energy.

And if you’ve got the appetite for it, you can always rebel in bigger ways. Like challenging brands that pedal the Good Girl narrative, advocating for safer public spaces for everyone, asking the event organiser why the panel lacks diversity, and filing the complaint to HR, even if it’s tried to bury the issue. You might surprise yourself with what you’re capable of achieving.

Even with the best intentions, things won’t always go smoothly. Psychologist Kristin Neff’s research on self-compassion shows that people who respond to failure with kindness rather than shame are far more likely to grow and try again.

Stay honest and stay open to feedback. Don’t shrink from accountability – yours or anyone else’s. Be committed to deepening your understanding and let grace be the container, for others, and for yourself.

Whether or not you have children, most of us eventually reach a point in our lives where we start to reflect, not just on the messages we absorbed growing up, but the ones we might be passing on. If you believe as I do, we have a collective responsibility to raise the next generation of girls to understand their worth, to advocate for their own needs, and to live the truest expression of themselves, then they won’t learn self-respect from what we say, they’ll learn it from what we refuse to tolerate.

Good Girl, Goodbye (Wiley) by Caitlin Judd is out now.

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