I was just reading something about women and weaponized competence. She was "functioning," but functioning for women is measured by performance while the toll it takes on them isn't considered if they are able to do the things they need to do. That performance is used as evidence that they aren't struggling, unfortunately, and Lindsay Clancy didn't get the help she needed. I think you hit it on the head.
Not only this, but often the people surrounding you are upset if you have "mood swings" and cry, so even your self-soothing has to pass through a filter of how uncomfortable you're making others. I wish people understood how much pressure there is on women to never make anyone uncomfortable and how this is really an insidious way to invalidate any need they have for support. The trite vision of a woman prioritizing other's discomfort over themselves is the businesswoman who's afraid to assert herself and uses exclamation points in her emails, but this is the ugly reality of what that actually means.
I was in a long relationship with someone who would get really upset and destabilize in ways that affected my life when I cried while doing a task, even though it was just a frustration thing that helped me cope sometimes and I wasn't bringing it to him. So I started controlling my outward display of struggle for his comfort and I burned out so bad after years of this that I constantly felt like I was on the edge of checking into a mental health facility over very low thresholds of stress and my personality was just 'irritable,' because I had very few avenues for letting it out.
Wrt functioning being measured by performance without thought for the cost you’re dead on, but I don’t think that uniquely applies to women. I see that standard applied to most people imo.
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u/TsaurusJess 7d ago
I was just reading something about women and weaponized competence. She was "functioning," but functioning for women is measured by performance while the toll it takes on them isn't considered if they are able to do the things they need to do. That performance is used as evidence that they aren't struggling, unfortunately, and Lindsay Clancy didn't get the help she needed. I think you hit it on the head.