All Different Ways You Can Style a ‘Classic White Shirt’
August 22, 2023
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There is a particular kind of fatigue that doesn’t show up on performance reviews.
It doesn’t appear in quarterly targets. It isn’t visible in productivity dashboards. It certainly doesn’t surface in polite networking conversations.
But it lives beneath the surface of boardrooms, leadership summits, performance appraisals, and executive coaching sessions.
It is the exhaustion of being told repeatedly, subtly, systemically that if something isn’t working at work, you should fix yourself.
For decades, professional women have been handed a steady stream of advice:
The list is endless. And women are tired.
This is not resistance to growth. It is resistance to a narrative that assumes the problem always lives inside the woman.
Read our recent article here “Growing Together Requires More Than Time Why Ambitious Couples Must Evolve Intentionally”
Professional development for women has become a thriving ecosystem: confidence coaching, executive presence workshops, negotiation masterclasses, resilience bootcamps, burnout recovery programmes.
On the surface, this looks empowering. And sometimes it is.
But look closely at the messaging.
The subtext is often this:
If you’re not advancing, you need to upgrade yourself.
Rarely do these conversations interrogate:
Instead, the burden shifts inward.
A woman faces workplace discrimination?
→ Improve your executive presence.
She’s interrupted in meetings?
→ Learn to command the room.
She’s overlooked for promotion?
→ Work on your visibility strategy.
Each solution subtly reinforces the same premise: adjust yourself to fit the system.
Over time, that message becomes psychologically corrosive.
In organisational psychology, the double bind describes a no-win scenario. Women in leadership live in this paradox daily.
Research consistently highlights the competence–likability trade-off. Women leaders are evaluated more harshly for identical behaviours exhibited by men.
Yet instead of addressing structural bias, women are told to “balance better.”
Balance what, exactly?
You cannot self-improve your way out of structural contradictions.
Professional burnout among women is often framed as a time-management problem.
We are told to:
All valuable tools. But they do not explain everything.
Many high-achieving women are not burnt out because they are incapable. They are burnt out because they are constantly shape-shifting.
They:
This is invisible cognitive labour.
It is emotional labour layered onto professional labour.
When you are perpetually told to refine yourself improve confidence, enhance gravitas, polish communication the underlying message becomes internalised:
Who you are naturally is insufficient.
That narrative erodes even the most accomplished professionals.
Confidence has become the default explanation for women’s professional stagnation.
But confidence is contextual.
A woman may feel entirely confident in her expertise and still hesitate in environments where her voice has historically been dismissed.
That is not insecurity. That is pattern recognition.
What appears as a confidence gap is often a credibility gap imposed externally.
When women are repeatedly interrupted, overlooked, or second-guessed, their behaviour adapts.
Adaptation is not weakness. It is intelligence.
The fatigue begins when that adaptation is misdiagnosed as a personal flaw.
There is another unspoken expectation: women must be exceptional to be considered equal.
This leads to:
And when exhaustion sets in?
The prescribed solution is rarely systemic change. It is another personal optimisation strategy:
Notice the pattern.
The organisation remains untouched.
The culture remains unexamined.
The evaluation metrics remain unchanged.
The woman is simply asked to become more robust.
Modern leadership training for women often emphasises:
Important competencies, yes.
But leadership is not just about style. It is about power structures.
If:
Then no amount of voice modulation coaching will solve the core issue.
Women are increasingly aware of this.
They recognise that self-optimisation without structural reform is a treadmill. You run faster. The system stays still.
Perhaps the most damaging consequence of the “fix yourself” culture is internalised blame.
When advancement stalls, many women instinctively ask:
Rarely is the first question:
Is the system designed fairly?
Internalised blame fuels:
And it keeps organisations comfortable.
Because as long as women believe the solution lies within them, the broader structure escapes accountability.
Something is changing.
Professional women are not rejecting growth. They are rejecting unilateral responsibility for dysfunction.
They are asking sharper questions:
This shift is not defiance. It is maturity.
It recognises that personal development and organisational accountability must coexist.
Real empowerment in modern workplaces includes:
When these systems exist, women thrive without being told to re-engineer their personalities.
Self-improvement is powerful when it is chosen.
It becomes oppressive when it is imposed as the primary solution to systemic imbalance.
If you are a capable, driven, intelligent woman who still feels unseen or exhausted, pause before enrolling in another programme designed to “fix” you.
Ask yourself:
Growth should expand you.
It should not convince you that you are perpetually lacking.
You are allowed to refine your craft without pathologising your personality.
You are allowed to build leadership skills without apologising for ambition.
You are allowed to question environments that demand constant adaptation while offering minimal reciprocity.
If this article resonated, share it with a woman who is done carrying structural problems on her shoulders.
At SatynMag, we explore career growth, leadership psychology, workplace culture, gender equity, and professional empowerment without reducing systemic challenges to personal shortcomings.
Because growth should feel expansive, strategic, and powerful not corrective.
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