A woman can do everything right and still be blamed.
I’ve been thinking about how history, religion and society rarely reward “good” women and how that pattern has always existed.
I came across an interesting bit of information the other day, about how back in the day the influential woman in society were socialites, “madams” and other women of not very pleasing reputations. Those were the women rolling in power and money, the women who supplied powerful men with women of the night. Also, it never ceases to amaze me how most of the women that are mentioned in the Bible were never “good” women. They were controversial women, like Naomi and Ruth scheming and hitting on “poor” rich Boaz (this by the way, was the lineage of Jesus), or Abigail doing her husband dirty and ending up as King David’s wife. Lest we forget, the first person to see Jesus after He resurrected was none other than Mary Magdalene, whom we will never know if she was also the controversial “woman at the well.
Varshti is talked about severally, Rahab, etc. You get the drift.
Let us not even talk about how they did Rachel dirty, and how Leah, the woman that Jacob never loved in the first place ended up up birthing 7 of his children while the love of his life struggled to give him 2. Or that the wisest woman in the Bible is unnamed, simply referred to as the woman of Abel. She appears briefly in 2 Samuel 20, when Joab pursues the rebel Sheba to the city of Abel-beth-maachah, and yet she saves an entire city. Meanwhile, do you know how many times Jezebel is mentioned?
I am not insinuating anything. Neither am I trying to influence anyone. I don’t even know where I am headed with this piece, if I am being honest.
I just woke up thinking that a woman can dress modestly, speak softly, drink little, smile politely, resist gently and still be told she should have known better. Womanhood often comes with an invisible rulebook. And in that rulebook, the unwritten rules are firmly enforced. It decides who is considered a good woman and, more quietly, who deserves what happens next.
This is not about morality. It is about control.
From streets and offices to matatus, bars, social gatherings and online spaces – it doesn’t really matter where a woman is – she will be constantly assessed. Not on whether harm occurred, but on whether she behaved well enough to avoid it. The question is rarely what was done to her but how she conducted herself before it happened.
Most girls learn early that public space is conditional. Sit properly. Do not walk alone at night. Do not laugh too loudly(!) Do not dress in ways that attract attention. Do not engage too freely. Do not offend. Do not invite trouble. And yet…..it is never enough. How many “good” women get the short end of the stick? How many good women are treated like just being good is not enough? Just look around you at how the good women are treated in marriages…..and therein lies your answer, that just being a good woman will not guarantee you good treatment in reciprocity.
Please, laugh as loud (and hard) as you want. Snort while at it. Who cares??
Men move through public spaces with entitlement and reckless abandon while women have to move through them with calculation.
Respectability is often presented as safety. We are always being told that If you behave well, nothing bad will happen and that if you follow the rules you will be protected. But is that the reality really? Women who do everything right are still harassed, assaulted and blamed. Either that, or they are dismissed entirely. Respectability does not prevent harm. It only determines how society responds to it.
A man’s presence is assumed. A woman’s presence must be justified.
So women learn to negotiate their existence. Where and how to sit. How long to stay. How late is too late? How friendly is safe or how firm is dangerous. If you say yes you are a whore, regardless of the fact that you might just be buying time to get out of a tricky situation. And if you outrightly say no, brace yourself for the insults that might follow. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Whatever you decide to do, do NOT bruise his ego.
Is it a wonder then, that women are becoming paranoid, just trying to survive?
And yet, even survival is misunderstood.
God forbid you give a polite smile, because it might be mistaken for encouragement. And silence? Agreement. Freezing is interpreted as consent while compliance, well, that’s desire. Women are taught to soften rejection, to protect egos and to de escalate situations even when they feel unsafe.
But the worst bit is that even after all one does all these, that when these strategies fail, the blame slides easily back onto them. Why did she not scream? I can hear one asking. Why did she not leave? She must have said something to trigger him.
Carrying this burden comes at a cost. It is exhausting to be alert at all times, monitoring one’s body, tone, clothing, reactions – you name it. To constantly assess risk while trying to appear calm. Over time, this vigilance shrinks women’s lives.
The idea of the good woman has long served a purpose. It keeps women small and manageable. A good woman is easier to control, right? It shifts responsibility away from systems that fail to protect and places it squarely on individual behaviour.
But goodness is not obedience. And why, pray, should safety depend on performance?
Women do not owe the world politeness in exchange for protection. They do not need to earn the right to exist freely in public spaces. Reclaiming space does not always look loud. Sometimes it looks like refusal. Refusal to explain, to apologize and to carry shame that was never ours.
The burden of being a good woman exists because society finds it easier to police women than to confront harm. Yet public space belongs to everyone, and dignity should never be conditional.
A woman does not need to be good to be safe. Plus bad girl Millie did say (in)famously, that good women do not get the corner office, or somethin to that effect. Mine is to echo her, and to add that good girls don’t get the office with the best view.
