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Sally Hope5 min

Why So Many Women Struggle With Knowing Who They Are

March 8, 2024

When I was four my mother decided it would be nice to have a professional photograph taken of her cute little girl. Unfortunately for my mother, her cute little girl disagreed that this would be a good idea. She still has that photograph of me, covered in the sticky lollipop they’d given me to try to keep me still, scowling at the camera and looking rather disgusted at the pretty yellow (and now grubby) sundress I’d been unceremoniously stuffed into. Four-year-olds certainly know their own minds, they know who they are and what they want out of life, and they have absolutely no qualms about being their most authentic selves. What happens to us beyond that age? How do we lose the ability to know and be ourselves when it seems to come so naturally to young children? And why does this seem to affect women more than men?

Learned behaviour

Perhaps it all starts at school, when we expect little girls to sit still and write neatly whilst ‘boys will be boys’. When we urge girls to ‘be nice’ and reward them for pleasing others. Or perhaps it’s when we read them fairy tales; when they learn that Cinderella’s life becomes complete when she meets Prince Charming, and that Rapunzel needs a man to climb up her hair to rescue her. Perhaps it is then that girls begin to learn that who they are, and who they will become, needs to revolve around pleasing others and finding a man. Or perhaps it’s when young women get married, give away their name and begin to be referred to as ‘the wife’ or ‘the missus’, when we stop asking them about their job, their hobbies and themselves, and start asking them when they’re planning to start a family. Or maybe it’s when they have babies and their identity finally becomes ‘mum’. Working hard at school, falling in love, getting married, becoming a mother: these are good things, but they should not be things that strip us of our identity and impose on us a new one. This is, however, the experience of a lot of women, and it’s not just in our relationships. As women we are socialised to mould ourselves to fit the expectations of others, be it in how we look, how we speak or even what hobbies we choose – we are provided with a blueprint for femininity and woe betide any woman who doesn’t fit it.

Lost and found

We lose ourselves not only because we are trained to identify in our relationships, but also because we’re told in a plethora of often subtle ways what we are and are not allowed to be. Are you funny? No, you’re not: women aren’t funny, best keep that smart mouth in check! Are you a good leader? Then you’ll be told not to be so bossy. Do you have thoughts, opinions, ideas? You’ll be told to get off your high horse, not to get your knickers in a twist, and not to be so shrill. We’re presented with role models, in real life and in fiction, who tell us what a successful woman looks like, and what happens to women who don’t comply: who wants to be a Miss Havisham? A Crazy Cat woman? Jezebel? Medusa? Harley Quinn? Ophelia? Hence, we have an epidemic of women who feel lost and uncertain about who they are. Perhaps deep down we know those things that make us unique and beautiful individuals, but we don’t have the confidence to boldly declare: ‘This is who I am’. Or maybe that little girl has been lost, drowned under the ribbons and bows foisted on her by a world that says, ‘you are not enough as you are, you must become more, and less at the same time’. Women are simultaneously ‘too much’ and ‘not enough’. We are expected to want to ‘have it all’ but ‘remain humble’. We are expected to please men, but not be desperate; to look good at all times but not be vain; to be sexy, but not slutty; pure and chaste, but not frigid and boring. Honestly, it’s exhausting, impossible and confusing. No wonder so many of us find ourselves reaching mid-life and feeling that we don’t know who we are anymore, that we lost ourselves along the way. We need to nip this in the bud before we reach mid-life crisis: before we get divorced and wonder who we are if not ‘the wife’, before our nest is empty and we are no longer ‘mother’, before we retire and are no longer whatever label our career gave us. Because not knowing who you are is rubbish, and when difficult times hit, they’re even harder when you don’t have yourself for company. Think of the joy of the four-year-old girl, ripping her jeans and scuffing her elbows as she climbs up trees, not caring what anyone thinks about how ladylike she is. Can we hold onto that joy in our twenties? Our thirties? Forties? Fifties? So that we don’t have to do the work of rediscovering it in our sixties? Can we find our authentic self and love her? Treat her with kindness and allow her to shine? Of course we can!

Our authentic self

It starts with recognising and then ignoring all those messages. Perhaps you do like pink sparkles and glitter, perhaps you happen to fit that stereotype, and that’s okay, but like pink because you like pink, not because the world tells you that you’re ‘a girl’ and you should. Ask yourself questions about whether you feel good enough? Lady-like enough? Whether you hide your divinely authored superpowers because they’re not considered feminine enough. Have you clipped your wings to fit yourself into a box that’s too small for you? Perhaps you can’t answer these questions yet. That’s okay. My book, 30 Steps to Finding Yourself: An interactive journey to self discovery, takes each reader on a unique journey to consider how she became the wonderful human she is today: What natural traits were you born with? How have your life experiences shaped your character? What are you good at? Terrible at? How do your flaws make you who you are, and how can you embrace them? What do you do if you’re not the person you want to be? Can you control who you become from here on in? Most importantly, I’ll teach you to be kind to yourself along the way, to talk to yourself the way you’d talk to your best friend, to love the four-year-old girl you still are with the same ferocity you’d love your own daughter. I want you to climb out of the boxes the world has stuffed you into, to gently stretch out the stiff muscles you’ve been prevented from using and then to train them, to build them, strengthen them and finally, use them to take yourself to all the places you want to go, to do all the things you want to do and to confidently, and happily tell the world: ‘this is who I am’.

Sally Hope

Sally Hope is a recovery coach with a specialism in supporting women who have experienced domestic abuse. Sally uses her personal experience of trauma recovery alongside her professional knowledge and her gentle, down-to-earth humour to empower women to live lives full of joy and hope. She is passionate about humanity, personal growth, faith, spirituality, laughter, campervanning with her children and Lego.

Her first book, 30 Steps to Finding Yourself, is published by Vie, £12.99