I was raised with a silent curriculum—my mother never directly taught me how to “be a woman” or “achieve success,” but the message was clear: find a good man, stay beautiful, be the well-kept house pet, the princess in the tower—all without a single word. She handed me The Career Path: look good, keep your cage clean, and make sure there’s always someone paying for the luxury.
And then things started to turn ugly: the script got boring, and the pretty little princess learned to snarl. I never fit that role anyway.
This is for the women raised on contradictions, who broke their own chains, and clawed their way from house pets to wild queens.