Why do we criticise our flaws before admiring our strengths?

Why do we fail to negotiate and advocate for our worth?

Why do we downplay our accomplishments?

Why do we stay silent when we know the answer?

Why do we feel shame expressing our needs and boundaries?

And why is it that no matter how hard we work, how qualified we are, or how successful we become, we still never seem to be valued as much as the man next to us, even, or especially, if he is less qualified?

Women today are more ambitious and educated than ever. In the US, women now hold 60% of all undergraduate and graduate degrees and are starting businesses at five times the national average. Globally, women account for 47% of the workforce and control more than $31 trillion in annual spending. On the surface, women now have almost all the same opportunities as men: the ability to own property, open bank accounts, start businesses, sit on boards, and lead corporations options that weren’t even conceivable just a few decades ago. But despite these strides, despite public lip service paid to female empowerment initiatives, women continue to get paid less, promoted less, and invested in less than our male counterparts, while still being expected to do more… why?

Because we have yet to address the insidious root of the problem: Good Girl Brainwashing.

Good Girl Brainwashing is a set of subconscious messages perpetuated by society and media that train women to stay silent, small, and subordinate. It teaches us that in order to be accepted by the status quo, we must shrink ourselves for the sake of others, to ask permission before taking up space, and to seek validation before taking action. We learn to doubt our dreams and question the validity of even having them in the first place.

An insidious long-term epidemic, Good Girl Brainwashing has flown under the radar for centuries with symptoms including low self-worth, people-pleasing, perfectionism, imposter syndrome, and weak boundaries. If left untreated, these symptoms easily escalate into more serious maladies: burnout, depression, and even suicide. Since Good Girl Brainwashing has never officially been classified as a disease, a woman is quickly dismissed as ludicrous if she ever dares to bring up her symptoms seriously. How many times has a woman been called “crazy” for simply asking for an equal voice in a decision? How many times has she been called “overdramatic” for simply asking for a safe space to work? This phenomenon is called gaslighting – using psychological manipulation to cause someone to question their own sanity – and it’s exactly how our patriarchal culture has kept women quiet, obedient, and confused throughout history. It’s a tale as old as time.

The most celebrated Western philosophers literally described women as incomplete men: Aristotle said, “The female is female by virtue of a lack of certain qualities. We should regard women’s nature as suffering from natural defectiveness.”

The Bible labeled a woman as an incidental being subject to the whim of man’s ego: Eve was born from Adam’s rib for the primary purpose of keeping him company, so he wouldn’t get lonely.

America’s Founding Fathers destroyed centuries-long Native American matrilineal traditions that viewed women as the sacred life-givers and landowners: the colonisers usurped this custom and gave men sole claim to life, liberty, and property.

Early Western psychology cemented a woman’s psychosexual inadequacy: Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, coined the popular term “penis envy” to describe a young girl’s anxiety and inferiority upon the realisation she does not have a penis.

These narratives have brainwashed us to blindly accept the most toxic lie of all: that women are weak, inferior, and never enough.

Today, this lie continues to be perpetuated by messages that tell us from an early age:

You are not pretty enough

You are not skinny enough

You are not smart enough

You are not brave enough

You are not experienced enough

While we cannot tangibly hear or see the brainwashing, its insidious impact compounds over our lifetimes.

We ask, “What if I get the answer wrong?” and don’t raise our hands.

We ask, “What if I don’t have the right qualifications?” and don’t apply for the job.

We ask, “What if he thinks I’m too pushy?” and don’t assert our boundaries.

We ask, “What if they think I’m selfish?” and never take time for ourselves.

We’re so brainwashed into believing that we need to be perfect, that we need to be liked, that we hand our power over on a silver platter to anyone and everyone but ourselves.

Here’s the thing, the patterns that may have served us as good girls become severe detriments to us as a woman. Good girl behaviour – obedience, politeness, self-effacing modesty, perfectionism – becomes:

• Not speaking up
• Not asking for help
• Not advocating for our worth
• Not asserting our boundaries
• Not sharing our needs
• Not negotiating our pay
• And settling for way less than we deserve

Without consciously realising it, every seemingly small, insignificant moment of repressed silence slices away a piece of our personal power. Repeated enough times, these moments deepen into scars, creating cycles of self-limiting beliefs and self-sabotaging behaviour that become harder and harder to break. When we accept that our voices are somehow secondary to those around us, we begin to believe:

It is best to remain silent about our needs, wants, and desires.

It is best to keep our opinions and questions to ourselves.

It is best to diminish ourselves and stay small for the sake of others’ comfort.

But at some point, no matter how hard it is, we must choose to break free of these vicious cycles. Every good girl, in her evolution to becoming a Bad Bitch, has one thing in common: she wakes the fuck up. She chooses to become aware of the self-sacrificing patterns and the oppressive narratives that are no longer serving her, and she chooses to break free of them once and for all.

Once I chose to become a Bad Bitch, I discovered that the most powerful thing I could do was bet on myself. I bet on myself when I quit my stable corporate finance job, even though my family and friends thought I was crazy. I bet on myself when I launched my first startup, even though I had no idea how to incorporate a business. I bet on myself when I decided to raise a venture capital fund, even though there were hardly any women in the industry. 

Every step of the way, it was my conviction in myself and my own abilities that drove me forward. It was my inner Bad Bitch voice that told me to never settle, to keep going no matter how hard it felt in that moment… and I’m so grateful I listened. Today, I’m a four-time USA National Champion and USA Hall of Fame gymnast turned serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist, global public speaker, podcast host, and executive coach. I’m the founder of the Bad Bitch Empire, a global platform building unapologetic worth and wealth for women. I’ve helped female entrepreneurs raise millions in funding and coached thousands of women to take charge of their careers and grow their businesses, and I am one of the few women of colour to successfully raise a fund focused on investing in women-led companies. No one would ever guess that once upon a time I was an awkward, introverted immigrant good girl from the Midwest who always felt like she was never enough.

Now I’ve made it my mission to help women around the world break free of Good Girl Brainwashing so you, too, can unapologetically turn your Bad Bitch Dreams into reality. If you’re reading this, you’ve probably struggled with symptoms of Good Girl Brainwashing – whether it’s low self-worth, people-pleasing, or diminishing yourself in any way. It won’t be easy to undo a lifetime of brainwashing, but it will be worth it.

This article is an adapted extract from the book: The Bad Bitch Business Bible by Lisa Carmen Wang. Copyright © 2023 by Lisa Carmen Wang. Reprinted courtesy of Harper Business, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.