Why I Refuse to Dumb Myself (this) Down

On Agency, Branding, and the Quiet Damage of Low Expectations

When I first went into business for myself, I devoured everything I could find about marketing. Books, blogs, workshops, anything to understand how people make decisions and how to reach them.

One of those early pieces was about “how to market to women.”
Written by men, of course.

According to them, women were emotional, distracted, and easily swayed. Don’t appeal to logic or clarity, just hit the usual soft spots: our children, our spouses, our homes, and our longing to “have it all.”

The messaging was clear: women are either frustrated wives or breathless girls standing behind their men.
Certainly not capable of responding to complex ideas.

As a woman, I was insulted. As a businesswoman, I was disturbed. And as a Black woman? I was nearly paralyzed.

Because once you see that framework, you can’t unsee it. And the scary part? Over the years, those low expectations have seeped into reality. It’s as if marketers wrote a two-dimensional version of women into existence, and we’ve been fighting to reclaim our agency ever since. This works because we’re human and respond to pain points like everyone else. And many women are pained by our children, spouses, homes, and our longing to “have it all.” But now that’s ALL we see and it has become self fulfilled.

That’s the Pygmalion Effect in action: when people become what others expect of them. Show women only soft, intellectually thin images long enough, and many begin to internalize that softness as the ceiling. Which directly sabotages the Galatea Effect – the inner belief in your own capability, which is essential to personal and professional growth.

How can we beat the drum of women’s equality while simultaneously rearing young women to be the princess and not the Queen?

For a while, I tried to “get it right.” Speak gently.
Make my work more palatable. But the truth is, I wasn’t selling soft things. I was building bold, clear frameworks rooted in God, mathematics, and transformation. My ideas were deep and rigorous, and yes they required work to engage with.

But I couldn’t help noticing that the women who seemed to succeed fastest in this space weren’t necessarily offering more value – they were just more aligned with the dominant expectations. A MILF or a Granny.
Their brands were filled with pastel tones, gentle fonts, and soft affirmations. “You are not your thoughts.” “You are enough.” 🙄

Their calls to action were suggestions, not declarations. And they were rewarded for it – praised for being “approachable,” “relatable,” and “authentic.” But I kept thinking: authentic to what?

Now, I’m not cruel, I can appreciate those tones. I understand their value, because I was once there. In the beginning.
But I refuse to believe that women must stay at the beginning. I refuse to believe that intellect is masculine and that clarity must be diluted to be received. That we all exist in a haze of low self esteem, bad relationships, and mental malaise.

Now, let me be clear, I know how to “turn it on” and “be a lady.” Actually, I prefer dresses and heels to pants. But I was raised by a woman who never let anyone, man or woman, decide how she thought, moved, or lived. So in my early years, I didn’t fully understand that the world didn’t reward women like that. It rewarded sexuality over sense of agency.
Safety, not conviction.

And that made me an outsider.
Still does.

But what’s worse is how normalized it’s become to expect women in business to be soothing, not strong. Gentle undulations, never waves. We are encouraged to make people feel better, not think deeper.

This, to me, is where ethos: our credibility, our character erodes. Not because we aren’t brilliant or capable, but because the system doesn’t expect us to be. And many women internalize that and begin to believe they can’t be.

The longer we allow the bar for women’s intellectual and professional expression to remain this low, the more we all lose. Some of us are building frameworks the world hasn’t seen yet. Some of us are supposed to shake rooms, not decorate them.
And the cost of pretending otherwise is too high.

So no, I’m not going to water it down. I’m not going to package myself in pastels and empty platitudes. I know who I am, I know what I’m here to do, and I know there are other women like me who are looking for permission to stop shrinking.

This is for us. And I’m not here to whisper.

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