What’s holding women back isn’t what you think
So why aren’t we becoming the women we’re meant to be?
You’re doing all the things.
The books. The courses. The coaching.
But somehow, it’s still not quite landing.
Not deeply. Not sustainably.
Not in a way that changes anything real.
And it’s not because you’re doing it wrong.
It’s because most of it was never designed for you in the first place.
Want to know why?
There’s an invisible flaw baked into most personal development – and it makes Naz and me want to scream.
It’s about time we named it.
We all know about the gender pay gap – women still earning less for the same work.
And we’ve heard of the gender health gap – where women are misdiagnosed, under-researched, and treated as ‘hysterical’ and ‘complicated’ simply for having different hormones to men.
But there’s another gap. One that’s just as real, just as urgent, and rarely spoken about.
We call it The Gender Potential Gap.
What is The Gender Potential Gap?
The Gender Potential Gap is the distance between what women are truly capable of – and where we’re able to get to using personal development models that were never made for us.
Most self-help, coaching, and business frameworks were created by men, based on male bodies, male lives, and male definitions of success – then handed to everyone else as if they were universal.
They’re not.
They ignore the differences in our biology, our upbringing, and our lived experience.
And when we try to grow inside them, it doesn’t just feel off – it can feel like failure.
But it’s not failure.
It’s misfit.
And it’s systemic.
What does it look like?
You read the book. You take the course. You hire the coach. You try the method.
And still – it doesn’t land.
Because no matter how hard you try, the foundations are wrong.
1. The myth that status drives us all
There’s a brilliant book by journalist Will Storr called The Status Game: On Human Life and How to Play It. He argues that status is the primary human motivator – the engine behind everything from our politics to our creativity.
It’s compelling. It’s clever.
And it’s entirely based on male psychology.
The back cover literally asks:
“What drives our beliefs?”
“What shapes our conflicts and dreams?”
“What makes you… you?”
And the answer it gives?
Status. Status. Status.
Hello, boys. Hello, men.
But when I look at the women Naz and I work with – the business owners, coaches, creatives, consultants – that just doesn’t hold.
We’re not strategising about how to climb the ladder or beat the competition.
We’re trying to create something meaningful.
We’re trying to serve.
We’re trying to stay sane.
Recognition matters, yes. But domination? That’s not it.
So when personal or business frameworks assume status is the key to motivation, they exclude everything that actually drives most women.
And if you don’t fit the model?
The model makes YOU the problem.
Because you’re not functioning like all the other “humans”.
2. The Hero’s Journey that misses the point
Most personal development courses and business programmes are built on the same old story:
You’re the hero.
You set a goal.
You slay your dragons.
You win the prize.
It’s based on Joseph Campbell’s “Hero’s Journey” – a male myth for male protagonists. A story that ends with conquering, claiming, and coming home victorious.
When therapist Maureen Murdock suggested women might need a different model, Campbell famously replied:
“Women don’t need to make the journey. They are the destination.”
Translation?
Men go on quests.
Women wait to be rescued.
This framework still underpins how we’re taught to lead, to market, to scale – as if the only way to succeed is to play the hero in a story written by and for men.
In my very first coach training, we were taught the GROW model – developed by Sir John Whitmore and still treated as the gold standard by most coaches.
It stands for:
Goals — what do you want to achieve?
Reality — where are you now?
Options — what could you do?
Will — what will you do?
It’s simple. Linear. Clean.
And totally divorced from how women are actually socialised.
It assumes the issue is inaction.
That all we need is a target and the willpower to get it done.
Not the fear of being seen.
Not the pattern of putting everyone else first.
Not a lifetime of shrinking, adapting, shape-shifting.
Just laziness. Hesitation. A failure to get shit done.
(Hello, boys!)
As if the solution to a lifetime of self-abandonment is a better to-do list.
3. The ego death obsession
One of the strands of our work at Women are the Medicine is helping women safely explore psychedelic-assisted practices – including microdosing and group retreats – as a way of unlearning deeply ingrained internal patterns.
Naz and I trained as psychedelic integration coaches in 2021-22, and have guided scores of women through these processes.
Because here’s the truth: some patterns are so deeply embedded – so hardwired into our nervous systems – that mindset work alone won’t touch them.
But even in these progressive spaces, we see the same masculine defaults.
Especially the obsession with ego death.
The gold standard of transformation, we’re told, is dissolving the self – shattering the ego – becoming nothing and everything.
And sure. That might be powerful for people raised to believe their voice matters. (Hello, boys!)
But the women we work with?
They’re not trying to transcend the ego.
They’re trying to build one.
Many arrive as Chameleons or Understudies – adaptable, invisible, pleasing, utterly burnt out.
They’ve spent decades living for everyone else.
The real healing isn’t in dissolving who they are.
It’s in remembering who the hell they are.
And when that happens – in a safe, women-only space – the shift is radical.
Because you realise: It’s not just me.
It’s all of us.
These patterns aren’t personal. They’re structural.
And they’re changeable.
4. The midlife reversal
I coach a lot of women at midlife – at the doorway to what Jung called the “second half of life.” A time when meaning becomes more important than achievement. When the old way stops working.
And what’s the standard advice we’re given?
Stop thinking about yourself. Start giving back.
Do more for others. Be of service.
(Hello, boys!)
It sounds lovely. But it’s terrible advice for women.
Because we’ve already spent decades serving everyone else.
For most women, midlife is literally the first time we’ve had a moment to ask:
What do I want?
What actually matters to me?
Perimenopause and menopause – as uncomfortable as they are – are powerful rites of passage.
Not just hormonal storms. But a biological invitation to change.
Our oestrogen and oxytocin levels drop
And with them, our urge to people-please
We stop caring quite so much about approval
We start reconnecting with our anger
And our power
And if we can move through that with the right support – we don’t just survive.
We reclaim ourselves.
This isn’t just personal. It’s structural.
The Gender Potential Gap isn’t just about why personal development doesn’t work for women.
It’s about why so many of us are still under-earning, over-delivering, and doubting ourselves in business – even after doing all the work.
Because we’re not just using growth models designed for men.
We’re also trying to build businesses inside systems that were never meant for us.
Most business strategies are built for scale, speed and visibility.
They reward constant output and treat time like it’s unlimited.
But most of us aren’t building empires with a team of support in the background.
We’re building businesses while raising children.
Caring for ageing parents.
Holding families, communities, and ourselves – often by a thread.
We don’t have time to waste.
And we cannot afford to keep trading time for money.
We need business models that protect our energy – or even better, fuel it.
We need strategies that match our values.
We need to stop compartmentalising personal and professional growth – because it’s all the same root system.
If you’re overgiving in life, you’ll overgive in your work.
If you can’t take yourself seriously, you’ll undercharge.
If you’re scared to be seen, your business will stay invisible.
Until we unpick and rewire those patterns – the ones we didn’t choose but still carry – we’ll keep capping our own potential.
And we can’t afford to stay capped.
Not now. Not with the world in the state it’s in.
This is why we founded Women are the Medicine.
Because we can’t build businesses that work for us without first becoming the kind of women who can hold them.
Because we can’t keep trying to fix ourselves inside systems that were never designed for us.
Because we can’t keep using masculine models and hoping they’ll eventually bend to fit us. They won’t.
If we want to change the world – or at least, our corner of it – we have to start by being medicine for ourselves.
We have to recognise and rewire the system within us.
So we can reclaim our voice, our vision, and our way of doing business.
So we can bring our full medicine to the world.
What do you think?
We’d love to know your take.
Have you ever tried a personal development tool, book, programme or approach that just didn’t work – and you couldn’t figure out why?
Have you noticed how many business strategies are built on assumptions that don’t reflect how you live or what you care about?
What ‘universal’ tools, strategies or truths have you found just don’t work for women?
Drop them in the comments…
Let’s name what needs naming!
Because when we stop blaming ourselves – we can start building something else entirely.
These are such good points. I had seen before that fascinating point that dissolving the ego is the opposite of what women need to do. But thinking about the masculine nature of the heroes journey is really important, I think, at least for me as a writer of fiction. Have any models more suitable for women been developed?
I wrote recently of the difficulties women have overcoming their fear of being seen. And the cause of that fear is unfortunately unwanted male attention and male violence. These are really challenging to deal with. I will write about this further.
1) My husband and I are in our 70's, he is disabled and I take care of him to the best of my abilities, as he would do for me.
I love him and don't resent taking care of him, but what bothers me is nobody, even him, ever asks me how I am managing re: all the things I can no longer do. Is it because there is an assumption that caretaking and nurturing are such fundamental female roles that they are enough for us, that we don't need or want anything more?
2) My 38 year old single daughter who doesn't want children, has a career she loves, earns a boatload of money, travels the world, enjoys a large circle of friends up and down the west coast - is the happiest, most confident person I know. And yet our society can't wait to tell her how unfulfilled and miserable she must be. Why is that?